What's Next?

            With schools incorporating eating healthy and make wise decisions on what to eat, I want to help my students who are in the 3^rd grade make healthy decisions. Schools play an important role in a student's way of eating because they consume at least half of their meals at school. If we provide the students healthy food choices or ways to make healthy decisions it has long lasting effects whether in the classroom or at home. Since these students are in a Special Education room, I had to break each step down to were they can fully understand the lesson.  

When I first started my lesson, I had to introduce what three types of cereals they will be using. Since most of my students were visual and kinesthetic learners, I brought in actual cereal for them to see and feel what cereal looks like. From the nutrition label I choose salt, fat, and sugar to focus my lesson on.  I used different methods to show my students what a nutrition label looks like through YouTube videos, pictures, and bringing a cereal box in with a nutrition label. Since my students are in the 3^rd grade, I thought using Microsoft Excel would be too difficult to create graph. So I did some research and found a website that is geared to students in the primary grades to create a graph. Before creating the graph, I had my students compare what nutrition label is healthy and unhealthy. I made them look to see what cereal had the most or least sugar, salt, and fat. They used the data collected and inputted into the graph.

The lesson that I created for my class touched on their math skills. I would gear my next plan for this class will be on Health and Nutrition. I will like to teach Health and Nutrition in my class because the benefits of nutrition education can reach far beyond the classroom (Cobb). With this lesson, I will introduce them to the Food Pyramid and MyPlate by using songs that I came up with so it can stick to their heads. After making them learning a song for about 2-3 days, I will move my lesson into creating a collage as their project called the “Healthy Food Collage.” With this project, I will have students cut out pictures from magazines that are healthy food and make them post it on construction paper. As they are posting pictures onto the paper, I am going to have them sort out the foods into the 5 food groups such as grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, and meat section.

The information from the evaluation will determine if the lesson was effective for the students. It will also show me if the students mastered the skills they need to move onto the next of skills they need for the next grade level. This evaluation will indicate which set of students needs help and if they need that one-on-one support with the teacher. According to Edutopia, assessments and evaluation is an integral part of instruction. It determines whether or not the goals of the lesson are being met (2008).

 Using the ASSURE Model Lesson Plan gives teachers a template to use to plan out their lesson for the day or week. This assignment showed me ways to incorporate different techniques to include in my lesson. ASSURE Model made me break down what type of students I had in my classroom and what type of learners that I need to know in order for me to accommodate them or if I need to modify my lesson to meet their needs.  This activity in making a lesson plan will help me in the future as I become an educator.

References:

·      Cobb, P. (2016). Top 5 Reasons to Teach Nutrition Education in Your Classroom. Dairy Council of California. http://www.healthyeating.org/Schools/Tips-Trends/Article-Viewer/Article/521/Top-5-Reasons-to-Teach-Nutrition-Education-in-Your-Classroom.aspx

·      Edutopia. (2008). Why is Assessment Important? Edutopia. http://www.edutopia.org/assessment-guide-importance