Ms. Nirode's
Health Class Page
Welcome to my Green Smoothie Page!
Hi everyone! So, I was adding all of the Green Smoothie information on my Haiku page, but then I realized that maybe kids wouldn't be in my class or summer would come and kids might want to find some of our recipes. Well, that's not good. So I am going to try to create a page here. :)
So, why Green Smoothies? The biggest question I get from kids is, "Why do we have to put the green stuff in there???". Here's why:
1. Overall most kids (most adults) need to eat more veggies. This is a tasty way to sneak a serving in.
2. It helps you get the "5-a-day". You need about 3 cups of veggies and 2 cups of fruit each day.
3. Replacing some of the fruit with a veggie makes it more healthy. Fruit has natural sugar in it, and kids definately get enough sugar. We need to increase our vitamin/mineral intake without adding too much sugar.
4. It feeds our bodies some of those wonderful nutrients found in dark, leafy greens.
5. Using fruits and veggies--not fruit juice, limits the sugar and gives a nice dose of fiber which the body also needs. (Fiber is really good for the Intestines and helps fight cancer!)
Some recipes and Instructions on How to Make the Perfect Green Smoothie!
Believe it or not, there is a method to the madness. This is my 2nd year doing this activity with my classes. I really feel like I'm getting good at making them. I mean, it is a hectic class! I'm still working on the flow, but it is definately a great activity. Kids are learning more about nutrition, they get to taste different combos and try something new, and its a fun active class! Here are a few docs that I use for our special activity:
The Green Smoothie Day Process: This is for my fellow Health Teachers
My first year we just did a sign up and made random smoothies. Like I mentioned above, it is better to follow some form of recipes and to do measurements, etc.
This year we logged our food on the Supertracker. We talked about Nutrition. 8th grade had a full unit. 7th grade just took part in the Food logging. 6th grade only talked about nutrition when we talked about my healthy snack policy. 5th is the same as 6th, but they do study the body systems and a healthy diet is repeated over and over. This just gives us a chance to talk about it more.
This year:
1. Students sign up for what they would like to bring.
2. We do measure but most of our combos and pure exploration.
3. Students taste--then they vote on a poll in Haiku, 1-5. 5 being Yummy, 1 is ehh.
4. Students are assigned jobs.
- 2 students are at my desk typing our ingrediants for each smoothie.
- Boys are on Floor duty
- Girls on Counter duty
- 1 student refreshes the smart board so we can see the poll results.
- 1 student is on counter cleanup duty. (Keeping the scraps picked up.)
- And one is on sink patrol. I learned quicky that just telling middle school students not to put food in the sink was a mistake. After 1 disgustingly clogged sink--you learn.
Well that summs the project up. I've also made handouts for the kids.
Next year I see adding:
- Servings
- Measurements
- Planning a recipe
- Filling out the nutritional content of a recipe