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Arianna's Nutrition Expedition: Activity 4 - Marcus's Big City Adventure

Marcus's Big City Adventure

Grade Level: 4th Grade/Upper Elementary
Estimated Time: 50 minutes

Materials and Advance Prep

Background

Terms presented in this lesson include:
Awaze tibs (uh-WAH-zey tibz): An Ethiopian entrée of steak strips and onions.
Bialy (bee-AH-lee): A Jewish onion roll. Large, chewy, round, and flat with a hollow in the center. Named for the Polish city of Bialystok.
Couscous (KOOS-koos): A crushed grain common in North African cuisine.
Curry (KUR-ee): A sauce of hot-tasting spices, popular in Indian cuisine.
Fajita (faa-HEE-tuh): A tortilla folded around a filling, such as thin strips of broiled or fried vegetables or meat.
Injera (in-JEER-uh): A flatbread of Ethiopia, made from teff, having a soft, spongy character.
Lasagna (lah-ZAH-nyah): An Italian dish composed of alternating layers of wide noodles, cheese and vegetable and/or meat filling.
Naan (nahn): A flat, leavened bread of India, made of white flour and baked in a clay oven.
Nori (NOR-ee): Seaweed eaten in Japan. Often part of sushi.
Saffron (SA-frun): A bright yellow-orange food coloring and flavoring made from the dried stigmas of the crocus.
Tandoor (TAHN-door): An oven made of clay, used in India for baking bread and roasting meat.
Teff (tehf): A grain, native to northeastern Africa and southwestern Arabia, used as a food crop.
Tortilla (tohr-TEE-yuh): A thin circle of unleavened bread, baked on a hot surface, meant to hold fillings or toppings.

Suggested Instructional Strategy

1. Ask students to participate in a listen-and-respond game to set the stage for learning about recommended servings from each food group. Have students complete a specific number of movements for each direction, following the sequence 6-5-3-3-2. For example:

  • Do six jumping jacks.
  • Hop five times on your right foot.
  • Circle your arms three times.
  • Turn around in place three times.
  • Do two toe touches.

Write "6-5-3-3-2" on the board. Ask students if they know the nutritional importance of these five numbers. Accept all reasonable answers

Explain that today's lesson is about how these five numbers relate to growing, feeling good and performing at their best.

2. Pass out Marcus's Big City Adventure. Have the students take turns reading the story aloud. As they read, ask students to circle the foods Arianna and Marcus collect.

3. After the story, help students improve their comprehension by connecting with the information in the text. Invite students to share their experiences by asking questions, such as:

  • What type of food was served in the first restaurant Arianna and Marcus visited? Ethiopian
  • Have any of you ever eaten in an Ethiopian restaurant? If yes, have students to share their experiences - i.e., name of restaurant, what they ate, how they liked it, description of the environment, etc.
  • Later on, Arianna and Marcus went to the Little Delhi neighborhood. What kind of restaurant did they go to there? Indian
  • Have any of you eaten in an Indian restaurant? If yes, have students describe their experiences.
  • Just before leaving for home, they stopped at El Mucho Mas Mercado. What type of grocery store was this? Mexican
  • Have any of you eaten in a Mexican restaurant? If yes, have students describe their experiences.

Optional: Have students locate Ethiopia, India and Mexico on a globe or world map.

4. Continue, asking:

  • What three rules did the owners give Marcus about the foods he should collect?
    1. They had to be different from the foods in Munchberg.
    2. They had to come from the Five Food Groups.
    3. Marcus had to get the correct number of servings from each food group for a single day.

5. Using Marcus's Big City Adventure, ask students to identify the number of servings they need daily from each food group. Grain Group, 6; Vegetable Group, 5; Fruit Group, 3; Milk Group, 3; Meat Group, 2

Continue:

  • Why do you think you need six servings from the Grain Group each day? To get enough carbohydrate for energy.
  • Why do you think you need five servings from the Vegetable Group each day? To get enough vitamin A for good night vision.
  • Why do you think you need three servings from the Fruit Group each day? To get enough vitamin C to help heal cuts and bruises.
  • Why do you think you need three servings from the Milk Group each day? To get enough calcium to keep your bones and teeth strong.
  • Why do you think you need two servings from the Meat Group each day? To get enough protein to keep your muscles strong.
  • Experts have analyzed the nutrients in food and determined how much of each food group you need to eat to stay healthy.

6. Distribute the Classifying Foods worksheet to each student. Place the Classifying Foods transparency on the overhead projector and review the foods purchased in the Ethiopian restaurant. Write each food in the correct food group on the overhead. Ask students to do the same on their worksheet. (Optional: Instead of the transparency, you can use the chart on the board.)

Classifications are: Steak - Meat Group; Onions - Vegetable Group; Injera bread - Grain Group

7. Working with a partner, in small groups, alone, or a large group, have students complete the worksheet by classifying each food in the story into its correct group. Have them count the numbers of servings and determine as a class whether Marcus and Arianna collected the recommended servings from each food group. Yes, they did.

8. Referring to the "6-5-3-3-2" on the board, ask questions such as:

  • What's the nutritional importance of these five numbers? They are the recommended daily servings from the Five Food Groups.
  • Why have nutrition experts established these as recommended servings? If you eat these numbers of servings of each food group, you will get the nutrients you need to grow, feel good and perform at your best.

Check for Understanding

9. As you say each food group, have students perform the correct number of physical activities to signify the number of servings recommended each day:

  • Do toe touches to show me how many servings from the Grain Group you need each day. Six
  • Do jumping jacks to show me how many servings from the Vegetable Group you should eat each day. Five
  • Show me by hopping how many servings from the Fruit Group you should have each day. Three
  • Make arm circles to show me the daily recommended number of Milk Group servings. Three
  • Turn around in a circle the same number of times as the number of Meat Group servings you should eat each day. Two

10. Ask students to take out their Nutrition Journals. Explain:

  • Today you're going to write the recommended number of servings for the Five Food Groups in your journal. You need to use the names of foods to outline the number of servings for each group.
  • For example, print the names of Milk Group foods in the shape of the number "3" as in the example:
    cheese
    milk
    yogurt
  • Or, draw pictures of foods in that food group to make the outline of the number of servings you need.

Give students 5 to 10 minutes to complete their journal entries.

11. At a convenient time, introduce Nutrition Mixer™ and arrange for students to play this game to reinforce the concepts taught in Activity 4. Also, allow students to continue playing Quintricious!™ to reinforce the concepts taught earlier in this unit.

All of Arianna's games are found on NutritionExplorations.org in Games.

Going Further

Cultural Diversity Close to Home
If your classroom is ethnically diverse, have students talk about foods their families eat that are specific to their cultural backgrounds. The class could share cultural recipes and develop a recipe book.

Field Trip on Foot
If there are ethnic restaurants or grocery stores within walking distance of your school, arrange for a visit. The goal of the walk should be to familiarize students with foods of other cuisines, not necessarily to eat a meal or purchase groceries.

Mail Home a Message
The keepsake for the NutritionExplorations.org Nutrition Mixer™ game is a postcard. Have students print their keepsakes on heavy paper (e.g., Inkjet 8.5). Then have them practice addressing the postcard and writing a short message to themselves, a family member or a friend. Review the correct way to address a postcard.

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