Calcium Relay Race

Get Students Moving

Calcium is not made in the body, so your students need to get it from diet in order to build and maintain strong bones.

Use this activity to help your students learn about calcium in foods and how to get enough each day. This cross curricular activity can help meet outcomes in Math, Health Education and English Language Arts.

Supplies

Download and print 2 to 3 sets of the Calcium Flash Cards.

This set of cards has pictures of 36 different foods, along with the amount of calcium in each food.

Teacher’s Note

• Divide your class into groups (e.g., 4-5 per group).
• Arrange the Flash Cards (image side down) in a designated area of the classroom where there is enough space for students to move around.
• In the style of a relay race, have one student from each group come and choose a card, return to their group and ‘tag’ the next student for their turn.
• The goal is to collect enough calcium cards to get 1300 mg of calcium, the amount recommended for students in grades 4 to 6.
• Ask each group how many cards were needed to reach the recommended amount.
• Ask students to identify which types of food (e.g. fruits, vegetables, milk products, etc.) are represented so they learn that calcium comes from a variety of foods.