Plenty of Options for Talking About Food in the Classroom

Food is a topic that grabs children’s attention. Take advantage of it and foster that interest with a multitude of activities that will allow you to discuss the topic with them. As an added bonus, you will meet pedagogical objectives as this theme pairs well with several subject areas of the Québec Education Program (QEP).

Here are some ideas that are sure to spark your imagination!

Preschool education

Physical and motor development

• Who am I?: Guess foods based on their distinct sensory characteristics using game cards. 
• Educational games: Discover a variety of foods thanks to the enchanted world of the Wonder Woods or with our various educational posters.
• A creative project: Develop motor skills while discovering nutritious food choices using the Snack Illustrations. 
• An active game: Get children moving in new ways thanks to the pictures of where foods come from.

Language development 

• An interactive quiz: Learn new words with an educational video about snacks and validate learning through an interactive online quiz. 
• Nursery rhymes: Sing and dance to nursery rhymes to have fun learning more about where foods come from!

Cognitive development

• A symbolic game: Spark children’s imagination by creating a restaurant using models of nutritious foods. 
   

All activities here!

Elementary education

Languages 

• Tempting tales: With students, create your own story about food. 
• A “productive” oral presentation: Ask students to make an oral presentation about food production or processing methods for one or more foods.
• Cultivated English: Use food names to learn new vowels, consonants and rhymes.
• An appetizing dictation: Write a nutritious recipe that the children can make with their family when they go home.
• Word searches or crosswords: Fill in a puzzle whose words are nutritious foods or have a definition based on the concept of body image.

Mathematics, Science and Technology 

• Reinvented mathematics: Explore addition, multiplication, division and fractions using nutritious recipes to double, triple, divide and more. You can even take a survey of your students’ favourite foods using pictures of foods, then create a bar graph showing the results.
• Social Sciences 
• A bit of history from here or elsewhere: Discuss the cultural realities of the era. Discover the agriculture and livestock raising practices of civilizations that came before us or discuss the dietary customs of other countries.
• A little geography: Locate different countries on a map by exploring where certain dishes come from, from all over the world.

Arts Education 

• Role play: Pretend to be different food-related professions to create a play.
• Create an ad: Invent a product, design a package and come up with a slogan to introduce a brand-new food product.
• Mime game: Mimic certain cooking techniques using illustrations.

Personal Development

• Active games: Run to collect the right foods for a balanced breakfast or a nutritious lunch using food illustrations, or to talk about body image. 
• Educational videos: Use technology to discuss Canada’s Food Guide and its key messages with videos specifically designed for students or to talk about topics such as breakfast, lunches and body image.
• Interactive quizzes: Solidify what students have learned about a nutritious breakfast, balanced lunches and body image through online games.

All activities here!

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