myplate virtual assignment

Food groups can help you solve the puzzle of healthy eating.

Choose My Plate is built around the food groups. You will need to choose foods from all of the food groups to help your body learn, play, and grow strong and healthy.

Can you build the plate by dragging the food groups into the right spot?

Build the plate by dragging the food group shape into the right place.

You did it.

Click or Tap each food group to learn more.

Grains like bread, cereal and pasta help turn the foods we eat into energy in our bodies.

Dairy foods, like milk, yogurt and cheese helps build strong bones and teeth.

Fruits help our bodies heal.

Protein foods like meat, beans and nuts help build strong muscles.

Vegetables help us have healthy skin and eyes.

Do you know how much to eat from each food group every day?

Click the “Next” button and learn more about healthy eating.

You Did It!

You matched the foods into the right group and figured out how much you need every day.

Eating balanced meals, one food from each food group, will help you learn, play, and grow healthy and strong.

Click the “Next” button to learn more about physical activity.

Be Active Every Day!

This is fun but not active, pick another one.

You reached 60 minutes of physical activity you need every day!

Eating healthy foods from all of the food groups and doing 60 minutes of physical activity every day are healthy habits for you and your family!

New Nutrition Advocate?

Register a new account on HealthyEating.org to order nutrition resources, get the latest nutrition science or support healthy eating in your community.

Create account

Thanks for creating an account. Please login.

Forgot Password

Caution: you have javascript disabled. Your site experience may be affected.

• Teacher Center
• Student Center
• Get Involved

Login to MyBinder

Forgot password

Don't have an account? Create one now!

View a MyBinder tutorial

Agricultural Literacy Curriculum Matrix

Lesson plan, grade levels, type of companion resource, content area standards, agricultural literacy outcomes, common core, understanding myplate (grades 6-8), grade level.

Students will explore appropriate serving size and learn how to make good dietary decisions by understanding the components of nutrition as illustrated by MyPlate.  Grades 6-8

Estimated Time

Materials needed.

• Paper plates, 1 per student
• Glue or glue sticks
• Crayons or colored pencils
• Grocery store ads, magazines, or anything else with pictures of food for students to cut out
• Food Models   Kit   
• Coordinating shopping lists and grocery ads (see activity sheet)
• Healthy Choices activity sheet , 1 per student
• Beverage containers
• Think Your Drink chart

MyPlate: nutritional guide published by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA); icon depicting a place setting with a plate and glass divided into five food groups

Did You Know?

• Using the Nutrition Facts on food labels will enable you to eat healthier and make wiser food choices. Select foods that are low in fat and sodium.
• The Percent Daily Values (% DV) is a general guide for linking nutrients in one serving of food to their contribution to your total daily diet.
• Most Americans don't receive enough vitamins A and C, potassium, calcium, and iron; therefore select foods with a higher % DV for these nutrients.
• Water can be your best friend. Flavored teas, sodas, sport drinks, and juices can add as much as 400 calories to your meal whereas water has no calories at all and helps you feel full.
• Meals that are cooked and prepared at home rather than purchased at a restaurant have less calories and can be monitored more closely for healthier options.

Background Agricultural Connections

The USDA MyPlate icon uses a familiar and relatable image to help us balance our diets, eating from all five food groups proportionally. MyPlate identifies each of the food groups with a different color and a proportional section of the meal setting. The icon provides a visual reminder to make half of your plate fruits and vegetables. The USDA dietary guidelines include a few more basic recommendations to help Americans make healthy food choices: eat a variety of different fruits and vegetables, make half of your grains whole grains, eat a variety of protein foods, and choose low- and nonfat dairy products. Foods with added fats and sugar should be eaten only occasionally, and processed foods should be eaten in moderation.

The dietary guidelines recognize that the number of servings an individual needs to keep his or her body healthy will vary by age, sex, and physical activity. In addition to energy (calories), the food we eat also provides us with a variety of vitamins and minerals. These nutrients are important for our bodies to grow and develop in a healthy way. Each kind of food provides some, but not all, of the nutrients your body needs. For this reason it is difficult for foods in one group to replace foods in another group, and it is important to eat a variety of foods within each group. In addition, the more processed a food is, the fewer nutrients it is likely to have. Some highly processed foods like potato chips and donuts contain lots of calories but few nutrients, so it is best to limit consumption of processed foods.

What you drink is as important as what you eat. Soda, energy drinks, and sports drinks are a major source of added sugar in American diets. Sugary drinks contain added calories which may contribute to weight gain and health and dental risks. Nutrition fact labels help us to identify the amount of sugar, calories, and nutrients in our drinks.

Don’t forget that exercise is part of a healthy lifestyle too!

• Prepare a basket with as many of the following items as you can find: apple, peanut, corn, beans, cantaloupe, green pepper, strawberry, carrot, potato, tomato, eggs, onion, watermelon, popcorn, rice, hot dogs, and ham. You may call on parents or volunteers to help provide these items. As an alternative, you could also use pictures or Food Models Kit (see  Materials ).
• Do you like to eat this type of vegetable, fruit, or meat? 
• Where can you purchase these items?  
• How do these items get to the grocery store?
• How are these foods grown?
• Who grows these foods?
• What would you eat if farmers didn't grow these foods?

Explore and Explain

Activity 1: Choose MyPlate

• Review MyPlate with students, and discuss the role of nutrition in growth and development.
• Provide each student with materials: crayons, scissors, glue, paper plates and an assortment of grocery store ads and other food pictures.
• Ask students to create their own replica of MyPlate by sectioning off their plate with the different food groups. Include a paper circle cut-out to the side for dairy. It may be helpful to display the MyPlate Activity Poster  so that students can reference it to create their own plate.
• Have students cut out foods from the grocery store ads and food pictures and glue them onto their plate to create a healthy “meal.”
• Discuss the importance of balance in a diet and making healthy choices. Ask students if the meals they created with food cut outs represent a balanced meal. How many servings did they include in each food group? How many of the foods they chose are highly processed?
• Identify serving sizes of various foods in each food group. The Food Models Kit (see  Materials )  is an excellent resource for providing a visual representation of serving sizes. If you use the Food Models, have students place them on their plate in the correct food group, building a meal in which approximately half of the servings come from fruits and vegetables. If you do not wish to use Food Models, information on portion sizes can be found on myplate.gov , and serving size equivalents that are easy to visualize can be found on the Nourish Interactive  website.
• Provide students with grocery ads and shopping lists that call for specific quantities of five items included in the ads.

Activity 2 : Think Your Drink

• Ask the students to name different drink choices, and list their responses on the board. 
• Show the class some beverage containers. Ask the students how we can tell if drinks are healthy or not. Show the locations of the nutrition fact labels on the containers. Explain that we can look at the nutrition fact labels to determine whether or not drinks are healthy. These labels tell us what ingredients are inside our drinks and how many calories, sugars, fats, vitamins, and minerals the drinks contain.
• Provide each student with a copy of the Think Your Drink chart or project the chart for the whole class to see. Explain to the students that when choosing healthy drinks they should specifically consider the amount of calories and sugars compared to vitamins and minerals. 
• Ask the students to use the Think Your Drink chart to determine which drinks on the class list are healthy choices. Explain that water, low-fat milk, and 100% juice are healthy drink choices. Water is essential for our bodies and contains no sugar or calories. Low-fat milk contains calcium which is important for overall health. When we aren’t getting enough calcium in our diets, our bodies take calcium from our bones, which causes our bones to weaken. 100% juice provides us with important vitamins and minerals, but also contains natural sugars. Daily intake of 100% juice should be limited to 8 ounces for adults and 4-6 ounces for children. Eating whole fruits is a better option for obtaining these vitamins and minerals.

Create a giant plate on one of your classroom walls. Ask students to cut out more magazine pictures or draw pictures of the foods that belong in each group and then place them on the wall. Alternatively, you may want to attach the actual containers to the appropriate food group. Consider asking students to bring in empty food containers.

Make a MyPlate snack. Have students invent a snack that includes foods from each food group. For example, start with half of an English muffin or a firm cracker. Spread the top lightly with peanut butter. Add shredded carrots and chopped apples. Serve with milk.

Identify the types of farms and the states where foods on the plate come from. Find out how long the crop or animal is grown to create an edible product delivered to your table.

Further explore the importance of a balanced diet in human health and what this means for vulnerable populations around the world using the lesson plan  Hunger and Malnutrition .

After conducting these activities, review and summarize the following key concepts:

• A healthy diet includes fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, and dairy.
• Farmers produce the food we eat.
• It's important to eat the right amount of each food group to obtain the nutrients our body needs.

Recommended Companion Resources

• Eat & Move O-Matic
• Fill MyPlate Game
• Food Doesn't Grow in the Supermarket!
• Food Group Puzzle
• Food Models
• Higher or Lower: Ingredient Investigation
• How to Read Nutrition Facts - Food Labels Made Easy video
• MyPlate Activity Poster
• Portion Size Comparison
• Portion Size Me & Portion Size Me Too DVDs
• The Power of Choice Bulletin Board

Lyndi Perry & Debra Spielmaker

Organization

Utah Agriculture in the Classroom

Food, Health, and Lifestyle

• Identify agricultural products (foods) that provide valuable nutrients for a balanced diet (T3.6-8.g)
• Evaluate food labels to determine food sources that meet nutritional needs (T3.6-8.b)
• Evaluate serving size related to nutritional needs (T3.6-8.c)

Education Content Standards

Health/nutrition (health).

Health Standard 1: Comprehend functional health knowledge to enhance health.

• 1.8.2    Analyze benefits of practicing health-promoting behaviors.

Health Standard 5: Demonstrate effective decision-making skills to enhance health.

• 5.8.6    distinguish between healthy and unhealthy consequences for each alternative.

Health Standard 6: Demonstrate effective goal-setting skills to enhance health.

• 6.8.1    Assess personal health practices.

Common Core Connections

Anchor standards: language.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.L.6 Acquire and use accurately a range of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when encountering an unknown term important to comprehension or expression.

How can we help?

Send us a message with your question or comment.

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

• Basic Nutrition

MyPlate Resources

MyPlate is a reminder to find and build your healthy eating style. It offers useful resources and tools for tracking your food intake and physical activity.

Browse examples of foods in each food group.

Find nutrition recommendations and resources for every stage of life.

Enable the MyPlate Alexa Skill on your Alexa device or app to receive healthy eating tips for feeding babies and toddlers.

The MyPlate Plan shows your food group targets – what and how much to eat within your calorie allowance. Your plan is personalized, based on your age, sex, height, weight and physical activity level. 

Browse the MyPlate collection of printable tip sheets and resources. These materials are in the public domain.

Find out if you are making every bite count and get personalized nutrition resources.

Get ideas of budget-friendly foods and ways to prepare them. Plus, find savings and stores that accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits near you.

Use the Start Simple with MyPlate app to set healthy eating goals, track your progress, and celebrate success.

Learn how MyPlate can help you to build a healthy eating routine.

Use these tips to choose snacks that are full of nutrients and limited in added sugars, saturated fat, and sodium. 

Choose MyPlate Lessons, Worksheets, Activities

Since the new FDA food guide recommendations came out we’ve all scrambled to revamp our nutrition lessons to meet the new requirements. Since it has been a few months there are new resources available that you should be aware of. You’ll find links, lesson plans, power points, worksheets, and products to help you stay on top of the changes.

Quick Guide to What Changed :

• Focus on smaller portion sizes
• Replace sugary drinks with water
• Fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables
• Choose low fat dairy
• Make half your grains whole

Lesson Plans

• Choose MyPlate Lesson Plan
• MyPlate Introduction & Application
• MyPlate (PPT)
• Portion Distortion Online Interactive Quiz

Products for your Classroom

• Create a Great Plate MyPlate Dietary Guidelines DVD
• MyPlate Worksheet (PDF)
• My Plate Food Choice Continuum (PDF)
• Food Groups Coloring Sheet (PDF)

Works Cited

• ChooseMyPlate.gov
• SuperHealthyKids

Post navigation

1 comment for “ choose myplate lessons, worksheets, activities ”, leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Send me a message

Learning Goals

• Design a brochure or poster that encourages middle school students to eat healthy and follow MyPlate’s recommendations.
• HSE.MS.6.1 Identify the MyPlate groups, foods, importance of each, recommended amounts, and how this visual helps to make better eating choices.

MyPlate Summative Assignment

Lesson topic: myplate, lesson description:, learning goals/outcomes:, nebraska standards:, teacher planning:, equipment/materials needed:, time required for lesson:, lab set-up:, technology use:.

__X__ YES               _____NO

Instructional Plan:

Anticipatory set/pre-activity:, benefits/explanation/career readiness standards:, activities (i.e. instructions, lesson, lab or project):, assessment :, supplemental information:, modifications:, safety precautions:, comments (adaptations for various grades/ages, teaching styles, etc.), nebraska family and consumer science standards.

Learning Domain: Food and Nutrition

Standard: Identify the MyPlate groups, foods, importance of each, recommended amounts, and how this visual helps one to make better eating choices.

Degree of Alignment: Not Rated (0 users)

Cite this work