The Food Pyramid ~ Great for Kids!

Last year around this time of year at Farm Day, Bryce had his first look at the Food Pyramid Chart.  He was totally enamored by it and still is.  I'm not sure if it's because of all the colors that illustrate the different food groups or the percentage part of the chart.  What ever the reason, I'm glad he's so interested in it.

Image found at Google Image

We keep a copy of the chart on our fridge and the kids love to examine the meals and snacks they eat and figure out where on the chart each belongs.

Apparently more than one-third of children and more than two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight or obese, with the new release of the updated 7th edition Dietary Guidelines for Americans, stronger emphasis is being placed on reducing calorie consumption and increasing physical activity.

I thought it would be a good time to print out a new copy of the Food Pyramid chart to replace the copy on our fridge {it's a little different looking} and to go over the food groups again with both Bryce and Paige.  Bryce has pretty much got the food pyramid down, but  he SO likes to 'teach' his younger sister things and thought this would be a perfect opportunity for some homeschooling time.

I also found a few interactive and printable charts to go along with the food pyramid like the MyPyramid coloring chart , the MyPyramid Worksheet, a close look at the MyPyramid chart, some neat MyPyramid classroom lessons for your homeschooling needs and 10 tips for being a healthy eating role model.

Feel free to share this post with any families who you think may be interested in these printable materials.

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Summer Home School

Bryce is 5 years old (will be 6 in October) and he just completed his Kindergarten year at the one room school house he attends. I really feel we have the best of both worlds with this school.  It's a one room school, as I said, there are 15 students total (grades K-6th) with a full time teacher and a full time aid.  It's in it's own school district and has been in existence since the 1800's.  Dominic attended this school as did his two sisters.

Last year Bryce had two other Kindergartners in his class.  His teacher, Mrs. Wester teaches K - 2nd grade in a small room off the main room.  Mrs. Doyle, the teacher/Principal teaches 3rd - 6th grades in the main school house room as well as overseeing the little guys too.  Each student benefits from one on one time at an individual level with the teachers. 

So with this being Bryce's first summer break from school, I didn't want him to lose any of his reading, writing and math skills that he's learned through the year over the long summer. So I thought if we did 30 minutes of 'Home School' each weekday morning, it would keep him in tune and ready to begin 1st grade when September comes.

Bryce totally got into this idea.  He was SO excited that we were going to play 'Home School' each and every morning.  The entire first week, he woke up at 7 a.m. and was ready to begin 'Home School'.

I told him 'Home School' begins at 9 a.m. after breakfast and coffee.

I don't know if he was more excited about me being his 'teacher' or just the idea of playing school in general.  He insisted that we play until lunch time every day.  And we did, with recess , a school bell and all.

We begin with reading then math, flash cards, spelling test, art and what ever else we find interesting on a particular day.

I found a few grade level books at Target for him.

Paige wanted in on 'Home School' as well.

I try and mix it up as much as I can with the different subjects.  So far it's going well.  The great thing I found about homeschooling is you can work it around your own schedule.  Like the two weeks of swim lessons that we signed up for, conflicted with the homeschooling time, but we just moved it to the afternoon instead.  I do prefer the morning time though, I think there's better concentration at that time.

There are also a couple of good websites to go to, one of them being http://www.starfall.com/ (Bryce was on Star Fall throughout his Kindergarten year and now Paige is into it)

and another, Enchanted Learning  there are also a few others that are tied to his school such as Study Island and Accelerated Reading.  And I've found numerous websites readily available on the world wide web by googling 'homeschooling'.

If you have a great home school website you know of, please let me know!  I'd love to begin a file:)

Happy Friday!

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