Eating well

Resources to help primary school children learn about eating well

What's here?

On this page, you will find a selection of activity ideas and resources for teaching children aged 5-7 years and 7-11 years about eating well. There is a section for those teaching children aged 5-7 years, and one for those teaching children aged 7-11 years. 

The sections include notes on running activities around eating well, and the resources needed for the activities.

Towards the bottom of the page you can find:

  • resources to support running parent/carers workshops, and information to share with parent/carers;
  • simple recipes to support learning about eating well and develop cooking skills.

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Eating well activities (5-7 years)

Learning about the Eatwell Guide

Read The Eatwell Guide informationThis will provide useful background detail about The Eatwell Guide. 

1) Use The Eatwell Guide presentation (5-7) to talk to the children about the Eatwell Guide. Ask them to look at the image and tell you what they can see. Encourage them to notice that:

  • there are five food groups;
  • they are different colours and contain different foods;
  • the groups are different sizes;
  • there is a glass showing how many drinks are needed.

2) The five food groups are shown individually on the Five food group cards. You may like to use these as flash cards to test if children can remember the group names, or these could be used for a displayed.

Sorting foods into the Eatwell Guide food groups

1) Divide the children into groups of six. Give each group a Blank eatwell guide and set of The Eatwell Guide food cards. Challenge the groups to sort the foods into the correct food groups. When they have finished, display the Eatwell Guide image, from The Eatwell Guide presentation (5-7) or the Eatwell Guide poster, and ask them to check if they have placed all the foods correctly. Discuss any foods that were not placed correctly, or that the children found difficult to place. 

2) Let children play The Eatwell Challenge (an interactive game involving sorting foods into the correct food groups). 

3) Divide the children into groups of five. Give each group a copy of the Food selection worksheet and the Blank eatwell guide. One child from each group should cut the Blank eatwell guide sheet along the horizontally dotted lines to create five strips of foods. Each child in the group should take one strip of foods, cut out their five foods and stick them on the group's Blank eatwell guide. When all the groups have finished, discuss where each food has been placed and correct any errors. 

Applying the Eatwell Guide messages

1) Challenge the children to plan a healthy lunch based around the Eatwell Guide, using the My lunchbox worksheet

2) Give children copies of the FFL workbook 1 and set them activities from the workbook to complete in class or at home.

RESOURCES

All the resources for ages 5-7 years mention and hyperlinked above, can be found here:

multi-yr
The Eatwell Guide

A guide about The Eatwell Guide.

5 - 7 YR
The Eatwell Guide presentation

A presentation introducing the Eatwell Guide.

multi-yr
Five food group cards

A set of cards showing the five main food groups from the Eatwell Guide.

7 - 11 YR
Blank Eatwell Guide

A blank version of the Eatwell Guide.

multi-yr
The Eatwell Guide food cards

A set of food cards which are depicted in The Eatwell Guide.

multi-yr
The Eatwell Guide

A poster of The Eatwell Guide.

5 - 7 YR
Food selection

A worksheet showing different food and drinks from the Eatwell Guide.

5 - 7 YR
My lunchbox

A worksheet about planning a lunchbox in line with the Eatwell Guide.

5 - 7 YR
FFL Workbook 1

An 8-page workbook for pupils aged 5-7 years, covering healthy eating, drinking and activity.

Eating well activities (7-11 years)

Building on knowledge and understanding of the Eatwell Guide 

1) Use the Eatwell Guide presentation to teach (or remind) children about the Eatwell Guide and its healthy eating messages. Ensure the children can identify the food in each food group and that they can discuss the key health messages associated with each group.

2) Explain to the children that sometimes we eat a food by itself and other times we eat different types of food together. For example, we might eat a piece of fruit or a yogurt by itself, but we would probably eat a piece of salmon or chicken with other food, such as potatoes and peas.

Show the images in the Meals and snacks presentation. Look at each dish in turn and ask the children to identify a food in the dish and the food group to which it belongs. Talk to the children about ingredients which may be in the dish but cannot be seen, e.g. oil (for cooking), spread (in sandwiches). You could task the children to work in pairs to note down the foods they think are in each meal on The Eatwell Guide worksheet and then discuss this with them afterwards. 

3) Task the children to find different meals and snacks in recipe books, magazines or on the internet and analyse them using the What is it made from? worksheet. When the children have finished the task, ask them to share some of the meals and snacks they have found, state the ingredients they contain and where they belong on the Eatwell Guide.

Applying the Eatwell Guide messages to what is eaten

1) Explain that the Eatwell Guide shows how much of what we eat overall should come from each food group. This means that if we set out all the food we ate over a few days or a week it should be in the proportions shown on the Eatwell Guide. For example, around 1/3 of what we eat should come from the Fruit and vegetables group, around 1/3 should come from the Potatoes, bread, rice, pasta and other starchy carbohydrates group.

Task the children to keep a record of what they eat for two days to see if what they eat in this time is in proportion with the Eatwell Guide. They can use the Food and drink diary worksheet to do this. You may also like to provide a copy of the Eatwell Guide poster for children to refer to as they complete this task.

Once the children have completed their Food and drink diary worksheet, discuss how what they ate and drank over two days compares to what is shown on shown on the Eatwell Guide. 

Note: There may be sensitivities around asking children to share what they have eaten. If this is the case, you could create two or three fictional food diaries to share and analyse with the class, rather than asking children to discuss their own diaries. 

2) Task the children to work in pairs to devise a menu showing food and drink for a day that reflects the Eatwell Guide. You could provide images and recipe books for inspiration. Use the Menu planner worksheet and the Eatwell Guide food list sheet.

When the children have finished, ask them to share their menus and consider these alongside the Eatwell Guide.

What others eat and why

1) Explain to the children that you will be discussing the types of food people eat and the reasons for their choices. Ask the children to share what various family members eat and note their responses on the board. When you have collected a selection of answers, look at each one and ask the children to suggest the reasons their family members might choose these foods. Reasons may include: time availability, preference, medical, religion. 

2) Task the children to create a booklet with the What people eat and why worksheet. (Make a 2-sided copy of this sheet, printing it along the short edge so it can be folded to create a booklet.) You may wish to allocate different diets or categories to different pairs or groups. These may include diets related to:

  • Religion, e.g. Islam, Judaism;
  • Climate, e.g. hot, dry or cold countries;
  • Preference, e.g. likes and dislikes;
  • Culture, e.g. Japanese, Afro-Caribbean.

The children can use books or the internet to create their booklet about their allocated diet. When the children have completed the task, ask them to share their findings. 

RESOURCES

All the resources for ages 7-11 years mention and hyperlinked above, can be found here:

7 - 11 YR
The Eatwell Guide

A presentation about the Eatwell Guide and its food groups.

7 - 11 YR
Meals and snacks

A presentation looking at meals and snacks, and how these relate to the Eatwell Guide.

5 - 7 YR
The Eatwell Guide worksheet

A blank Eatwell Guide worksheet to complete.

7 - 11 YR
What is it made from?

A worksheet exploring the main food groups in meals.

7 - 11 YR
Food and drink diary

A food and drink diary for two days.

multi-yr
The Eatwell Guide

A poster of The Eatwell Guide.

7 - 11 YR
Menu planner

A worksheet to plan a menu against the Eatwell Guide.

7 - 11 YR
Eatwell guide food list

A list of food in each of the food groups.

7 - 11 YR
What people eat and why!

A booklet looking at what people eat and why.

Parents and carers

Take a look at these resources on healthy lunchboxes and healthy hydration for supporting parent/carers. There are resources to share directly with parent/carers or use to run parent/carer workshops. 

Healthy lunchboxes

multi-yr
Sandwich generator

A worksheet to generate different ideas of a sandwich.

multi-yr
Lunchbox information

A healthy lunchbox information sheet for parents/carers.

multi-yr
Healthy lunchbox builder

A worksheet to build a healthy lunchbox.

multi-yr
Healthy lunchbox workshop

A workshop idea for schools to run with parents and carers.

multi-yr
Healthy lunchbox presentation

A presentation about healthy lunchboxes.

Healthy hydration

multi-yr
Healthy hydration workshop

A workshop idea for schools to run with parents and carers.

multi-yr
Healthy hydration activity (answers)

Healthy hydration activity sheet answers.

multi-yr
Drink plenty chart

A chart for children to record the number of drinks they have per day.

multi-yr
Healthy hydration activity (questions)

A healthy hydration activity sheet for parents (questions).

multi-yr
Information sheet

A healthy hydration information sheet for parents and carers.

multi-yr
Healthy hydration presentation

A healthy hydration presentation.

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