Nutrition is an essential part of living a healthy lifestyle. Having a balanced diet with fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, and dairy are all important when trying to maintain a healthy body. This activity helps teach kids different kinds of foods and what categories they fall into while also having them participate in a fun physical activity. The best way to teach kids about nutrition and living healthy lifestyles is to educate them on the different food groups while making the learning fun.
Materials:
1. Masking tape (for inside)
2. Chalk (for outside)
3. A bean bag, a Ziploc bag filled with dry beans, or some sort of marker
4. An open area inside or out to play the game
Instructions:
1. Draw a hopscotch pattern on the sidewalk outside. You also can use tape to draw a hopscotch pattern if you are indoors.
2. In each square, write down a food group from above (grains, vegetables, fruits, dairy, and meat.) some will have 1 or more squares per food group.
3. Use a beanbag or the marker you have chosen and throw it onto a square.
4. Before hoping to the square that your marker landed on, shout out a food from the food group your marker landed on.
5. Then you hop over the entire hopscotch shouting out a different food from each food group that you are hoping on.
6. At the end of the hopscotch the participant turns around hops back and grabs the marker so the next participant can go.