Monday 21 April 2014

Serving Sizes

We are currently studying nutrition in Health and Career Education.  Specifically, we are learning about how to make healthy food choices using the Canada Food Guide.  The Canada Food Guide tells you how many servings you should eat daily from each of the four food groups.  For children nine to thirteen, the servings are as follows:

Fruits and Vegetables - 6 servings
Dairy and Alternatives - 3 - 4 servings
Meat and Alternatives - 1 - 2 servings
Grains - 6 servings

But, what's a serving?!?  That's what we've been learning about over the last few days.  The food guide tells you how much one serving equals for many common foods.   For example, a 1/2 cup of cooked broccoli is a serving of fruits and vegetables; 3/4 cup of cereal is a serving of grains.  To estimate accurately though, students need some practice.

Ms. Birdsall brought in several different foods. First, students served themselves the amount they would typically eat of that food without measuring.  Next, they measured how much this amount was.  As an example, let's pretend Fred served himself some rice, then measured and found that he would typically eat two cups of rice at dinner.  Then, students checked the station card to look up what one serving of this food was, (For rice, one serving is 1/2 a cup.) and measured that amount so that they could see what one serving looked like.  Finally, they calculated how many servings their first amount was.  In Fred's case, he discovered that he would normally eat about 4 servings of rice at dinner.

Here are the students hard at work:





For which food group do you find it easiest to eat enough servings?  For which food group is it the hardest?


28 comments:

  1. Woooooooo Hoooooooo THIS IS EPIC!!!!! like a boss (timothy)

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  2. this is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! posted by Mikee

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  3. I like the idea of students get to do it instead the teacher.

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  4. its good to see so many smiling faces when learning! khushleen

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  5. Serving sizes are easy to estimate once you get the hang of it. Posted by Jaisal.

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  6. I had fun doing the food group servings chantelle

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  7. jia- these was lots of fun but they made me hungry!!! LOL

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    1. I know, right! Doing anything in H.C.E makes me hungry. -Jaisal

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  8. Gloria says These people look like they're acully WORKING! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

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  9. I really liked the Bears movie did any one else?

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  10. Meagan:hi msbirdsall you are such a nice teacher if i was a teacher i would give
    you an A+

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  11. I had a lot of fun doing serving sizes, but I spilled a lot of juice and milk. I like that it shows pictures! (especially the one I'm in!)

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  12. so fun seeing all the pictures kyla

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  13. The measuring the food was so much fun !!!!!

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  14. ther is food evrywhar andrew

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  15. your class is the best.hajir

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  16. Shantal:I think everyone had fun doing H.C.E. , unless they had alergies to it then that would be sad.

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  17. wow! we are learning serving sizes about food i like it because i like to learn and ms.birdsall is one of my favorite teachers

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  18. this is cooooooollllll eyuan

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  19. good job guys:D

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  20. The activity with the food measuring was so much fun! I spilt so much milk and juice. I like the pictures. I find the Grains and Fruits+Veggies groups easiest to follow. The Meats+Alternatives and Dairy+Alternatives groups are more 'go over the serving amount' type of groups. I've recently got myself lower on the chocolates+candies. Hooray for me!

    -Katja

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    1. i know right! candy is so hard to say no to, you just got to say "yes!" i can not believe i stopped eating candy! Hooray for ME! I MEAN BOTH OF US! KHUSHLEEN

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  21. It's funny because the supervisor came in and asked why there was so much food :P

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  22. that was lots of fun!!!! jia

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