Nonfiction Monday
I’ve been wanting to expand my blogging in some ways and I decided that I would participate in Nonfiction Mondays. I always get so many good ideas from other blogs!
I went to the library today in search of some books on nutrition. Two OSU dietetic students will be visiting us this Thursday to talk about the food pyramid and making healthy food choices, so I wanted to build some background knowledge for the kids. I found several books and one that I liked was The Edible Pyramid: Good Eating Every Day by Loreen Leedy. This book, considered a hybrid informational text was originally published in 1994 as a Reading Rainbow book. It was updated in 2007 to reflect the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s newly redesigned food pyramid. I think my students will enjoy the simple (and sometimes humorous) text and soft, colorful illustrations.
In this book, a cat, dressed in a tuxedo, welcomes all the animals to the grand opening of the Edible Pyramid Restaurant. The frog hopes the flies are fresh and the pelican hopes they have seafood. The pyramid menu helps the customers plan healthy meals. The cat, starting at the left hand side of the pyramid, explains each of the food groups. Lots of examples are given in each food group and the illustrations are luscious looking! I know that some of my kids have not tried some of these foods, so we’ll have fun trying some new things (beets, rye crackers, kiwi, to name a few). I even learned something new. The steps at the side of the pyramid remind us to be active every day. There are many pictures that show ways kids can be active…swimming, hula hooping (is that a word?), biking, skating, and dancing.
I’m looking forward to sharing this book and the others I checked out with my students. We’ll tie math and technology into our study as I ask the kids to keep track of how many fruits and vegetables they eat during a week’s time. We’ll tally their results and create graphs on the computer with the technology teacher. Maybe we’ll even create a podcast about the importance of eating healthy foods.
You can see the round up of other nonfiction books here.
