Kids, Books, and a Dedicated Team Make Reading and Nutrition Education Fun!
Is it possible to teach nutrition and reading at the same time? It is if you have the right tools to get you started including great children’s books about food and play, fun hands-on activities for students to link nutrition with reading, and a dedicated and enthusiastic person like MSU Extension’s Awilda M. Dominguez to lead the way.
Awilda M. Dominguez, a Program Associate for MSUE in Lenawee county, applied for and received a Michigan Team Nutrition, Tools for Schools, Books to Grow On mini-grant. The focus of the grant was on linking nutrition education with reading. The grant project took place in Mrs. Maricela Alvarez’s first-grade classroom at McKinley Elementary School in Adrian, Michigan.
The grant package came as a tool kit, and included several items that fit the Books to Grow On theme including a set of children’s books with positive food and physical activity messages, the Michigan Team Nutrition Booklist, student bookmarks, nutrition-focused teacher resources, food model cards, and classroom posters.
“The grant and the tool kit were wonderful!” exclaimed Awilda. “We were able to do so many exciting things this year with the students. The books were great and the children loved them.”
Awilda visited Mrs. Alvarez’s classroom five different times and conducted nutrition/reading lessons from an MSUE-produced curriculum, Pyramids Between the Pages. During the same period, Mrs. Alvarez and others at McKinley School were able to use the tool kit’s resources to reinforce what Awilda was teaching, and to integrate nutrition education into classroom reading time.
“Mrs. Alvarez and I worked together and the kids had fun”, explained Awilda. “Everyone at McKinley was very helpful. It’s great that the students got a chance to learn about nutrition in a new way, and because of the grant, the school got to keep all the great books and resources!”
For more information about this successful Team Nutrition initiative, contact Mrs. Awilda M. Domínguez, MSU Extension Program Associate at (517) 264-5350 or domingua@msue.msu.edu.
To find out more about the Pyramids Between the Pages curriculum contact Karen Martin, MSU Extension Program Leader at (517) 432-4408 or martin87@msu.edu.
To download (108 pages) the Michigan Team Nutrition Booklist which contains
the annotations for over 300 children’s books with positive food and
physical activity messages , or to order a print copy ($9 each) go to our
Downloads page.
