Context
In my student teaching experience, during the Spring 2006 semester, I designed a unit on nutrition for kindergarten students with the help of my cooperating teacher, Amy Murphy. 

Through this integrated unit, students will participate in a variety of activities designed to address several of the multiple intelligences.  Students will learn about the five food groups, why each group is important to their bodies, how much they should eat each day, and how to design a healthy meal. 

Impact
This unit can be used with kindergarten students as a developmentally appropriate way to introduce nutrition.  In using the sorting activity, students will meet the NCSCOS requirements for healthful living (5.01).  Also, in designing their own healthy meal, students will fulfill NCSCOS requirement 5.02 which states the need for kindergarten students to identify meals that contain a variety of grains, fruits, and vegetables.  Students will also identify foods that help their teeth and bodies (5.07) by participating in the group lesson on why they should eat all five food groups.

Other areas addressed in this unit include the use of graphs in determining favorite foods (Math 4.01, 4.02) and the creation of art using kitchen tools and paint (Vis. Arts 1.07, 2.02, 3.03).  Students will also work on a variety of reading and writing activities that include creating a class book (4.02, 4.05, 5.01) by writing the story and identifying real and pretend words in the book Jamberry (3.01, 3.02).

Alignment

• Standard 1
  Indicator 1:  In allowing students to write words as they hear them and identify the sounds they hear, I am demonstrating my understanding of the developmental stages of kindergarten language acquisition.
  Indicator 2:  By allowing students to spell words as they hear them, I am demonstrating my understanding of the influence of dialect on language.  Students from this region  hear vowels sounds differently than they are actually spelled, but in encouraging students to write what they hear, I am demonstrating an understanding of the influence of dialect and language development.
  Standard 2
  Indicator 3: By having students create patterns with their bean artwork, I met this standard. In designing the activity for students, I had to have an understanding of patterns and relationships, as well as have an understanding of how to extend the patterns.
  Indicator 4:  In designing lessons that require students to survey their classmates likes and dislikes of foods to graph their results, I am meeting this standard by showing a knowledge of data and statistics, as well as demonstrating an understanding of various methods for reporting data.
  Standard 3
  Indicator 1:  In teaching this unit, I am demonstrating an understanding of health and human biology, as well as the growth and development of organisms by teaching that the human body needs a variety of foods.  This unit also meets this standard because I am emphasizing the importance of these food groups to the health and development of children
  Standard 5
  Indicator 1:  In teaching the importance of eating a variety of foods and how much of each food group children need to eat, I am demonstrating an understanding of the foundations of good health for children and how eating right contributes to a healthy lifestyle.
  Indicator 2:  Because nutrition and obesity are major issues related to the youth of our nation today, I am demonstrating an understanding of health issues related to children by teaching them about nutrition and servings
  Standard 8
  Indicator 4:  In choosing books for storytime and centers that were enjoyable, yet related to the topic of foods and nutrition, I encouraged students' enjoyment of reading. 
  Indicator 5:  By choosing a variety of books for storytime, we explored a variety of genres and their intended audiences.  We used fiction and non-fiction books for storytime and centers, some of which included poetry, expository writing, and narrative writing, all of which serve a different purpose and audience.
  Standard 9
  Indicator 5:  In having students complete pictorial graphs of class likes in food, I developed an instructional activity that allowed students to represent, organize, and record a math concept of statistics and data in an activity that was developmentally appropriate for kindergarten.
  Standard 12
  By designing activities such as kitchen gadget art, drawing a healthy meal, and bean patterns, I integrated visual arts into the nutrition unit.  I also integrated music in the unit by creating a song about the food groups and using music with songs about nutrition for our food game.
  Standard 13
  When teaching this unit, I asked students to talk with their parents about the food groups they ate each night.  I also discussed with students the importance of eating five food groups in the appropriate servings.  Also during this unit, we brought in healthy snacks for snack such as apples and wheat crackers.  We also integrated eating and cooking into the unit by allowing for tasting of berries during our Jamberry activity, as well allowing student to create and make their own pizzas, which contain all five food groups.  In so doing these activities, I created opportunities for students to practice healthy habits.
  NETS-T Standards
  III-A: This standard was met because I used technology to create a class project, which met the SCOS for kindergarten technology. The kindergarten standards for technology identify using technology to take ownership of work as a class as an important part of technology use. In having students become the author and "illustrator" of their own book, they are taking ownership in their work.
  III-B: The activity in this unit where students design their favorite food in the Paint program shows me using technology to support learner centered strategies. Also, by allowing students to manipulate the digital camera, write the pages of the book, and put the book together, I am demonstrating how to use technology to let the students be the focal point of a lesson. Students are the main people using technology in these lessons, and are therefore, the center of the teaching strategy.
  III-C: In having students take pictures and create their own book, I am encouraging artistic creativity, as well as higher order thinking skills. Students are applying their nutrition knowledge to write a book, which requires application and synthesis skills, as well as creativity in their writing and page composition. Also, in having students design their favorite meals on the computer, I am encouraging their creativity through technology.
  III-D: To manage the students use of the computers in our classroom, I gave students a time limit of 15 minutes on the computer to complete their picture and type their sentences. A timer was set so that students would know when their time was out and when the next two students should be ready to work on the computer. We had a list on the white board next to the computer station of the order in which students would be called to the computer so they would be aware of when their turn would be in relation to other students in the class.