Eating A Rainbow Challenge
Dear Parents,
Vanderlyn has received a special
grant entitled Project Learning Gardens.
This educational grant provides schools with
strategies for building effective and long-lasting garden-based learning
programs. Teachers are provided with hands-on training, curriculum aligned to
national standards, lesson kits filled with supplies, a schoolyard garden, fully-equipped
garden cooking cart, and strategies for summer garden maintenance.
Gardens provide a
context for multidisciplinary learning, ranging from nutrition and science to
social, studies, math and language arts. Students will benefit by expanding their
palates, taste-testing healthy foods, and learning about food origins; engaging
in authentic science field investigations, manipulating the environment to
understand math in real-life applications, recreating historical activities,
and writing across all disciplines.
To kick off our Project Learning
Gardens initiative, Coach Dwyer has been teaching your boys and girls about
nutrition and how to follow the “Choose My Plate” food guide created by the
Center for Disease Control (CDC).
According to the CDC, half of our plate should be made up of fruits and vegetables. With this in mind, it is necessary for all of
us to understand that each color of fruits and vegetables naturally contain
essential vitamins, minerals and nutrients our bodies need to experience
optimal health. "Making a Rainbow" is a great visual way to teach kids how to eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and a message that we'll be promoting throughout this school year. Our students have been very excited
about eating a “rainbow” of colors to help nurture healthy eating habits. In
order to encourage healthy eating and kick off this great initiative, we will
hold a fun school-wide Rainbow Challenge.
The students will have the chance to win extra recess time, a rock
climbing party or a fitness class!
“Eating the Rainbow Challenge”
highlights colors rather than a specific food. The program is designed to speak
to the students in a language that they understand: tickets, points and colors!
What’s not to like? Watching each other eating fruits and vegetables
popularizes the idea, and it creates a shift in the way students view eating
healthier foods.
Each day of the week will highlight a
specific color of fruit or vegetable.
The students will be encouraged to bring that color for snack or lunch
on that day. Remember, it must be an
actual fruit or vegetable to qualify as a point for the class.
The Rainbow Challenge will begin on
Monday, September 24, 2018.
In addition to the fruit and vegetable
color, we are asking students to wear clothing articles to match the color of
the day (see below for details). On
Friday, each grade level is asked to wear a certain color of the rainbow so we
can take a school wide picture of our students and staff victory over the “Eating
a Rainbow Challenge.”
Day of the week:
Monday
|
Color: Red
|
All Grade Levels
|
Food
Examples: Apples, tomatoes, red peppers, beets, cherries, cranberries,
raspberries, strawberries
|
Day of the week: Tuesday
|
Color: Orange
|
All Grade Levels
|
Food Examples: Oranges, orange peppers, carrots, apricots,
peaches, nectarines, mango
|
Day of the week:
Wednesday
|
Color: Yellow
|
All Grade Levels
|
Food Examples: Bananas, yellow peppers, corn, lemon,
garbanzo beans, pineapple
|
Day of the week:
Thursday
|
Color: Green
|
All Grade Levels
|
Food
Examples: Lettuce, peas, broccoli,
green peppers, celery, zucchini, leafy greens, spinach, kale, green grapes,
kiwi
|
Day of the week:
Friday
|
Color: Blue/Purple
|
All Grade Levels
|
Food
Examples: blueberries, plums, purple
cabbage, eggplant, purple cauliflower, blackberries, passion fruit, figs
|
Shirt Color to Wear for Rainbow Picture on
Friday
|
GRADE
LEVEL
|
COLOR TO WEAR
|
5th Grade
|
RED
|
4th Grade
|
ORANGE
|
3rd Grade
|
YELLOW
|
2nd Grade
|
GREEN
|
1st Grade
|
BLUE
|
PreK/Kindergarten
|
PURPLE
|