Lesson 4: Princess Peapod's Vegetable Group

Little D's, Lesson 4 can take up to 60 minutes. If under a time constraint, the Little D's curriculum gives you ideas on how to split the lesson by completing the activities in two 30-minute blocks. See Lesson 4 in curriculum for directions.

Time saving activity:

Have the classroom teacher complete the scales for the wall dragon. Make sure you leave a sufficient number of dragon scales for students. If it's OK with the teacher, have students cut out the dragon scale. If the teacher completes the scale activity, record 15 minutes on the “Teacher Monthly Time and Effort Record.”

Suggested food preparation:

1. Raw snow peas, baby carrots, cherry tomato, cucumber sticks and/or zucchini sticks (this is more popular with kids than you might think), enough for a "tasting" portion of one or more of the vegetables

2. Vegetable Trees

3. Crunchy Vegetable Burrito Banditos

Shredded carrots
Shredded broccoli slaw
Shredded low fat cheddar cheese
Nonfat ranch salad dressing, to lightly coat
Taco seasoning, to taste
Small flour tortillas

Mix together first 5 ingredients. Spoon small spoonful in center of tortilla and wrap, and have each student roll a wrap.

4. Zucchini Bread

3 cups self-rising flour
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini

Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Sift flour and cinnamon together in a bowl. Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool. Slice into tasting size portions.

Time consuming, but outstanding activity from the Nutrition Activities Sourcebook, Volume II:

Vegetable Jeopardy

Suggested take-home message for parents:
NOTE: Provide teacher with enough copies for each student in the class to take home to provider.

Food and Activity Calendar
What Counts as One Cup of Vegetables? (print front-to-back)

Suggested supplemental activities:

NOTE: Provide teacher with enough copies for each student in the class.

Web resources:

Printable Copy