Teaching healthy eating in elementary school is an important part of the health curriculum, but it can be tricky to make the concepts meaningful for young students. Healthy eating is about much more than naming foods or sorting them into groups. Students also need opportunities to explore where food comes from, how food choices can support their bodies, and how family, culture and community influence what we eat.
That’s why I created the Health Heroes. They provide a fun, relatable way to introduce healthy eating while students learn through conversations, books, games and hands-on activities. In this post, I’ll share ways I use the Health Heroes to teach healthy eating in the primary grades, from finding out what students already know to planning a balanced meal at the end of the unit.
What Should an Elementary Healthy Eating Unit Include?
A healthy eating unit should help students understand that food does more than satisfy hunger. It gives our bodies energy, supports growth, and helps us stay healthy.
Depending on the grade you teach, your healthy eating lessons might include:
- Exploring where food comes from
- Comparing whole and processed foods
- Learning about the foods shown on Canada’s Food Guide plate
- Recognizing the importance of water
- Connecting food choices to oral health
- Identifying hunger and thirst cues
- Planning balanced meals and snacks
- Exploring local foods and foods from different cultures
- Discussing the benefits of preparing and eating food with others
That may sound like a lot to cover, but you can introduce the concepts through simple conversations, picture books, sorting activities and games. I like to begin by finding out what students already know before deciding where our learning needs to go next.
Start by Finding Out What Students Already Know
Before beginning any healthy eating unit, I like to find out what my students already know. We start by talking about what it means to be healthy and how we can take care of our bodies. My students always have lots of ideas. Some are accurate, while others reveal misconceptions that we can explore as the unit continues.
The Health Heroes give us a fun way to begin this conversation. I ask students to think about what someone could do to be a Health Hero. Their answers might include eating different foods, drinking water, brushing their teeth, being active or getting enough sleep. I record their ideas so that we can return to them throughout the unit.
Use Picture Books and Videos to Introduce Healthy Eating
Picture books are one of my favourite tools for introducing a new topic. They give students something familiar to connect with, making it easier to start conversations about food, health, and the different choices families make.
One book my students have always enjoyed is Gregory, the Terrible Eater. It is a fun way to start talking about food preferences, trying different foods and the fact that not everyone eats the same things. Non-fiction books can also help students explore where food comes from, how it is grown or prepared and how foods are enjoyed in different families and cultures. This is a collection of some of the books I used.
Short videos can also help introduce or review a concept. I use them to support lessons about where food comes from, how food is processed, the importance of water and the foods shown on Canada’s Food Guide plate. I always preview a video first to make sure the information and language match what I am teaching. Videos work best as a starting point for discussion or a quick review, not as the entire lesson.
This first one is part of a series created by the Eat Happy Project. They have videos for all the food groups.
Crash Course Kids is another great resource for all things Science and Health.
Hands-On Healthy Eating Activities for Elementary Students
When teaching healthy eating in elementary school, I find students understand concepts best when they can talk, sort, move, and connect the learning to their own lives. Hands-on healthy eating activities, including food sorting activities and games, make abstract ideas more concrete and give students meaningful opportunities to use new vocabulary.
Sort and Compare Foods
Food pictures, play food, and empty food packages can be used for many different sorting activities. I like to begin with open-ended sorting and ask students to decide how the foods could be grouped. They might sort them by colour, where they come from, when they are eaten or how they are prepared.
As students explain their thinking, I can introduce other ways to sort and compare the foods. Depending on the grade and lesson, students might sort foods into the three categories shown on Canada’s Food Guide plate or compare foods that have been changed in different ways before we eat them. The important part is the conversation that happens as students explain why they placed each food where they did.
Explore Where Foods Come From
Students can explore whether foods come from plants or animals and where those foods are grown or produced. These conversations help them connect the food they see on a plate with farms, gardens, oceans and communities.
Include Local Foods and Foods from Different Cultures
Healthy eating lessons should reflect the variety of foods students see at home and in their communities. I include examples of local foods and foods from different cultures when we sort, discuss, and plan meals.
.png)
Learn About Whole and Processed Foods
Students can compare foods that are close to their original form with foods that have been changed before we eat them, such as an apple and applesauce or oats and cereal. They notice what has changed and learn that food can be processed in different ways.
Use Games to Practice Vocabulary and Concepts
Games give students another way to practise what they are learning. We use the food cards from the Health Heroes resources for matching, sorting, reading and movement activities.
One of my students’ favourites is Mingle. Each student receives a food card and moves around the room to find classmates whose foods belong in the same category. Once they have found their group, they sit together and explain what their foods have in common. It is a simple activity, but it gets everyone moving, talking and using the vocabulary from our healthy eating lessons. There are many other versions of Mingle you can play with the food cards.
Teach Healthy Eating Without Labelling Foods as Good or Bad
The language we use when teaching healthy eating matters. Rather than labelling foods as “good,” “bad,” “healthy” or “unhealthy,” we compare what foods provide, how they are prepared and how they fit into a varied diet.
This leaves room for culture, family traditions, availability and personal preferences. The goal is to help students become curious about food and make informed choices without judging what they or others eat.
Connect Food Choices to Water, Oral Health and Body Cues
Healthy eating lessons can go beyond the foods students see on a plate. We talk about why our bodies need water and how food and drink choices connect to caring for our teeth and bodies.
Students can also begin recognizing hunger, thirst and fullness cues. Simple conversations and scenarios help them notice how their bodies communicate what they need, while understanding that these signals may feel different for everyone.
Plan a Balanced Meal as a Culminating Activity
To finish our healthy eating unit, students look at their own lunches and identify foods from the three food groups. Next, they plan a balanced meal using grocery flyers or the food pictures included in the Health Heroes resource. They can choose familiar foods, foods from their culture or something new they would like to try.
This culminating healthy eating activity gives elementary students a practical way to apply what they have learned. I use the included rubric to assess their understanding of balanced meals, variety and the concepts covered throughout the unit.
Healthy Eating Resources for Grades 1–3
If you would like ready-to-teach materials for your healthy eating unit, the Health Heroes resources include the lesson plans, activities and assessment tools needed to teach the concepts covered in this post.
You can choose the option that best fits your teaching assignment:
- The Grade 1 and Grade 2 Health Heroes unit bundle includes 15 lessons, 30 worksheets, food pictures, posters, 10 games, a culminating task and a rubric.
- The Grade 2 and Grade 3 Health Heroes unit bundle covers the same range of materials, with lessons and activities designed for the older grades.
- The combined Grade 1–3 resource is designed for planning-time teachers, multi-grade classrooms or anyone who needs to address expectations across all three grades.
- The Healthy Eating Games resource adds 10 hands-on activities using food cards, sorting mats and recording sheets.
- For American teachers, the Health Heroes US MyPlate bundle addresses the US standards.
Extend the Learning with Media Literacy
Healthy eating can also connect naturally to media literacy. In my Cereal Box Media Literacy activity, students examine how packaging, words and images are used to attract consumers and influence food choices. It is a helpful follow-up if you teach both health and media literacy.
.png)
No comments