Direct Education

Eating Smart • Being Active is a healthy eating and active living curriculum designed to be taught to limited-resource adults. The lesson plans of Eating Smart • Being Active are appropriate for use by paraprofessional (peer) nutrition educators when teaching limited-resource adults about healthy lifestyle choices. The curriculum consists of nine core lessons, each designed to be taught in less than 2 hours. All participant materials are available in English and Spanish*. All lessons include a food preparation activity and lessons 2 through 9 include a physical activity segment. Eating Smart • Being Active can be used to teach adults 1-on-1 or in small groups (2-12 people). While the materials could be used in larger groups, adult learning principles guide us toward smaller groups to encourage greater participant involvement and enhanced learning.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

The curriculum consists of nine core lessons, which are designed to be taught in order.

The Eat Together, Eat Better lessons support nutrition, parent, and youth educators in teaching the importance of family meals. The lessons use a mix of interactive learning formats, including small-and large-group discussions, brainstorming, planning, and cooking activities. All of these activities create discussion, encourage problem solving, and develop skills to support family meals.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons can be taught as stand-alone lessons, but each session of the lesson must be taught (child, parent and family sessions).

Eat Smart, Live Strong is an intervention designed to improve fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity among 60-74 year olds participating in or eligible for FNS nutrition assistance programs. The intervention can support the efforts of program providers and communities in delivering nutrition education to low-income older adults. Each session in Eat Smart, Live Strong focuses on changing behavior by guiding participants in learning and practicing new skills.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Curriculum can be taught as a series or as stand-alone lessons.

Discover MyPlate is fun and inquiry-based nutrition education that fosters the development of healthy food choices and physically active lifestyles for children. Kindergarten teachers can meet education standards for Math, Science, English Language Arts, and Health using the 6 ready-to-go and interactive lessons. Children become food-smart as they practice counting, reading, writing, and more.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons are part of a series (not stand-alone lessons). Intended to be taught in 6 weeks or it can be taught over a course several months. Lesson may be extended based on supplemental activities from this curriculum.

Cooking Matters for Chefs and Kids is an easy-to-use guide that helps chefs, nutrition educators, and food service professionals provide hands-on instruction that will help kids develop a love of cooking and the skills to make healthy food choices wherever they go. Within the guide you will find a variety of resources to help you engage kids, including tips and advice for planning fun activities, materials lists and activity instructions, appealing and interactive recipes for kids, and fun handouts that supplement the lessons of each activity.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons can be taught as stand-alone lessons and can be implemented by anyone with culinary training in any community.

Healthy Classrooms, Healthy Schools helps teachers transform their classroom and school into environments promoting healthy eating and physical activity. This curriculum includes two sets of supplemental lessons, one for grades K-2 and one for grades 3-5. Healthy Classrooms, Healthy schools can also be ordered with companion books that have nutrition and physical activity themes tailored to individual grades, K-5.  The curriculum includes eight lessons incorporating 27 activities. FitBits^™ is a best practice resource component that gets students up out of their seats and moving while, at the same time, reinforcing nutrition and health concepts that are aligned with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, grade level National Health Standards, and USDA MyPlate. Another accompanying resource is Health Through Literacy, which is a book set of five to six books, age-appropriate for each grade K–5. Each set includes books with nutrition or physical activity themes.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Unit 1 must be taught first and the last lesson to be taught must be the last Unit. The Units in-between may be taught in any order (Per the Ensuring Success sections “beginning and Ending the Program” and “Completing the Units”). At least 6 lessons must be taught (including the first and last Unit). Fit Bits and Health Through Literacy are supportive materials/ resource and not lessons in and of themselves.

Discover which fruits and vegetables are sweetest, crunchiest, and juiciest through a series of investigations and fun experiences connecting the school garden to the classroom, school cafeteria, and home. This eleven-lesson curriculum for 3rd and 4th grades includes bulletin board materials, veggie dice, fruit and vegetable flash cards, and ten issues of Garden Detective News for parents/caregivers.   

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons are part of a series and taught in order. Curriculum flexibility based on garden type and size of garden.

First comes shopping, then comes putting food away — but where? You may be surprised to learn the best places to store your groceries! Here's a helpful guide from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

This handout focuses on the importance of washing hands and surfaces often.

This handout describes how to refrigerate food promptly and properly to reduce the risk of foodborne illness.

This handout reports the safe minimum internal temperatures for cooking food.

This handout series provides basic cooking information to use with families.

Without leaving the classroom, students participate in a variety of purposeful movement designed to get the wiggles out and refocus the classroom — all in five minutes or less. GoNoodle involves movement activities that develop memory and fluency in math, spelling, and vocabulary.

This colorful handout developed by the Indian Health Service shows balanced meals with reasonable portion sizes. This tool shows three easy steps to knowing what and how much to eat. The front features a dinner plate. The back shows youth breakfast, lunch, and optional dinner plates. Based on the USDA MyPlate and designed for Native audiences.