Grow It, Try, Like It! is a nutrition education kit Featuring MyPlate is a garden-themed nutrition education kit for child care center staff that introduces children to: three fruits - peaches, strawberries, and cantaloupe; and three vegetables - spinach, sweet potatoes, and crookneck squash. The kit includes seven booklets featuring fruits and vegetables with fun activities through the imaginary garden at Tasty Acres Farm! It also has a CD-ROM with Supplemental Information and a DVD with Cool Puppy Pup's Picnic and Lunch Parties. Each set of lessons contains: hands-on activities, planting activities, and nutrition education activities that introduce MyPlate. Use the kit to promote learning at home with fun parent/child activities and family-sized recipes that give tips for cooking with children.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

The booklets are designed to be taught in sequential order and follow a Day 1 to Day 5 Planning Chart. Booklets may be taught in any order or individually, following the lesson order within each booklet.

USDA recently revised the CACFP meal patterns to ensure children and adults have access to healthy, balanced meals throughout the day. Under the new child and adult meal patterns, meals served will include a greater variety of vegetables and fruit, more whole grains, and less added sugar and saturated fat. The changes made to the meal patterns are based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, scientific recommendations from the National Academy of Medicine, and stakeholder input. CACFP centers and day care homes must comply with the new meal patterns by October 1, 2017.

The new CACFP meal patterns lay the foundation for a healthy eating pattern for children and adults in care. USDA also developed optional best practices that build on the meal patterns and highlight areas where centers and day care homes may take additional steps to further improve the nutritional quality of the meals they serve. The best practices reflect recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the National Academy of Medicine to further help increase participants’ consumption of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, and reduce the consumption of added sugars and saturated fats. Best Practices are optional and not required for meal reimbursement.

This guide is intended to help early care and learning professionals and their programs, including center based, family child care, Head Start and public preschools, successfully implement Family Style Dining practices. This guide focuses on serving meals family style with toddlers and preschoolers, though afterschool programs may adopt these practices as well.

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.

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

Use this log to determine how much time you are spending in front of a screen.

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.

This handout highlights the proper cooking temperatures for food.