Healthy Foods Versus Unhealthy Foods Lesson Plan 

 
EASTERN UNIVERSITY 
 
Name: Luis Arauz   
Content Area: ​Health, Safety, and Physical Education 
Grade Level 2nd grade 
Duration of Time: 30 minutes  
Subject/Lesson Topic: Nutrition 
 
I.  
Lesson Overview: Brief description of the lesson and what you are planning on 
doing and why. Specifically, name the teaching method(s) and strategies used 
in the lesson.   
 
- A vital content area of nutrition is learning about what types of food are healthy 
and which ones are not; this subject comes naturally to preschoolers because they 
are familiar with it. 2nd graders have heard terms such as healthy food and junk 
food already, but have not developed a better understanding of what they mean 
and how it affects their everyday lives. The teaching will encourage divergent 
thinking based on how the teacher will instruct students and use partners for 
cooperative learning, giving students the necessary materials to enhance their 
comprehension and understanding of healthy and unhealthy foods.  
 
II.  
Instructional Objectives/Learning Targets: The objective(s) need to be aligned 
with the standard(s). Write as a behavioral objective. 
 
Concepts and Competencies for all students: 
 
● Differentiate between healthy and unhealthy food.  
● Explain what makes food nutritious/healthy.  
 
III.  
Grade Level Common Core and PA State Standards: Use the numerical code and the 
standard description. Use bullet points if you need to be more specific.  
Big Ideas: Core Concepts, principles, theories, and the processes that are the 
focal point of instruction and assessment.   
 
PA STATE STANDARD: 10.1.2.C1- Identify foods and the roles they have in 
keeping our bodies healthy 
 
CORE CONCEPTS 
 
● Identify healthy and unhealthy foods 
● Explain how food provides fuel and energy for the body
● Provide examples of healthy meals
● Design a meal using foods from several groups
● Classify foods by their groups  
● Make healthier choices  

 
PRINCIPLES:  
● Understand, apply, and transfer knowledge  
● Relate healthy foods 
 
 
Theory 
● Constructivism, constructing new ideas based on students prior knowledge 
and experience with healthy food and junk food.  
 
FOCAL POINTS  
● We are learning how what we choose to eat affects our body positively or 
negatively. Understanding and comprehending what makes a particular food 
unhealthy is sugar, salt, and or fat.  
● How we can identify what food we should be eating and what we should shy 
away from.  
 
 
Instruction and assessment 
● Transparent, prompt questioning keeps students engaged with specific 
terminology and how aware they are with terms related to healthy and 
unhealthy foods. Students will be able to determine whether food is healthy 
and full of nutrients or bad for them. 
 ● Assessment, students are to independently draw a picture of a meal that 
includes three healthy foods. Providing all three will allow me to check for 
comprehension.   
 
IV.  
Vocabulary: 
 
Essential Vocabulary for all students 
● Nutrients  
● Processed  
● Preservatives  
 
V.  
Materials/Resources: List all of the materials needed for the lesson​.  
● Slides containing the following five junk foods: Cheeseburgers, ice cream, 
potato chips, pizza, soda.  
 
VI.  
Classroom arrangement: Describe the setting. 
 
● The classroom will be set up for pairs to collaborate for the activity part of 
the lesson.  
● The classroom area will have enough space for students to find a place to 
work around the room.  
● Slides will be ready beforehand to instruct the students.  
● The teacher will ensure that unrelated materials are not present and near to 
avoid any distractions. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
VII.  
Instructional Process: Break down into each section. All sections can be 
bullet-pointed with complete sentences that give detailed steps for teaching 
the lesson so that someone else could pick it up and show it.  
 
Minutes:​ 30 
Lesson Introduction:  
● The teacher will invite students to share their typical diet. Asking them 
what they think would happen if they did not eat for a whole day.  
● Questioning students, “how would you feel?” “What would your energy levels 
be?”  
● The teacher will explain to students that their bodies are like machines that 
need fuel to run. The teacher will state that “our energy comes from the 
food we eat, and some food is better for us than others.” 
 
 
Instruction: 
● The teacher will instruct students to raise their hands if they know what 
“nutrients” are.  
● The teacher will explain that nutrients are the things in food that are 
healthy for bodies and help them grow.  
● The teacher will ask students to stand if they have heard words such as 
vitamins, proteins, or minerals. The teacher will relate this with healthy 
foods and explain how healthy food has these things that are called 
nutrients that come from vitamins, proteins, or minerals.  
● The teacher will state that healthy food is the best fuel for bodies because 
it is full of nutrients.  
● The teacher will ask students if anyone knows any foods that probably have 
a lot of nutrients? The teacher will ask students if anyone can think of a 
type of food that might have almost no nutrients? If they can’t think of any 
food for either category, the teacher will provide examples of both.  
● The teacher will then tell students how to find ways to determine whether 
food is healthy and full of nutrients or bad for them. - “healthy foods with 
most nutrients are natural, growing from a tree or out of the group. We do 
not add much to healthy foods because we want to keep their nutrients. On 
the other hand, unhealthy food is combined with a lot of unnatural 
ingredients that lose nutrients. Unhealthy foods contain lots of sugar, salt, 
and fat. Unhealthy food is usually not natural. 
Before the teacher goes next to the activity, the teacher will sum up to the 
students that healthy food gives us the energy we need to make us feel good, but 
unhealthy food makes us feel bad. It can make us tired and sick because our body 
does not want it. The teacher will ask the students what food has ever made them 
feel bad.  
  
 
Activity: 
The teacher will check for understanding with a brief exercise: the students 
will be asked to stand next to their desks. The teacher will explain that he/she will 
give a list of foods that they will decide if each food is healthy. If they think the 
food is not, they will run in place like it is giving them energy. If the food is 
unhealthy, they will pretend to fall asleep. The teacher will make sure that 
students have enough space around them before beginning. The list foods are 
Apples, grilled chicken, grilled cheeseburger, french fries, turkey sandwiches, 
candy, yogurt, cookies, chocolate, salads.  
The teacher will now split students into predetermined pairs and help them 
find a place to work. The teacher will present five unhealthy foods. With their 
partners, they will have to tell what exactly makes that food unhealthy (greasy, 
salty, sugary, fatty) and what healthy food it could be replaced with. The teacher 
should then instruct students to try to make the healthy food similar to the 
unhealthy food (e.g., a grilled chicken sandwich to replace the cheeseburger) 
The teacher will write the questions they are answering on the board. The 
teacher will display the photos one at a time and give students 2-3 minutes to 
discuss each. This should take no more than 10 minutes to complete. The teacher 
will then call on students to share their thinking for each food with the class. The 
teacher will then instruct the students to come back together as a group on the 
carpet and talk about the activity.  
The teacher will prompt questions and ask what strategies they used to 
succeed. Ex. “What are some clues that food is unhealthy? How did you and your 
partner decide what healthy food to replace it with? The teacher will give students 
feedback and tips for eating healthy such as, drinking more water, eating more 
fruits and vegetables, and eating snacks that do not have too much salt or sugar 
and to help their friends and family eat more healthy foods.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
(assessment part)  
- Following the lesson, the students will independently draw a picture of a meal 
that includes three healthy foods. If they provide the teacher will three healthy 
foods, then a teacher can reassure their comprehension. If they placed unhealthy 
food and considered it healthy, then they did not fully understand the concept. 
The teacher will conference with any students that seem confused.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Introduction/Anticipatory Set: 
State behavioral and academic expectations. 
 
● Student-focused encouraging collaboration amongst peers to resolve 
situations that are relatable to their lives, engaging in sharing ideas, 
communicating in an indoor voice, seeking solutions to complete the prompt 
questions as a class,  
● And then be assessed on their comprehension of healthy vs. unhealthy meals.  
● Engage students, encourage initiatives by asking questions, getting them to 
participate, and use active learning, giving them an important topic that 
every student can relate to.  
● Engaging students by allowing them to pair up with other students and giving 
them the materials they need to be successful in completing this nutrition 
lesson.  
 
 
Developmental Activities: Step by step activities that will help students meet 
objectives 
 
- The activity is step by step; time limited to 30 minutes, ensuring that 
students are given adequate time to engage with the topic in a fun and creative 
way. The teacher has given enough activities and prompt questions to enhance their 
thinking, understand to meet the necessary concepts and objectives that are 
assembled for 2nd graders.  
 
 
Closure: Should wrap up the lesson and assess students' learning. Match with 
Assessments. 
 
- They end the lesson with an assessment independently, drawing a picture 
of a meal that includes three healthy foods. The teachers should receive these 
pictures and check for comprehension. After the evaluation is finished, the 
teacher closes up the topic by giving them tips for eating healthy. These include 
drinking plenty of water, eating fruits and vegetables, eating snacks that are not 
high on salt and sugar, and encouraging friends and family to eat healthily.  
 
 
 
VIII.  
 
Management Plan: How will you modify this lesson if necessary?  
 
Modification, this lesson by pairing students with learning disabilities with reliable 
kind partners, providing them with some sentence stems for answering the 
questions.  
Ex, I can tell this food is unhealthy because…  
Healthy food to eat instead is... 
Another could be to place vocabulary words on the whiteboard with a clear 
definition. Students will be able to work in pairs with materials and resources in 
front of them. The entire lesson has minimal movement (for example, they do not 
have to travel to another location in the building. The handout will be projected, 
and the visuals will be planned. Objectives and tasks can be written down on the 
whiteboard or poster. Pairing international students with English speaker students 
to enhance their learning by visually seeing other students work on the lesson. The 
pairing will also work for disabled children that cannot move around as mu 
 
Universal Design for Learning: Multiple means to represent the material, 
teacher expression, and student engagement.   
 
Allowing students to continue the conversation about healthy and unhealthy foods, 
the teacher can ask students to keep a log of the food they eat for a whole week 
(a graphic organizer can be provided to them). The teacher will instruct students 
to either draw or write what they ate at every meal. At the end of the week, the 
class can meet up to discuss the findings. The teacher will ask students: What food 
gave you the most energy/made you feel the best? What food made you feel bad? 
Are there any foods that you are going to eat more or less of after this? The 
teacher can explain that the goal is not to eliminate unhealthy foods from their 
diets already. Instead, the point is to cut back on foods that aren’t healthy and 
replace them with healthy foods whenever they have the option. The teacher can 
pose questions to the students before and during the experience to ensure that all 
students with different learning ranges are benefiting and understanding what 
they should be doing and how they will be doing it. The classroom arrangement will 
set up the learners to success because it is in a space where discussion can happen 
with fewer distractions, so interaction and discussion can come naturally instead of 
forcefully. If students decide that they do not want to work with a partner, the 
teacher will allow them to work independently for the entire activity. 
 
Two Classroom Management Issues Present: List two possible classroom 
management issues. For each issue, suggest two proactive solutions before the 
issue occurs and one reactive solution if it happens to escalate.  
 
1. The issue, students are confused about what food is considered healthy and 
what is not.  
* Solution: The teacher will prompt three sets of foods the class eats 
mostly (ex. lunch food) on the whiteboard and explain the difference between all 
three in detail, allowing students to make connections.  
 
2. The issue, students, are sidetracked from other things that are outside the 
objectives of the lesson  
*Solution, the teacher can pause the lesson, regain their attention, switch up 
partners, work as a class instead of the remainder of the lesson.  
 
IX.  
Formative/Summative Assessment: How will you know that you met the 
objectives and that students understand the lesson? 
 
For Summative, a student's mastery of a topic will be determined by the lesson 
introduction, instruction part, activity, and closure of the lesson. Students will be 
asked to draw a picture of a meal that includes three healthy foods. If they do 
this correctly, that comprehension will be assessed, but if they draw food that is 
not healthy and consider it healthy, they mean that they did not fully understand. 
Further communication will help students that seemed confused.  
 
Potential barriers to access instruction and learning: What stands in how a 
student can learn effectively? 
 
Some potential berries to access instruction and learning are if we cannot print out 
the handouts and short on materials. We can transition into using a poster or 
whiteboard and have pairs come up with answers or visuals to similar or different 
questions. Another one can be that students do not know and are confused 
throughout the whole lesson. Being sidetracked with other unrelated topics or 
things can be another potential barrier that will negatively impact objectives and 
learning.