Health: Implementing the Nutritional Pyramid into Your Home School Plan
By Mimi Rothschild
As a home school parent, you are in a unique position to monitor the health and well-being of your child. Home school allows you to make sure that your children are developing sound eating routines, are getting regular and appropriate exercise, and are developing healthy habits, like drinking plenty of water. Not only will this help keep your child at an optimum weight, it will also protect your child from disease and sickness throughout his or her life. Eating right is by far the most important aspect of staying healthy. Fortunately, the USDA has published guidelines that you can work into your home school curriculum that can help keep your entire family healthy.
The USDA Food Pyramid emphasizes whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, and adds a smaller amount of dairy, protein, and fats to round out a healthy diet. You can start doing your home school child and the rest of your family a favor by preparing meals that follow the USDA guidelines. The USDA recommends 6 to 11 servings of whole grain, 3 to 5 servings of vegetables, 2 to 4 servings of fruit, 2 to 4 servings of dairy, 2 to 3 servings of protein, and to use extra fat sparingly. One source of confusion for a home school family that could arise is over the issue of servings. The serving size on the back of the box is not necessarily what the USDA means by "serving size". For example, one piece of whole grain bread is one serving of grains, while a serving of veggies is ½ cup chopped. A serving of fruit is ½ cup chopped fruit or one medium sized apple, banana, or orange. As you can see, portion sizes are generally a little smaller than advertised on the packaging. This portioning out of food can make for great lessons for your home school curriculum when your child is learning about fractions and measurements.
Another thing you can do to help implement this into your home school life is through your curriculum. Even the youngest child is old enough to understand that what we eat has real physical consequences. As your child gets older, you can work more complex items into their home school curriculum, tying in health as well as biology and sociology. You can also make learning to prepare meals according to the USDA Food Pyramid a part of their home school curriculum once your children are old enough to prepare food either by themselves or under your supervision.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mimi Rothschild is a homeschooling parent, children's rights activist, author, and Founder and C.E.O. of online education company Learning by Grace, Inc. Rothschild and her husband of twenty-eight years reside in suburban Philadelphia with their eight children.
Feeling that “our current system of education has broken its promise,” Rothschild co-founded Learning By Grace, Inc. to provide families with Internet-based multimedia education to PreK-12 children all over the world.
In addition to her twenty years of experience as a homeschool mother, Rothschild has written a number of books dealing with education published by McGraw Hill and others. Her Home Education Websites Blog consists of helpful online content and activities for Christian homeschooling families.
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