The ABCs of Nutrition: How to Introduce Healthy Eating to Preschoolers

Good health and nutritional habits develop when we’re young. Preschool is a great time to introduce the concepts of healthy lifestyles and foods to children. 

However, how you teach preschoolers healthy eating is much different from how you’d teach adults. You don’t need to have the children memorize the specific nutrients in foods, but you can teach them about the impacts of eating healthy and how foods like protein help them build strong muscles so they can run faster. 

If you’re an ECE or Montessori teacher planning to introduce healthy eating modules for your preschool-aged classroom, here are some tips to make it age-appropriate, informative, and fun. 

Nutrition learning for children needs to be age-appropriate and fun. They likely don’t care what specific vitamins and minerals are in a glass of milk but will understand that milk helps them grow strong bones so they don’t break as easily on the playground. 

Here are six ways you can teach preschoolers about healthy eating and nutrition:

1. Storytelling with food-themed books

Children love storytime! They’re more likely to be engaged and excited about learning when they can associate healthy eating and food with their favourite storybook characters and stories. 

Choose colourful picture books with a food or nutrition focus. After reading the book, engage students by asking them about the foods in the book. Consider bringing in foods from the book for snack time for everyone to enjoy.  

2. Interactive games

Get creative with ways to play interactive games involving foods. Hand-on or group games are usually fun for preschoolers. 

Here are some ideas for games you can play to teach your preschoolers about healthy eating:

• Food Sorting: Bring in play food (or pictures of food) and have students sort them into categories like (fruits vs vegetables, food groups, or foods they’ve tried before vs new foods). 
• Rainbow Foods: Have students choose vegetables “from the rainbow” of different colours. 
• Healthy vs. Unhealthy: Have students identify nutritious and unhealthy foods from pictures.

3. Cooking class

Bring some simple, healthy recipes you can make with your kids. Good recipes include fruit salads, sandwiches, vegetables and dips, and smoothies. 

Depending on the recipe’s complexity, you can have students get hands-on to help cook, or you can demonstrate and have students identify ingredients. You could present them with two ingredient options for the recipe and have the children choose the healthier option. 

You can also do a taste exploration activity with your students. Bring in a variety of foods for them to taste test. One fun idea for Fall is to bring different apple varieties and have students taste test each to pick their favourite. 

Be sure to print the recipes for kids to bring home because they’ll want to make them with their families. Encourage their kids to “teach” their parents the recipe. 

4. Tending a classroom garden

Bring in some easy-to-care-for vegetables or herbs to grow in your classroom. You can teach the students how food grows, and they can take turns watering and caring for them. 

Include caring for the plants in your student chore charts so everyone can help. Then, when they’re ready to eat, you can show students how to harvest and eat them as a school snack. 

5. Nutrition-themed art 

How can you turn food nutrition into art projects for your students? Here are a few ideas:

• Collages: Have children cut pictures of healthy foods from magazines and paste them on boards in categories or other creative ways. 
• Food plates: Teach children about balanced meals. Bring paper plates and ask children to draw foods from every group on their plates. 
• Stamping: Cut fruits and vegetables, have students dip them in paint, and stamp them on paper. As you use each vegetable, talk to the students about its health benefits.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

6. Pretend play

Through pretend play, children can interact with foods in many ways while being creative. Pretend play allows children to learn about healthy food options and practice being healthy eaters or emulating the behaviour of adults with healthy eating habits. 

Here are some games you can encourage your children to play:

• Grocery Store: Set up a grocery store with different foods. Encourage children to purchase healthy foods. You can also use this opportunity to teach children about money by assigning values to each food item (with healthy foods being cheaper).
• Restaurant: Give students opportunities to pretend to be guests, servers, and cooks at healthy-food restaurants. Discuss their food choices and what makes them healthy choices. 
• Cooking shows: Have children pretend to be a celebrity chef and host a cooking show. They can show their peers how to prepare healthy snacks and foods they enjoy at home with their family. Encourage creativity and enthusiasm.