Health Wealth Kids, Nutrients, and Health

Publication Number 348-654, May 1996

Table of Contents

Objectives	Comparing Children and Family Members
Body Parts and Nutrients	Risks
Risks: Health Wealth	Creative Play

In this series, the developmental skills in the preschool years are divided into three general levels:

3 years = naming & identifying.
3-5 years = sorting & classifying.
4-6 years = ordering, sequencing, & comprehension.

Objectives

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Comparing Children and Family Members

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Heart

3 yrs.

• Name things with hearts.
• Where is your heart? Pin a heart picture on your chest.
• What does the heart look like?
• Look at chicken or other animal hearts.

3-5 yrs.

• What does the heart do? (pumps blood to all parts of the body--eyes, skin, bones, teeth).
• Why does the doctor place the stethoscope on your chest?
• When you cut yourself, where do you bleed--leg, foot, fingers?

4-6 yrs.

• People with "low blood" iron levels are anemic. They do not have much energy. They feel tired. They need foods high in iron to build blood. Name foods and food groups with iron.

Skin

Vitamin C foods work with other nutrients to help build skin. Scaly skin is dried by too much sun, harsh treatment, or soaking in water. Cuts and bruises need Vitamin C to repair and build new skin.

3 years

• Name parts of the body with skin.
• How do body lotions and bandaids protect skin?
• Experiment with lotions, oils, and sunscreen.
• What can you do to prevent blisters, dry skin, skin cancer from too much sun? (sunscreen, hat, and shoulder covering)

3-5 yrs.

• Compare skin shades and complexions of family members, of children.
• Do you have skin like your parents? different color?

4-6 yrs.

• Describe hands before and after washing dishes, before and after scrubbing floors and tables, before and after indoor and outdoor activities.

Teeth

3 yrs

• Name things with teeth and tell what teeth do (bite, chew/grind).
• Make teeth brushing rhymes. Brush, brush, brush your teeth, up, down, back, and forth.
• When do baby teeth appear? When do you lose baby teeth?
• Which part of the tooth do you brush?

4-6 yrs.

• Have dentist or dental hygienist talk about which teeth are for biting. --for grinding.

Bones

3 yrs.

• Name body parts with big bones (arms, legs); with small bones (fingers, toes).
• Use a Halloween skeleton to sing--"Your foot bone is connected to your leg bone...."

3-5 yrs.

• Look at bones from meat, fish, and poultry (outside and inside the bone).
• Which bones are hard, soft? small, big? Why?

4-6 yrs.

• Tell about people with broken bones.
• Why did the bone break?
• How did they take care of the broken bone?

Eyes

Vitamin A helps the eye to adjust quickly to bright lights so it is easy to see in the dark. Many people need glasses for reasons unrelated to nutrition.

3 yrs.

• Name eyes and what they do.
• Where are your eyes?
• What do eyes do?

3-5 yrs.

When you go from bright areas (sunshine, lights, bright snow) to dark areas (movie theater, dark road), it is difficult to see.

• Can you see in the dark?
• Do eyes adapt?

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Risks: Health Wealth

Foods and nutrients providing energy are protein, fat, and carbohydrate (sugar and starch). Fat contains more than twice the energy of protein, starch, or sugar. Exercise burns energy to help maintain weight. Exercise also keeps you fit by keeping the heart and bones healthy.

3-5 yrs.

Everyone needs some food fat every day. Many people are trying to cut down on the amount of fat in the food they eat because of heart problems. Which iron foods are high in fat? How can you tell a fatty food?

• Name unhealthy fat foods.
• Use the Fat Test in Virginia Cooperative Extension Publication 348-652, Cart Smart, to find fat foods.
• Which iron foods are high in fat?
• How can you tell a fatty food?

Heart health energy

3 years

• Name ways the body uses energy.
• Name exercises and activities for younger or older people; for reclining, sitting, walking; for outdoors, indoors; for leg or arm exercises.
• Feel pulses.

3-5 years

• When does the heart beat fast and use lots of energy? (running, jumping)
• When does the heart beat slow and use little energy? (sleeping, sitting).
• Compare heart beat, pulse rate, and breathing rate for yourself and your family.
• Heart Parade Exercise (fast run/skip/jump).
  "I'm a little heart that pumps and pumps
  I go fast when I jump and jump (substitute activities)
  When I eat my iron rich food
  It puts me in a really good mood!"

4-6 years

• Use a stethoscope to listen to the heart pump blood.
• Let children put their ears to partner's chest to listen to heartbeat.
• Place hand on own heart to feel beat after vigorous exercise.
• Classify foods or nutrients advertised on TV and in magazine ads and in stories for energy; for healthy hearts.
• Are children in TV using a lot or a little energy? adults? grandparents?
• Are they pictured eating a balanced diet--iron? fat?
• When you watch TV, are you using a lot or a little energy?

Respect differences. We are all different. Begin by noting physical attributes: taller, shorter; bigger, smaller; heavier, lighter.

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Creative Play

(See Virginia Cooperative Extension Publication 348-008, Kids, Foods, and Television).

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