What Are Your Kids Drinking?

The lessons in this unit help kids to understand that food is fuel. Food is what you eat and drink to give your body energy to move and think. Rather than classifying foods as good or bad, encourage children to stop and think, then choose the best fuel (i.e., foods that supply nutrition and energy).

You can extend a lesson with videos from the fit video series, What Food Does for Your Body. Each video highlights a food group or category and serves as a great resource to introduce or review the benefits of eating a variety of foods. See the Extend the Lesson section of this page for a list of videos. 

For more information on nutritious eating, go to MyPlate.gov.

Check in about the children’s Healthy Food Hunt assignment from the last lesson. What nutritious foods did they find? Ask students if they can name a nutritious beverage (water or milk). If kids bring up sports drinks or flavored water, let them know that these are  okay once in a while. However, water and milk provides more of the nutrients your body needs.

Ask children, “What does it feel like to be thirsty?” Work together to describe thirst (scratchy, dry throat; hot; hard to swallow, etc.). Then talk about what it feels like to quench that thirst with water! 

Post the Hydration Posters to encourage kids to drink water.

To use this with your students click here.

Learn About Different Kinds of Milk

Milk can be made from soy, rice, or nuts, such as almonds. Poll your students to learn what kinds of milk they drink.

What Is a Nutritious Beverage?

Explain that milk and water are nutritious beverage choices that power the body and brain. Water is the best choice to quench thirst and milk has a lot of nutrients your body needs. Let kids know that juice is tricky—it often contains a lot of sugar. Juice is okay once in a while, by you get more nutrients when you drink water and eat whole fruit.

Check for understanding: What healthy choice can you make when you are thirsty?

Make Nutritious Beverage Choices

Challenge students to think of their bodies as rockets. Ask them what they will choose as their fuel to drink with their next meal? What about with their next snack?

Over the next few days, make it a point to celebrate water as nourishment and a thirst-quenching beverage choice. If you don’t have a good system for allowing students to drink water when they are thirsty while they are in your classroom, work with your students to establish one (e.g., keeping reusable water bottles in cubbies, noting good times of day to visit the water fountain, etc.).