The Tikkun Project
Lesson
7
Is a Healthy Plate the Same for Everyone?
Concept
A healthy plate that works for me might not work for someone else -- real care means learning what "healthy and helpful" actually looks like for a specific person or group.
Focus Question
What makes a healthy plate for me? Is a healthy plate for me the same as a healthy plate for everyone?
Knowledge & Understanding Goals
Kindergarten Program (2016), Self-Regulation and Well-Being frame, Overall Expectation 6: Demonstrate an awareness of their own health and well-being.
Kindergarten Program (2016), Belonging and Contributing frame -- recognizing people, places, and services in the community and how they help meet our needs.
Thinking & Learning Skills
Thinking Skills (Perspective-Taking): Comparing a personal standard against someone else's real, different constraints.
Research Skills (Data Collection): Listening to a guest expert to gather factual information.
Learner Profile Connection (Open-Minded): Students learn "healthy" and "helpful" can look different for different people.
Context
Builds on Lesson 5 and follows directly from Lesson 6's Maddi's Fridge discussion. Two connected halves: students build and compare their own healthy plate, then a real guest expert shows them a genuinely healthy, helpful plate looks different depending on who it's for.
Lesson Outline
MAKING OUR OWN HEALTHY PLATE
Give each student a paper plate and healthy-eating criteria:
variety
nutritious choices
balance
water as the drink of choice.
Students draw, collage, or use playdough to build a meal they'd personally enjoy and meets our criteria for a healthy eating.
COMPARING OUR PLATES
In small groups: Is this a healthy meal? Could everyone in the group eat it? Who would enjoy it, who wouldn't?
MEETING AN EXPERT
Introduce a guest speaker from an organization supporting people experiencing homelessness. Their clients have real, specific needs: many prefer soft foods; the organization can't accept common allergens; food must be easy to carry and store (no ice cream, because it melts).
SORTING FOR THE ORGANIZATION'S CLIENTS
In small groups, students try to build one shared meal meeting all criteria for a healthy meal for the clients of the organization. Groups present and explain reasoning; the guest responds.
CONNECTING THE TWO HALVES
Ask: How are the meals we created for ourselves similar, or different from, what's genuinely helpful for this organization's clients?
Notes for Teaching and Evaluation
Introducing the guest only after students build and compare their own plates means the expert's information provides an opportunity to see how students' thinking can change in response to new information.