There are some simple, easy resources to teach your little one about the 5 food groups! I struggled at first to come up with some ideas- but I think I have come up with a well-rounded list:

1. see ’em. Why not see where the fruits and vegetables come from by visiting a garden? It will make a lot more sense when trying to explain that vegetables grow in the ground and fruit grows in the trees if they have seen it with their own two eyes.
2. serve ’em. Make sure, if possible, that you have a variety of foods (in the food group you are learning about) available at home for your little one to try. Eating food can be just the ticket to make the food groups fun!
3. read about ’em. There are tons of great books out there that will teach your kiddos about the food groups and proper nutrition.
4. sing ’em. There are a couple sites with some food group songs: Food Guide Pyramid and CanTeach
5. wear ’em. I am not talking about a food fight. How fun would it be to have 6 little kiddos wearing paper bag vests filled with a variety of foods from the food group (cut from grocery ads) that they glued themselves? Or have one kid be the veggies, one be the fruit,etc. Just an idea!
6. sort ’em. Take out your plastic food and put them to use by doing a food sort. I used these cards and they worked great (see the do it yourself section down below to download). If you don’t have plastic foods, just print pics of the foods or download a second set of cards to match.

Here are the sorting cards for the food groups from this great site. They have some great downloads.

There are some food pyramid coloring sheets from the Produce for Better Health Foundation. There are some arts and crafts ideas using the food groups from Everything Preschool. Check out the nutrition page on our site’s wiki for more ideas!