Nutrition Word Sorts!

Here's one I've had sitting in my draft folder since August 25th! Sheesh!

Studying to be a Reading Specialist has a LOT of perks, not the least of which is a whole new bank of ideas for activities!

To introduce the beginning nutrition unit in my foods class, I created a "Word Sort" activity. First, I assigned groups by having them draw colored plastic Easter eggs (LOVE these things!). Since the regular classroom area only has individual desks, I wanted them to work on this task in the kitchens where they would have a large counter space. Also, getting everyone to stand up would get those kinesthetic associations firing. The color of the eggs they drew determined which kitchen they would work in.

Each group was given an envelope with 19 nutrition-related words. They were told they had to decide as a group how those words should be arranged. I told them that there was no right or wrong in this activity, they just had to be able to explain to me why they did what they did.

Then I walked around so that I could listen to them discussing how to organize the words, which gave me a TON of insight into not only their background knowledge on the topic, but also into each students' cognitive abilities and ways of reasoning (massively important in August, am I right?). Also gave me a great idea of what the working in groups dynamic would be like with this class.

Here they are in action:

Yeah, I know the disembodied arms and hands are a little creepy. When they were satisfied with their arrangements, I told them that I would visit each group and they would need to explain to me the choices they made. Again, I emphasized that there was no "right" or "wrong" in this scenario, we're just trying to figure out what might make sense based on what we already know. I gave them a little time to decide which group member was going to say what to me before I went over. Here's what they came up with in this class:

Pretty interesting results! They all had intelligent explanations for the majority of their choices, which revealed quite a bit to me about what they were bringing into the class with them.

When I had talked with each group, I had them rotate around to look at how other groups had chosen to organize the words. This led to some even deeper conversation, peppered by statements like "Oh, I see what they did there!" or "Why didn't we think of that?" or "I like what they did with these words over here, but ours was better with these words" etc.

I was really happy with this activity as a jumpstarter for learning about nutrition, and the kids seemed to really enjoy it as well. Everyone has some knowledge about at least a few of these words, so it was an activity that everyone could contribute to, rather than just one or two people dominating the conversation. Taking away "right" and "wrong" definitely took the pressure off of them to do it RIGHT, so they could take risks. The dialogue helped me to get a really nice picture of my students as learners as well as their social skills. And, the metacognitive task of having to explain their thinking to their group members and then to me got those brains fired up and ready to go!