RI HOPE Collaborative
Curriculum Resources
Preschool/
Lower elementary
Grow It, Try It, Like It! Nutrition Education Kit is a garden-themed nutrition education kit for child care center staff that introduces children to: three fruits (peaches, strawberries, and cantaloupe), and three vegetables (spinach, sweet potatoes, and crookneck squash).
The kit includes seven booklets featuring fruits and vegetables with fun activities through the imaginary garden at Tasty Acres Farm! It also has a CD-ROM with supplemental information and a DVD with Cool Puppy Pup's picnic and lunch parties. Each set of lessons contains: hands-on activities, planting activities, and nutrition education activities.
Use the kit to promote learning at home with fun parent/child activities and family-sized recipes that give tips for cooking with children.
Cost: Free
At Kid Food Explorers, they flip the script on food education. Instead of telling kids what to eat, we teach them how to explore—so they build confidence in their choices and trust in their bodies, without pressure, guilt, or fear. Because when kids feel safe at the table, they don’t just eat better. They think better. They connect better. They grow better. This website provides a range of books and free or low-cost activities that can be a great fit for classroom activities. Books and activities may be used in individual classrooms, if a school is looking for a larger order or license to use across a school system, please contact author and creator, Dani Lebovitz MS, RDN through the website.
Cost: Free/Low-cost individual book orders/Contact for larger licenses to use at school district
Each curriculum includes 8 to 9 brief, flexible, interdisciplinary, and developmentally appropriate lessons designed to make nutrition education fun and relevant (see lesson highlights). Lessons can be taught by health teachers, classroom teachers, or school nurses. Lessons focus on fruits and vegetables, supporting children in fun and engaging ways to learn how our produce grows, how they fit into MyPlate balanced eating pattern, and support pressure-free experiences to touch, smell, taste, and play with new foods.
Cost: Free
Written by 2 Registered Dietitians, Anna Lutz and Katherine Zavodni, who specialize in eating disorders, this teacher workbook has the tools to teach nutrition to preschool and elementary-aged students in a developmentally appropriate way.
The workbook includes how to use cognitive development theories and apply them specifically to nutrition education to inform nutrition education for preschool and elementary-aged students. Teachers, parents, and nutritional professionals can learn and consider the research about the potential harm of teaching nutrition to young children in a developmentally inappropriate and weight-centric way. The workbook includes an educator self-assessment to help the educator consider their own beliefs about food and bodies. A nutrition education framework is outlined with suggestions for implementing protective nutrition education on an environmental level within the school. Students' cognitive developmental stages are outlined and investigated at the preschool, lower elementary, and upper elementary school levels, with corresponding lesson plans for each level. The workbook include nutrition lesson plans!
Cost: $59 per Workbook/** Workbook is for use by 1 purchaser. If you represent a preschool, school or school district and would like to inquire about multiple licenses, please email us at hello@sunnysideupnutrition.com Please do not share workbook without permission.
When children believe that they have worth no matter their appearance and that their bodies allow them to do amazing things, they are better able to combat social pressures and harmful comments as they grow up. To meet this goal and inspired by the eating disorder recovery of one of their own members, the Chariho Youth Tast Force wrote, illustrated, and published a children’s book titled Every Body is Beautiful, an original children’s book. Paired with a facilitator guide to support teachers in creating a culture of body positivity in their classroom, as well as interactive color and writing handout for children to complete and bring home to family.
Cost: $9.99 for the Every Body is Beautiful Book, free facilitator guide and downloadable handout. For larger orders or licensing for a school system, please contact creators directly for fair compensation for their work info@wellbeingcollab.org
Upper elementary/
Middle School
This program from URI highlights nutrition in action as students dive deeper into the science of fruits and vegetables. Through this 8-part lesson plan, students are supported in expanding on the fruits and vegetables they enjoy and engage students and families in school nutrition menus and recipes.
Cost: Free
Explore a world of possibilities in the garden and on your plate using ten inquiry-based lessons that engage students in growing, harvesting, tasting, and learning about fruits and vegetables. A parent booklet and poster set are also available. RI HOPE Collaborative specifically recommends the following lessons from this program to best meet the goals of health behaviors in a developmentally appropriate and inclusive way:
Dig-In! The World of Edible Plants
Dig-In! Healthy From the Ground Up Lesson
​
Cost: Free
A range of lesson plans provided in part by the National Dairy Council, to help students discover more about the things that matter like staying active and healthy, being mindful and pitching in to the make the planet greener. Focuses on STEM hands-on learning opportunities, including Health, Science, Agriculture and SEL topics. These lesson plans align with national standards for middle schoolers in science, social emotional learning, and health education.
Cost: Free
This Telly Award-winning nutrition education series from the Dairy Council of California brings to life their cause to elevate the health of children and communities. This 12-episode video lesson series provides developmentally appropriate nutrition education for young middle-schoolers using neutral food language and an engaging format for learning.
Cost: Free
The Embrace Kids Classroom Program is an evidence-based, modular resource for teachers to use in their Health and Physical Education, or Wellbeing Program. Targeted at Years 5-6 and 7-8, (US 4th-5th grade and 6th -7th grade) the program aligns to the Australian Curriculum and includes five lessons that begin with a section of the EMBRACE KIDS film (rated G), edited for the classroom setting. Each film module is supported by activities and worksheets that are informed by evidence regarding effective health promotion and health education practice so you can guide your students with confidence. Although this is an Australian resource, the RI HOPE Collaborative has worked closely with this organization as an inspiration for our work here in Rhode Island and this robust resource of trainings, teacher, parent, student, and coach resources is a valuable reference for use where applicable in RI communities.
Cost: Free
Upper Middle School/
High School
Let's Eat give students the guidance they need to to notice their body's hunger and fullness cues to decide what and how much to eat. We teach young people to fuel themselves for their lives and enjoy their food by incorporating Tuned-In eating skills with a gentle focus on nutrition (Rowell, 2023; Cormack et al., 2020; Hazzard et al., 2021). These research-based lessons are culturally-inclusive tools that are designed not only for students' physical health, but for their mental well-being.
Cost: Free
BE REAL created BodyKind™ to provide an evidence-based, high school body image curriculum to address the needs of today’s students. Our 4-lesson curriculum for high school, health or advisory class starts with what the field of eating disorder prevention has learned from 20 years of research on body image and eating disorder prevention. We’ve added a discussion of Appearance Judgment–judgment based on physical features–to the conversation. We talk about how society’s preference for certain bodies affects student body confidence. We’ve also added evidence-based self-compassion tools for students to use when they compare themselves to images of people they see on social media.
BodyKind’s lesson plan includes three 50-minute lesson plans, worksheets, in-class exercises, classroom slides, and training videos for teachers.
Cost: Free
Created by Lizzy Pope, PhD RDN and Janet Gramble, this 8-lesson nutrition education curriculum for high school health educators meets the National Health Education Standards. Over a two-year timespan UVM conducted research to inform the curriculum, and worked with health educators to co-create a curriculum that is evidence-based and applicable in real classrooms. These thoughtful and essential lessons for students include Macronutrients, Diet Culture, Health Inequity, Nutrition Information, Talking to Others About Food & Nutrition, Nourishing My Body in a Gentle Nature, Making Nutrition Decisions, and Setting Goals. Each lesson includes a lesson overview with helpful resources, presentation slides, instructor notes, and associated activities.
Cost: Free
Confident Me body-confidence teaching materials explore influences on young people’s body image and self-esteem. These workshops address key topics, including the impact of society, professional and social media on appearance ideals, and give you strategies to boost confidence with students. Over five 45-60 minute sessions, through class discussions, small-group activities, engaging videos and activity worksheets, the workshop covers: Unrealistic appearance ideals, the impact of social media, celebrity culture and advertising, how to reduce appearance-focused conversations and comparisons, and body activism and positive behavior change.
Cost: Free