THE MOVE INITIATIVE
The Move Initiative is a nonprofit designed to help elementary students develop a healthy relationship with food and activity.
It came to life in the summer of 2013 (then called AggiesMove) in efforts to bring Texas A&M's student-athletes into the surrounding community who gives so much to our university. I was brought on board to develop a variety of nutrition education topics to elementary students.
Over the course of three (going on four!) years, The Move Initiative has grown exponentially and has gained nonprofit status. While we are still solely at Texas A&M University, we are able to visit two elementary schools six times each, bringing a different sports team with us at every session. We have developed an interactive nutrition education program consisting of six different topics, send home newsletters to inform parents how they can implement nutritious behaviors at home, and challenge the kids to incorporate our lessons into their everyday life in return for providing tickets to university sporting events.
We believe food should be fun, functional, and free from stress and activity should be something you enjoy as a way to celebrate what our amazing bodies can do.
Below, you will find our topics as well as sample newsletters and monthly challenges - offered in English and Spanish.
For more information, visit www.themoveinitiative.com
HYDRATION
FRUITS & VEGETABLES
DIGESTION & ABSORPTION
BREAKFAST
USDA'S MYPLATE
FARM-TO-TABLE
During this lesson, we teach the kids the importance of staying hydrated, signs of dehydration, and ways to stay hydrated, including eating fruits and vegetables!
Nutrition Demonstration: using a sponge as a "muscle", we demonstrated how easy it was to tear a dehydrated (dry) muscle and the difficulty of tearing a hydrated (wet) muscle.
Nutrition Activity: using the various colors of urine, we played red light, yellow light, green light. A "clear" urine represented green light, meaning you can run as fast as you can. A "light yellow" urine represented yellow light, meaning you can still be active, but you need to slow down and think about rehydrating. A "dark yellow" urine represented red light, meaning you had to STOP and rehydrate before you could keep being active.
Newsletter (English and Spanish)
Monthly Challenge
(English and Spanish)
During this lesson, we teach the kids about "eating the rainbow" and fun ways to prepare fruits and vegetables!
Nutrition Demonstration: we allowed eight students per session to sample raspberries, pears, baby food carrots, and baby food peas blindfolded and had a competition between boys and girls on who could identify the food first,.
Nutrition Activity: playing the famous pool game of "categories", we modified it to a gym-setting where instead of swimming, we crab-walked when playing with the category "fruits" and bear-crawled when playing with the category "vegetables." Kids had to think of their favorite fruit and vegetable and quietly moved when their food was called in attempt to make it to the other side of the gym without being tagged by the leader.
During this lesson, we teach the kids about different nutritious food options while also expanding on the idea of moderation.
Nutrition Activity: MidEast Texas Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics provided us a handmade board for "pin the food on the MyPlate" where the kids had to choose a picture of a food item, bear crawl down a basketball court, place the food item on the correct part of MyPlate (dairy, fruit, vegetable, grain, or protein) and skip back before tagging their classmate.
During this lesson, we teach the kids about where their food comes from with the help of HowdyFarm who brings fresh produce from their on-campus farm.
Nutrition Demonstration: using fresh produce from HowdyFarm, the kids are able to see, feel, and smell different produce and plants grown at HowdyFarm. They also learn about what items can get composted or recycled rather than thrown in the trash. Kids were sent home with a seed, soil, and pot in order to give their green-thumb a try!
Monthly Challenge
(English and Spanish)
Newsletter (English and Spanish)
During this lesson, we teach the kids how what happens to food once it's consumed and how different types of foods get absorbed.
Nutrition Demonstration: after hanging 5 posters labeled "mouth", "esophagus", "stomach", "small intestine", and "large intestine" around the room in the wrong order, we had the kids guess which organ came next in the digestive system. Once they ran to the following organ, we spent a few minutes talking about what occurs at that organ.
Nutrition Activity: we played a version of freeze tag, but modified it to "toilet tag" to relate it to the digestive system. When they were tagged, they had to get down on one knee and became a "toilet" and had to get "flushed" to become unfrozen.
Newsletter (English and Spanish)
Monthly Challenge
(English and Spanish)
During this lesson, we teach the kids the benefits of eating breakfast and how different breakfast foods affect your body during the day.
Nutrition Activity: during a boys v girls relay race, students had to pick up a breakfast food from a pile of healthy and unhealthy breakfast options, bear crawl with the food down the basketball court, place in the correct "healthy" or "unhealthy" basket, and skip back to their team to tag the next person.
Nutrition Demonstration: after the activity, we talked with students about the difference between drinking orange juice and Sunny-D and what to look for on the packaging when selecting a 100% fruit juice. We also discussed the difference between eating a whole wheat bagel as opposed to a white bagel.