Nutrition bingo

Objectives:
· Students will learn that good nutrition consisting of food from the five food groups leads to good health which aids in the prevention of some communicable diseases.

Target Group:
· Primary school students, lower secondary school students.

Group Size:
· 5 - 45+ students

Materials:
· Bingo playing boards, board markers.

Preparation:
· Prepare bingo cards which have five vertical columns and five horizontal columns. Each vertical column represents one of the five food groups: Protein, Vegetables, Carbohydrates, Fruit, and Fats and Oils.

Note: When teaching health and nutrition, point out that it is essential to have good nutrition to ward off some communicable diseases or to reduce or slow the effects of others. On order to grow strong and healthy a person needs to eat food from each of the five food groups. This concept is useful in teaching primary school students about the transmission of disease and as an alternative to occasions when talking directly about the transmission of disease through sexual contact is not appropriate. Moreover, this provides some necessary information in disease prevention as well as sets the stage for AIDS/STD education in later years.

Time:
· 15- 30 minutes.

To play:
1. One each card there are five categories which represent the five food groups: Protein, Vegetables, Carbohydrates, Fruit, and Fats and Oils.

2. A person will call out a name of a food. If you have that food on your card, cover it with a marker. (Note that some foods may be in two categories. If this happens, you can cover both squares).

3. The middle square on each card is "RICE" and is a "FREE" space. Everyone should cover it at the beginning of the game. It is "FREE" because everyone eats rice everyday.

4. A person wins when they have markers in a row either horizontally or diagonally. When they have this row they will have a marker representing a food in each of the five food groups. A person cannot win when they have a vertical row because that is only one food group and you cannot grow strong and healthy by eating food from one food group only.

Below is a list of all the foods used in the game. Use this list to make your cards and to call out the foods.