Assessments †Nutrition †Food Groups Essay

My first grade class is participating in a health lesson that will introduce them to the food groups. They will use MyPlate as a resource for learning the food groups and what foods are included in each group. The objective of this lesson is that the student can name foods that belong to each of the food groups labeled on MyPlate. Our health goal will be using MyPlate as a healthy eating tool and our vocabulary words will be food group and MyPlate. We will place foods in each of the five food groups and know the food groups by name and color coding: Grains (orange), Vegetables (green), Fruits (red), Dairy (blue) and Protein (purple). Students will be assessed on their ability to place and/or name foods in the appropriate food group. Students will be placed in assessment groups based on their level of English proficiency. The students will be assessed as follows: * Beginning ELL – students will be shown a photograph of a food and be told the name of the food (ie: photograph of an apple with teacher speaking the word apple) the student will then be asked to point to the food group on MyPlate (see attachment 1) (www. cnpp. usda. gov) in which the apple belongs. Intermediate ELL – Students will be given photographs of food with the name of the food along with a blank MyPlate (see attachment 2) (www. choosemyplate. gov). They will be asked to color each food group and then place the foods in the appropriate food group. * Advanced ELL – Students will be given a blank MyPlate (see attachment 2) (www. chosemyplate. gov) and be asked to write the names of at least three of their favorite foods in each group and then color the food groups the appropriate colors. The data gathered from the assessments will let me know how they comprehended and understood the lesson and will start to give me a snapshot of their English proficiency. Did they understand the words when they were spoken to them? Are they apple to read words associated with a photograph? Can they write words based on their knowledge and the lesson that was taught? Nutrition is taught every year in Kindergarten through 5th rade so a student of any level†¦ELL, SPED, Gifted, and Regular Education can be evaluated and previous years knowledge can be compared. Did the first grade beginning ELL student move up at least one level by second grade? Are they considered proficient by fifth grade? Portfolios can be made and follow the ELL student through school so that teachers can compare previous year’s work to the work they are doing that year. They can look for improvement in their English proficiency as well as the knowledge in the content areas being taught. As a teacher with ELL students I would not only look to teach them our English words for our foods but I would try to pull photographs of foods that might be important to their culture. I would try to find foods they are already familiar with and show them where they fit in the world of nutrition. Using this data would help create a comfort zone for them because they would at least recognize the photograph of the food and learn how we say it in English. Once the assessments are performed we will be able to determine if the student is capable of learning the content even though English proficiency may be low. If they score low then we will know that we have to continue to improve their English to help them in all content areas. If they are scoring high, while we will continue to improve their English but we will know they are capable of learning and understanding the content being presented to them. A teacher might consider placing the ELL student in peer groups with English speaking students to help increase their fluency.