Tag Archives: teacher

Teaching kids about sugar content of beverages

Teaching kids about the sugar content of common drinks should be a requirement in kindergarten or first grade. Here’s one way: have the class construct a display for the hallway or classroom wall that visually shows how much sugar is hidden in common beverages. Here are some examples:

Pinterest board Educating kindergartners about sugary drinks on Pinterest.

This project would fit in perfectly with most state standards (for example, see page 10 in Health Education Content Standards for California Public Schools). And because it includes numbers (e.g., teaspoons), teachers can use the poster content to visually drive discussions about addition and subtraction. If this poster was done in a fun way, the experience might vaccinate kids against over-consumption of sugary drinks for the remainder of their lives. Ideally, project should include sweetened milk, apple juice, orange juice, and Gatorade.

Poster titles matter, too. “Rethink your drink” is a popular title (it rhymes) but is bland and doesn’t suggest that drinking less sugar is the ideal. “Avoid cavities by avoiding sugary drinks” or “Don’t drink dessert all day” might be more engaging and informative.

If you want some background information relevant to lesson plans on sugar for K-3 levels, here are some resources from BrainPOP. You can pitch the poster completely in terms of dental health.

Textbook disclaimers

Here are some warning labels for books that you can print onto sticker paper. The text of the top left one is from an actual sticker used in Cobb County, Georgia. Creationist parents had pressured the school board to paste it into a biology textbook that contained chapters on evolution. When I first heard about this in the news I was outraged, but it also made me laugh. So I decided to waste an entire afternoon creating similar stickers based on the same silly logic, then sent them to the lawyer in Georgia who was involved in getting the sticker removed. The lawyer had them printed up as huge posters and then used as courtroom props (the judge liked them a lot, I was told). I keep the stickers on the internet so that they can be used whenever pitchfork-wielding parents try something similar. Just download the PDF and get yourself some sticker paper. Then give them to your kids. They’ll know what to do.

Here‘s the version that ran in The New York Times.