Contest Ideas

Here are a few creative ideas to get you started:

1. Create edible art out of fruits and vegetables. Create faces, animals, volcanoes or even an alphabet you can munch on.
2. As a class, taste test a different fruit or vegetable every day for a week. Ask each student to rate how well he/she liked each food and create a classroom graph.
3. Make a classroom cookbook which features fresh fruit and vegetable recipes.
4. Research and submit a collection of how different cultures use fresh produce in their diet.
5. Work with the school nutrition manager on ways to incorporate more fresh produce into the school meal program.
6. Conduct a survey at your school to find out which fruits and vegetables kids like best.
7. Prepare a recipe featuring produce and offer taste samples to kids in the cafeteria. The www.produceforkids.org site is a great source for recipe inspiration.
8. Submit a classroom book of "produce poetry."
9. Write a fruit and veggie song/rap and videotape your performance.
10. As a class, paint a rainbow mural which features fruits and vegetables in all the rainbow colors (green, red, blue/purple, green, yellow, orange).
11. Make produce posters to decorate the cafeteria.
12. Make a chart that shows the key nutrients found in fruits and vegetables. The Dole superkids nutrition encyclopedia located at www.dolesuperkids.com/html/kids/nutrition%20database.html is a great place to find this information.
13. Ask each student to track his/her fruit and vegetable intake. Chart the results on a graph and set goals to incorporate more produce each day. The Fruits and Veggies "Add up" to Great Nutrition! located at http://produceforkids.org/kids/pdf/planner.pdf will aid students in tracking progress.
14. Start a classroom garden. Grow in containers inside using grow lights or find a space outside for a raised garden bed.
15. "Produce" a play about produce. Develop characters, write the script and perform for the lunchtime crowd.
16. Invent a game which encourages kids to eat more fruits and veggies. It could be a challenging classroom card or board game or an active, huff-and-puff playground game.
17. Your own creative, fun and awesome project!

Additional Resources to visit for information and inspiration

Here are a few great web sites to get you started. These sites also provide lesson plans that you can download and implement in your classroom along with activity sheets.

http://www.dolesuperkids.com
www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org
www.foodchamps.org
www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov
www.mypyramid.gov/kids
www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/vegetables.html
www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/fruits.html