Summary: An EVS classroom can be made fun, exciting, and lively by employing several activities, such as playing matching games, drawing, and having discussions on the theme of food.
Food is an important theme in EVS. The theme deals with traditional dishes, different types of food items cooked in different families, and the names of materials used for cooking and utensils used in kitchen. The lesson titled ‘Story of food’ is an important lesson, dealing with roles of family members in home, sources of food, and awareness about medicinal herbs and their importance.
Various types of activities, such as having group discussions, making recipes, creating clay utensils, matching answers, and other things are planned for teaching this lesson.
Objectives
- Identify food items from among plants, flowers, leaves, stems, roots, fruits, animals, etc.
- Recognize food items, quantity of food taken by family members of students.
- Learn about the role of family members with respect to food.
- Develop knowledge about medicinal plants and their importance.
Identification of Food from among Plants and Animals
In order to teach the students about food coming from plants and animals, my students were provided with word cards of various types of food coming from plants–leaves, flowers, fruits, stems, roots–and animal.
The questions were pasted on the blackboard. The students were asked to find out the suitable answers like banana, tomato, ghee, curd, meat, carrot, beetroot, etc.
The students were quite interested, and they managed to find out the answers fast. In a matter of a few seconds, the blackboard was filled with more than 60-word cards. This activity really resulted in the students being greatly satisfied that they are able to identify the food that comes from plants, animals, and other sources.
Types and Quantity of Food Consumption
The students were asked to list the members of their families and the quantity of food taken by them in activity sheets that were provided to them. For example, the father of a student takes 6 idlis, 2 plates of rice, and 4 chapatis in a day. The students asked their parents and grandparents about their food preferences and the reason behind the same. They shared the data in a classroom discussion. Give below is a sample.
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What kind of food do you eat for breakfast? - Idli, dosa, poori, pongal, upma, noodles, bread, etc. What kind of food do your grandparents eat for breakfast? - Idli, raji kanji (porridge), palaiya saatham. Why do old people eat different food? - Normal food items may cause digestive problems. Kanji is easily digestible and very healthy as well. They go for work in the fields, and it will give them energy. How many idlis do you eat? - Three to four ildis. How many idlis does your father eat? - My father eats more than six idlis. Can you guess the reason? - They eat more to stay active for the whole day. They need energy to work in the field, which is why they eat more. Eating less food will result in their drowsiness and will result in them being less activene in their work. |
This activity made students understand about food consumption of their family members. It also made them aware that of the type of diet changes for adults, babies, and old people. This activity gave them an idea about the approximate amount of food needed by a family.
Role of Family Members in food
Children must understand the different responsibilities and work that every member of their family has. The students were given the slips that had ‘father’, ‘mother’, ‘me’, ‘grandma’, ‘grandpa’, ‘elder and younger brother/sister’, etc. printed on it. The game was to find out the suitable work that each member of their family performed. The students were very excited to learn the words, and it was wonderful to see that they were able to match the correct work to the correct family member. They enjoyed this activity very much. I felt really satisfied that my students understood the role of their family members.
When a discussion was held, the students said that their mothers cook the food and their fathers go out to buy the groceries. Some students also said that their mothers go out to buy things in addition to the cooking. A few students informed that they help their mothers to cook as well. Most of the students are familiar with the process of cooking food items like idli, dosa, sambar, rice, and the utensils used for cooking. This was because they helped their mothers in cooking or because they cooked themselves.
Collection of Medicinal Leaves and Preparation of a Medicinal Concoction
The students collected the leaves of some medicinal plants from the surrounding areas of the school campus. These leaves were boiled for 20 minutes. The concoction was filtered, and jaggery was added to make the concoction sweet. All the students enjoyed the medicinal concoction together.
The students also beautifully drew the methods of preparation of medicinal concoction.
Supplementary activities
Sharing Food from Different Families–The students brought different types of food from their homes, like idli, sambar, rice, poori, vada, payasam, among other things, and they shared the food that came from different families. They were able to admire the different types of taste, cooking methods, and ingredients used for cooking the food.
Thus, the students really enjoyed and realized the traditional foods of Puducherry in this activity.
Identifying Kitchen Utensils and their Names–In order to teach the names of kitchen utensils, the students were asked to draw pictures of kitchen utensils and colour them. The students drew various utensils, such as spatulas, spoon, fork, vessel, pot, etc., very beautifully and labelled their names.
The students were also shown some utensil toys. They observed their different shapes and discussed their uses.
Classroom discussion
1) What are some common utensils used for cooking?
Answer: Pot, vessel, plate, spatula, and so on.
2) What utensil is used to fry food items?
Answer: Pan, tava.
3) What are the basic things that should be near the stove?
Answer: Spoon, spatula, knife, salt, sugar, water can.
Outcomes
- The students, while collecting the medicinal herbs, were able to touch, smell, and observe their shapes and identify the names of medicinal plants like keezhanelli, nila vembu, karpuravalli, kalyana murungai, etc.
- They seemed to be familiar about the role of the family members with respect to food, which showed through their performance in the matching activity.
- They were able to recognize the difference between the quantities of food consumed by different members of their family.
- They were able to identify and match the food that came from plants and animals.
- They were able to be list the names of kitchen utensils like spatula, pan, tava, boiling vessel, etc.
- The preparation of the medicinal concoction helped the students to be aware about disease prevention, and they briefly touched the concept of nutrition and health.
Follow up
The students were instructed to prepare an album of medicinal leaves and mention the different names and their uses in the Tamil language. They also drew the preparation methods of health concoction in their notebooks.
The best album was gifted with plant saplings.
Term: Term 3
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