Placemat Relay

This fun game gets kids moving and finding healthy foods.

Place Mat RelayYou need:• Lots of pictures of food• One 11-by-17 sheet of paper for each team. Draw circles representing a plate and glass on a place mat. Print the following on each:• healthful drink• healthful grain• healthful protein• healthful fruit• healthful vegetable• Slips of paper, one set for each team, with the same 5 healthful foods and some extra points, such as:• poor choice fast food• high-calorie drink• high-fat grain foodEach team gets their place mat, and an envelope containing their slips of paper.At one side of the room, give each team a table or chair to layout their place mat.At the opposite side, mix up all the food pictures on another table. Make sure you have enough to match all the slips.At the start signal, the team opens the envelope, each child pulls a slip of paper.The first child runs to the pictures, finds one to match the slip, runs back, places it on the place mat and tags the next player.Repeat until each team has found a food picture to match each spot on the place mat.If a team finishes all the healthful choices and has time for extra points, they can run for the poor choice foods, but these must be last.It’s easy for the teacher to check the accuracy by looking at each place mat.The first team to fill their place mat correctly, or has the most correct pictures after a specified time, wins.An option with this is to use pictures of foods commonly found on their school cafeteria menu.