No matter where you turn today, the message for kids is loud and clear — "fuel up" with nutritious foods from the MyPyramid Five Food Groups and "get up and play" for 60 minutes a day! Little D's Nutrition Expedition® lessons and resources can be your ally in the classroom for bringing these messages to life. Besides teaching nutrition basics, Little D's Nutrition Expedition® can help you underscore the importance of being active every day! Here's how:

Help students make the nutrition-physical activity connection. As you read each of Little D's adventures, highlight the different ways that characters in the story are active, and have students compare them to ways they play. For example, when you read "The Royal Food Family to the Rescue" story in Lesson 1, talk about each Royal Food Family member's favorite activity and the activities that Little D wants to do. Reinforce the importance of physical activity with Little D's movement breaks. Each of Little D's lessons has a physical activity break suggestion in Going Further at the end of the lesson. Use these any time as a way to get children more active, not just on your Little D's lesson days. Have students form Movement Circles from Lesson 6 and imitate different foods, or have them Snack Dance from Lesson 9 to express the difference between "meals" and "snacks."

P.S. National Dairy Council® and the National Football League have huddled up to offer schools a new 2009-10 FREE Fuel Up to Play Wellness Activation Kit geared to students in grades 4-10. It focuses on empowering kids to make smart choices about their nutrition and physical activity. The kit materials get displayed school-wide and will reinforce these messages for your students, too. Check out the program at www.SchoolWellnessKit.org and encourage your upper-grade colleagues to enroll for it by clicking the button below.

Developed by NATIONAL DAIRY COUNCIL®, Little D's Nutrition Expedition® and Arianna's Nutrition Expedition™ are Five-Food-Group-based, teacher-tested programs that support the USDA's MyPyramid food guidance system. See all NATIONAL DAIRY COUNCIL® nutrition education resources at
www.NutritionExplorations.org.