How it works
The four things a snack needs to get you to lunch
Protein.
Slows how fast the stomach empties, so glucose arrives gradually.
Fibre.
Slows the food down in your gut, so the glucose takes longer to arrive.
A slow carb.
Oats, wholegrain or whole fruit. Not white and not sugary.
Healthy fats.
Slows the stomach down, and carries the most energy per gram.
The class writes these four down in lesson one and uses them to judge everything in the next two.
Pairs rank six snacks by how far each would get them, and disagree. Then the science: the brain runs on glucose, and you get whatever your last meal gave you. The class follows a biscuit across a blood sugar graph, writes the four criteria in their own words, then ranks the same six snacks again using the labels.
They make pinwheel wraps, oat and seed balls, or fruit and yoghurt pots: nothing needs heat, sharp knives or nuts, and every ingredient has a swap listed for gluten-free, dairy-free and vegan students. The ingredients come out of a school budget, so no student is out of pocket. Before anyone eats, each pair says which ingredient does each of the four jobs.
The homework is a recipe card rather than a cooked snack, so a student without a kitchen still arrives with the work done. The class marks one card together, then the cards pass two tables along and are scored out of four. The lesson ends by going back to the ranking from three weeks earlier.
Nothing in this series is about weight, body shape or calories, and the slides say so to the class in plain words: nobody is scoring them, and nobody is scoring their lunchbox. In most tutor groups there is at least one student who is struggling with food, and a nutrition lesson framed the wrong way can do real harm, so this one stays on energy and concentration from start to finish.
Get the lesson
Lesson 1 slides
Eighteen slides on why you crash at two o’clock, with a blood sugar graph and a label-reading activity.
Download PPTXLesson 2 slides
Seventeen slides: a method slide for each snack, a clear-up prompt, and their own snack drawn against the biscuit on the same graph.
Download PPTXLesson 3 slides
Fifteen slides: marking each other’s recipe cards, then tasting or pitching depending on your school rules, and the class recipe collection.
Download PDFTeacher resource pack
Fourteen pages: the whole series on page one, then a guide for each lesson, the shopping lists, method cards, sheets and slips.
DownloadNew resources go up as they are made, and Volume Two is on the way for the activities that have one. Leave your email and you will get one message when it lands, and nothing else.
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