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Food Safety Activities for the Classroom

Hands-on classroom activities bring some fun to learning about food safety and help children turn knowledge into good habits. Learning where food dangers come from and how to prevent illness caused by bad food are among the most important lessons we can teach children. As a valuable supplement to these classroom food safety activities, let the children talk about what they think is good and bad food, and why.

  1. Bacteria Activities

    • Show children how to prevent cross-contamination between foods, hands and utensils. Put flour on the hands of half of the class. Let the whole class interact with one another, as well as with classroom snacks, utensils and surfaces. After 20 minutes have the children stop and see how far the flour "bacteria" has spread. During the class, show the children how fast bacteria multiply by bringing out graduated sizes of cups filled with brightly colored beads or candy, replacing the previous cup with a slightly larger one every 20 minutes.

    Cleaning Activities

    • Cleanliness is one of the most important steps in food safety. Apply Glo Germ gel, a product that acts like bacteria, to four children's hands. Have the first two children wash their hands for five seconds, one with and one without soap, the third child wash his hands for 20 seconds with soap, and the fourth child rub her hands with hand sanitizer for 10 seconds. Use a black light to show the class each pair of hands so they can see how much "bacteria" is left on their hands. Use this activity to teach children to wash hands, surfaces that come in contact with food, utensils used to prepare food, and all fruits and veggies before eating.

    Hot, Cold and Clean Activities

    • Use food thermometers, hot water, and shallow and deep containers to demonstrate how quickly temperatures change. Let the children write down the temperatures at five minute intervals. See how long each container takes to reach the "danger zone." Talk about how groceries should be handled at the store: put cold food with cold, hot food with hot, dry food with dry and raw food with raw. Have children watch grocery baggers next time they are at grocery store, and then ask them how the baggers handled the groceries.

    Identifying Safe Foods

    • Bring in boxes, cans and bags of food with different expiration dates and pass them out to the class. Show children where to look for the expiration date. Have the children determine if the food they hold is safe to eat or not. Bring in or show pictures of fresh, healthy food and old bad food. Let the children tell you which is safe to eat and why.

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