Daily Food Chart

Lately, James has been wanting to take a very active part in preparing his meals and so I've been giving him the opportunity to have a little say in what he'd like to eat. As you can imagine, he often makes some not so great choices and if I were to leave it entirely up to him he'd eat nothing but Jell-O and Goldfish crackers. :)

That's when an idea started formulating in my mind. What if I were to create some type of chart that would allow him the freedom to make his own selections, help him to make good choices, and also teach him the basics of good nutrition?

Online I went and discovered this link. LOVE when I run across a like-minded mama! Megan's method is wonderful and if I had a magnetic refrigerator I may have just gone her route, but as I do not I needed to modify it in a way that works for us.

Here's what I came up with:
This is my "all-in-one" version. James can see his food choices (he's very visual like that) and make his selection. I think of this as a menu of sorts as the food images I've chosen are all things James regularly eats. (Yes, you do see a hot dog there. Here I must ask that you don't judge our food choices - I don't claim to be a nutritionist, the best cook, or the healthiest person in the world!)

Alongside each food group shown in the pyramid is an indication of how many servings he'll need per day. The same information is shown in the smaller boxes below the pyramid. Using those numbers as a guide, once James puts together his meal, he'll check off the amounts in the small boxes alongside the corresponding food group. I've added a few extra boxes for special occasions and/or for those instances where food items cross over (e.g. celery with peanut butter and raisins - a favorite of James'). Obviously we'll do the checking off part together since it does take some cross referencing to be sure he's had the proper servings size.

That's where this document comes in useful. On the reverse side of the chart is this handy-dandy reference guide. I've laminated the two back to back for convenience and so we can reuse the chart over and over.

A couple of side notes: If we don't happen to have a particular food item on hand, then James simply makes another choice. Certain graphics, like the cheese graphic, is just a symbol for whatever kind of cheese we have (i.e. slices, string, various flavors). If we go out to eat, we just make a point to fill the chart out when we get home.

As I mentioned, this chart has been specifically tailored for James, but for what it's worth I'm offering it as a free printable to you. Click here to download. You can easily create one of these yourself. I'm by no means computer savvy - I created this in Word, found the images on Google, and cut and paste it all together. Easy-peasy!

~Thank you for your comments!~