Grow a Simple Hydroponic Garden in Your Classroom
If your classroom has a window that gets sunlight, you can grow a hydroponic garden and teach your students about vegetables and hydroponic growing! Use these links to learn about hydroponic growing and get a lesson plan to guide your students.

Classroom Hydroponic Garden Resources for Teachers
See an Example of What One Class Did Under the National Teacher Enhancement Project

20 Mystery Vegetable Questions
Select one student from the class to begin. Select a vegetable from the following list and whisper the name of the vegetable to the student. Then, have the other students ask “Yes” or “No” questions that try to identify what the Mystery Vegetable is. Questions can include narrowing down the color (red? green? purple?), shape (round? long?), and use in foods (in pizza? In salad? mashed?).

Mystery Vegetables List

Asparagus	Avocados	Beets	Bell peppers
Broccoli	Cabbage	Carrots	Cauliflower
Celery	Corn	Cucumbers	Eggplant
Green beans	Lettuce	Mushrooms	Onions
Peas	Potatoes	Spinach	Sweet potatoes
Tomatoes	Zucchini (green squash)

Lunch and Munch
Have each student draw a picture of their favorite vegetable on a piece of paper. Tack these pictures to a bulletin board, surrounding a central area entitled “Our Class Lunches and Munches…Vegetables!” Leave a blank area under the title. Every day for a week, when students return from lunch, ask anyone who had a vegetable with their lunch to raise their hand. Call on students and have them describe the vegetable they ate and what they ate it in (“I had a turkey sandwich with a tomato on it.” Or “I had pizza with tomato sauce.” Or “I had a salad with lettuce and cucumbers.”). For each vegetable mentioned, make one tick mark on the bulletin board. When the class reaches a goal of vegetables eaten (set this goal based on your class size times 3 or 4 vegetables per child for the week), reward them with a special game time, story time, or other appropriate activity.

Supermarket Shopping
Have students create a two-part shopping list and share it with the class. They should list five vegetables they love and two vegetables they would like to try. Encourage them to share the list with a parent so they can include it in the next family shopping trip.

Color My Vegetables
Distribute the Color My Vegetables workbook to students. While explaining that they should eat vegetables of many different colors, have them color in the vegetables shown and print the name of the vegetable. Point out that some vegetables, like tomatoes and bell peppers, come in different colors.

Color My Vegetables Workbook

You can also use Lesson 3: Vary Your Veggies and Focus on Fruits from the USDA for student activities, including a weekly Fruit and Veggie Diary.