What is it?

Since the Canada Food Guide recommends that vegetables and fruit make up half your plate, we invite you and your students to use this free printable activity and supplementary resources to:

• Explore the many wonderful vegetables we grow right here in Manitoba
• Explore the many ways to eat vegetables
• Challenge your students to eat a different vegetable every day for 10 days
• Complete the challenge and enter to win prizes

Game materials include:

1. The Veggie Challenge Board – a one-page sheet that has a capital V on it made up of blank squares
2. Veggie tiles – a one-page sheet that contains vegetables in squares that can be coloured in by students, and cut out and pasted onto the squares on the Challenge Board

Download the game kit now

Activate suggestions

Explore students’ knowledge of vegetables. 

1. Have students make a list of as many different vegetables as they can. This can be done as a class, in small groups, by pairs of students, or individually.
2. List the vegetables identified by students on the board.
3. Decide which of the vegetables in the list are grown by Manitoba Farmers. (For good photos of some of the vegetables, go to the Peak of the Market website products page here.)
4. List the different varieties of each vegetable that students can identify. Examples:
   • Cabbage varieties could include green, red, Chinese, bok choy
   • Lettuce varieties could include iceberg, green or red leaf lettuce, romaine, arugula
   • Pea varieties could include green peas, snap peas, snow peas
5. Discuss and list different ways that each vegetable is eaten. This can be done as a class, in small groups, by pairs of students, or individually. Examples:
   • Tomatoes can be eaten raw, cooked, as tomato sauce for pasta or pizza, as ketchup, or as tomato soup.

Remind students that the Canada Food Guide suggests that vegetables and fruit should fill half their plate whether they are eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack.

Vegetables are packed with fibre, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients. Phytonutrients give vegetables their colour. Eating a variety of different coloured vegetables will provide you with the most nutrients and benefits from your diet. When it comes to vegetables, choose to ‘Eat the Rainbow’.

Ways to play

The challenge is for students to eat at least one different vegetable each day for 10 days. Have students complete the 10-day veggie challenge either individually or as a class.

Option 1: Individual Student Challenge

• Provide each student with a copy of the Veggie Challenge Game Board and Veggie Tiles page.
• Challenge them to eat a different vegetable each day for the next 10 days.
• Each day, they can record the vegetable they ate by colouring in and cutting out the vegetable on the Veggie Tiles sheet and pasting it on their Veggie Challenge board.
• After 10 days, each student should have a Veggie Challenge board showing the 10 different vegetables they ate over the past 10 days.

Option 2: Whole Class Challenge

• Create a chart to record what vegetables were eaten by the students in your class for each of the next 10 days.
• Challenge your students to try different vegetables from the ones eaten by students on the previous days. The challenge is to have at least 10 different vegetables listed in the chart by the end of the 10-day challenge.
• Circle any vegetable(s) in the list from Day 2 to Day 10 that were not included in the previous days’ lists. (If by Day 8 or 9 the class has not identified 10 different vegetables on their chart, then consider buying and bringing in one or more different vegetables for the students to try.)
• At the end of the 10 days, create groups of up to 10 students each. Provide each group with a Veggie Challenge board and the Veggie Tiles sheet. Have each group colour and cut out the 10 different vegetables they recorded in their class chart and paste them on to the Veggie Challenge board.

Thank you to Peak of the Market, our 2022 Foundations of Manitoba Agriculture Presenting Sponsor!