MyPlate Fun

 Food and Health is proud to be a National Strategic Partner with MyPlate! We have created tons of helpful materials that highlight MyPlate's most important messages. In fact, you can check out our products and free resources in our store. Today we're going to explore one of our very favorite games -- Pin the Spoon on the Plate. You can download the free game guide here. Are you ready to play?

Materials

• MyPlate poster
• Plastic spoon, fork, and spork
• Tape
• Pins
• Blindfold
• Timer

Game Instructions

• Divide the participants into three even teams. Give one team the spoon, another a fork, and a third the spork. Have the teams attach a pin to their utensil.
• Pin the MyPlate poster to the wall. Use the tape to make a line on the floor that leads 3 feet back from the poster.
• Have a member of the first team step forward and get blindfolded. Members of the other two teams can spin the blindfolded player around several times at the start of the tape, then let go.
• The blindfolded player should proceed to the MyPlate poster and stick his or her utensil on a food group.
• Once a food group has been pinned, the blindfolded team member should remove the blindfold. The whole team then has 15 seconds to list 5 examples of healthful foods from that food group.
• For example, if the player pins the protein group, the team may list baked chicken breast, beans, an egg-white omelet, lean steak, and fish. Since these are all healthful options, the team would earn 5 points. However, if the team listed fried chicken, beans, an egg-white omelet, lean steak, and fish, they would only get 4 points. That's because fried chicken is too high in fat and sodium to be considered healthful. If the team listed chicken breast, beans, an egg-white omelet, nonfat milk, and kale, that team would only get 3 points because nonfat milk and kale are not members of the protein group.
• If the team lists unhealthful foods or foods that do not belong to the food group they pinned, then the other teams have a chance to "steal" the points.
• For example, if the protein group listed fried chicken, beans, an egg-white omelet, nonfat milk, and fish, then that team has listed two foods that are inappropriate -- the fried chicken, which is not healthful, and the milk, which is part of the dairy group. If a rival team then lists 2 appropriate examples from the protein group, that team will earn an additional two points.
• Play until all food groups have been pinned at least once. It is helpful to have one person not affiliated with any team to act as a judge. That way, if a player pins outside of the poster or right between two food groups, the judge can determine which food group should be featured.

More Resources

Our Nutrition Education Store is full of MyPlate resources that feature FREE SHIPPING this week. Check out our free options, as well as the programs we have available for purchase. We even have detailed version of Pin the Spoon on the Plate that you can download for free!

Here are the latest tweets from the MyPlate team:

[twitter-feed username="MyPlate"]