Ready-made food education lessons

Below are some suggestions for free teaching materials that you can use as a teacher to get started with food education. All materials align with the SLO learning pathway for the relevant educational level. Would you like to work with other (paid) teaching materials? Please contact the intermediary in your province to discuss the possibilities.

MBO

The lessons below can be offered in secondary education and MBO, for example as part of Biology, Care, Citizenship or as a topic in Dutch.

  • Vitaal MBO by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre: This module consists of 3 lessons of 2 lesson hours each for the subject Vital Citizenship. The students take a closer look at their eating habits, waste and the origin of food. Download the teaching materials on the Netherlands Nutrition Centre website.
  • The Healthy Sustainable Food module by Duurzaam MBO. In seven lessons, students learn how meat, fish and crops are produced and what requirements the hospitality industry places on food. Everything is examined in light of quality and sustainable development. View the teaching materials here.
  • The ‘Weet wat je Eet’ teaching package by the Netherlands Nutrition Centre. Target group: pre-vocational secondary education, senior general secondary education, pre-university education and MBO. These lessons focus on healthy, sustainable and safe eating. The lessons require little preparation time and can be downloaded free of charge from the Netherlands Nutrition Centre website.

Secondary Education

Primary School

  • Taste Lessons: for groups 1 through 8. Taste Lessons is the teaching package about food for primary schools, in which the teacher mainly asks questions. Students find the answers by tasting and experiencing things themselves. In this way, they learn all about their food through play. The teaching materials are available free of charge on the Chef! lesson portal
  • Teaching materials accompanying the film The School Garden: for groups 4, 5 and 6. The themes of the lessons are sowing, soil, growth, animals in the vegetable garden, cooperation and harvesting. They can be taught as a series or as standalone lessons. Available to download free of charge from the IVN Nature Education website.
  • NME guides: for groups 1 and 2, there is a lesson in which students bake pancakes and look at where the necessary ingredients come from on the farm. For groups 7 and 8, there is a lesson in which students work with herbs. Both guides can be downloaded free of charge from the website of Municipalities for Sustainable Development. You can also reserve a teaching kit at a nearby NME centre if you do not have time to gather the necessary materials for the lessons yourself.

Childcare and preschoolers

The ‘Jong Lekker Fit' teaching package consists of 2 series of activity and vocabulary cards, available to download free of charge, for toddlers and preschoolers about healthy food. In addition, there are 5 videos for parents to inspire them to introduce their children to healthy food from an early age.

During Dutch Food Week: visiting a food producer

During Dutch Food Week, from 10 to 17 October, various food producers open their doors. You can see and experience with your own eyes where your food comes from. There are also Educational Farmers taking part. Curious about what is happening near you? Visit: www.dutchfoodweek.nl

Save the date(s): themed days in October

  • 5 October: Chef in the Classroom (digital) for primary school groups 6 through 8
  • From 8 October: The School Garden will be shown in cinemas and film theatres. Target group: primary school groups 6 through 8
  • 9 October: Sustainability Day
  • 10–17 October: Dutch Food Week
  • 16 October: World Food Day