Discuss with your preschoolers why dairy products are valuable, mentioning how calcium makes their bones strong and helps them grow. Create a template with a checklist of dairy products including milk, cheese, yogurt and cottage cheese. Make enough copies for each student. Set up tasting stations with a different milk product at each station. Consider providing soy products as well, so students can sample dairy substitutes. Line up children at each station, giving them a sample of each product. Instruct them to draw a smile next to the dairy products they like, and a frown next to the ones they don’t.
Even though your students have most likely consumed large amounts of milk since birth, they may think it only comes from the supermarket. Read “Milk: From Cow to Carton” by Aliki and discuss how a cow produces milk. Construct a cow and milk craft together by printing out the craft template from DLTK’s Crafts for Kids website. Instruct your little ones to color in all pieces. Work on scissors practice, helping your preschoolers cut out and glue parts of the cow’s body together. For an added twist, attach brass tacks to the head, tail and arms to form movable parts.
The Mayo Clinic recommends children eat low-fat yogurt as one of their daily dairy product options. Create a preschool lesson focused on making different flavors of yogurt, similar to what you would find in a yogurt parlor. Before class, purchase three different colors of play dough, such as red for strawberry, yellow for lemon and blue for blueberry. Or, create your own batch, dividing dough into three equal parts and mixing in three separate colors of food coloring. Design a template by drawing three 3-inch square boxes on it. Label the inside of each box with a different flavor of yogurt. Make enough template copies for each member of your class. Set out three large bowls, each with an ice cream scoop, and place each color in a separate bowl. Give each preschooler three plastic cups. Help kids scoop play dough into each of their cups. Meanwhile, instruct children to color and cut out the three identification labels from the template. Then have them tape or glue each label to the correct batch of yogurt.
Take your class on a Dairy Product Treasure Hunt at the nearest supermarket. Make a list of dairy products to look for at the grocery store, such as skim milk, deli yellow cheese, packaged orange cheese, cherry yogurt and chocolate chip ice cream. Enlist parents to be responsible for pairs of children, as each pair searches through the store for the desired items. Once all items are found on the list, have parents bring the kids to the designated meeting spot. Buy boxes of frozen yogurt bars to enjoy at the end of the trip.