What’s the difference between meal planning & meal prepping? This Meal Planning & Meal Prepping Lesson explores each of these in a variety of engaging ways! Read on to learn more…

Set

• Ask students “What is the difference between meal planning and meal prepping and are there benefits to both? Have students formulate answers to these questions and then think-pair-share with their shoulder neighbor before discussing as a class.
• I use the web resource “Meal Prep vs. Meal Plan—What’s the Difference?” to discuss the differences and benefits of each.

Materials

• iPad or Laptop
• Projector & Screen

Activities

• To introduce and explore various types of meal planning syles, divide your class into groups of 3 and assign each group one of the meal planning styles to research for the Iron Chef Jigsaw Style Challenge using the provided resources within. Styles can be found in the Iron Chef Meal Planning Styles Edition attachment below.
• Each group shares their styles with the class from their Iron Chef Challenges and students complete the notes form along the way.
• To illustrate meal prepping, I like to show the episode of Struggle Meals titled “Meal Prep For Cheap” and have students complete the corresponding video guide. Discuss or grade answers–your call.
• Now that students are familiar with both meal prepping and meal planning, it’s time to give them a challenge to help them practice and apply the concepts. There are three different versions or levels to choose from depending on your students levels and/or abilities.
• Once you’ve selected a challenge version, decide whether you are going to have your students use the Flipp App/Website or provide them with grocery store fliers to get their ingredient prices.
• After the challenge is complete, students share their total costs as well as some of the dishes they put together using the provided ingredients. It’s very cool to see what they come up!

Attachments

• Meal Planning Styles_Iron Chef Jigsaw Style Challenge (please make a copy)
• Struggle Meals: Meal Prep For Cheap Video Guide (PDF)
• Grocery Shopping & Meal Planning Challenge: Version I (PDF)
• Grocery Shopping & Meal Planning Challenge: Version II (PDF)
• Grocery Shopping & Meal Planning Challenge: Version III (PDF)

Similar Lessons

• March Madness Menu Planning with Recipe Rehab

Photo by Ello on Unsplash