Training programs to initiate and enhance your school's local wellness policy

New! ONLINE Training for Food Service Staff: Culinary Techniques for Healthy School Meals - a free online program consisting of 6 courses designed to help school nutrition teams prepare healthier school meals that appeal to the taste of today's students. Learn about nutrition, food production and culinary techniques that will improve your school nutrition programs. Earn up to 33 credit hours! ALL Illinois school foodservice staff that complete the six courses will receive a set of Dietary Guidelines posters, while supplies last.

Evaluating School Wellness - An interactive workshop that will help you evaluate progress in implementing wellness policy goals for nutrition education, physical activity, school meals, and other foods. (All school staff responsible for wellness initiatives)

HealthierUS School Challenge: A Sneak Peek at Model School Criteria for Student Wellness—Provides key information on USDA HealthierUS School Challenge - a voluntary national recognition program. Covers criteria for Silver and Gold certification including standards for school meals as well as for other foods sold, nutrition education and physical activity. Provides strategies and resources for success and participants will receive hands-on training evaluating lunch menus against HealthierUS School Challenge standards. (Elementary)

Marketing Meal Appeal - School nutrition staff will discover how to promote healthful menu options including whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and nonfat and low fat dairy products. Learn how to create an eye appealing serving line that will entice students to choose healthier options. (PreK - Grade 12)

Putting Your Local Wellness Policy Into Action—Learn about key resources and strategies to help you meet legislative requirements for nutrition education, physical activities and other wellness activates as well as implementing nutrition guidelines in school. Participants will receive hands-on experience in evaluating curriculum and programs. (All school staff responsible for wellness initiatives)

Training programs to promote and enhance nutrition education and physical activity

New! ONLINE Training: Nutrition A3 Teacher’s Course – Nutrition A3 (text language for anytime, anywhere, anyplace)  engages teens in making healthy choices using technology to grab their attention. This online course prepares teachers to use six project-based units to change critical health behaviors that impact student health. MyPyramid, screen time, sweetened beverages, physical activity, portion size and more are covered in the projects that can be used independently in the classroom or after-school. Earn 4 CPDU credits and a $50.00 stipend, while funding lasts. (Grade 7-12)

Color Me Healthy—Provides fun, innovative, interactive learning opportunities on physical activity and healthy eating.  Learn how to teach toddlers ages 4 and 5 years old that healthy food and physical activity are fun by stimulating all of their senses and by using color and music. (PreK)

Color My Meals Healthy - This hands-on workshop is a fun and interactive training for child care staff to learn how to plan and prepare healthy meals and snacks affordably. Discover how to make menu enhancements that will align with upcoming recommendations for CACFP menus and learn to read labels to identify whole grain, low sodium and low fat foods. Each site in attendance will receive a menu planning resource booklet containing sample cycle menus and recipes. (Child care staff)

Multicultural Make and Taste (Social Science)—Provides teaching strategies and hands-on food activities that serve as a springboard to cultural exploration and nutrition education in the classroom as well as provide children with an opportunity to appreciate cultural diversity. (Pre K-Grade 3)

Got Dirt? - Growing Healthy Kids (Science, Language Arts, Social Science, History, Health, Math, Art and Music)—Learn how to bring core subjects alive and encourage healthy eating and increased physical activity for children and adolescents with a garden project. Got Dirt? - a garden toolkit for the Midwest - will help you plan and implement a successful garden to support community and school wellness initiatives. (Pre K-Grade 3)

A Game Plan for Sports Nutrition (Physical Education) — Provides teachers and coaches with skills to educate athletes to be physically fit and eat healthy diets that are nutritionally sound. (Grades 7-12)

ONLINE Workshop-Nutrition Education That Works: An Integrated Approach–Is your curriculum already packed? Learn strategies for integrating nutrition into core subjects using USDA Team Nutrition curricula you can check out from the Nutrition Loan Library. Each lesson has been matched to the Illinois Learning Standards (provided with training).  PreK-Grade 5. Sign-up is easy and completing the course provides 2 CPDU credits. Access here.