This toolkit has been developed in order to assist market vendors, managers, volunteers and customers in offering a successful “SNAP at the Market” program! We want to provide clear information about what accepting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)/Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) entails, how it can benefit the market, vendors and customers, and what everyone involved will be asked to do. Inside you will learn how to accept SNAP/EBT (formerly known as food stamps), where to get point of sale equipment, which foods are SNAP eligible, and more. This will help ensure that everyone at the market has up-to-date information to make the program work well. This guide is intended to be an ongoing resource for you. There is space along the inside margin of each page for you to take notes or make comments as you go along.

The goal of the ADHS School Garden Program is to enable fresh produce to be safely served in school cafeterias from their on-site school garden. The program resources will help school gardens meet the requirements to be an approved source, as required in the Arizona Food Code.

The guide is a comprehensive guidebook that provides a strong foundation to support the growing school garden movement. It was developed by a team of experienced garden educators, nutritionists, state officials, and other garden experts. This guidebook is a must-have resource for anyone looking to enhance learning through the use of gardens in schools and other community settings.

This tool is designed to explain how to measure the total selling area of a store, both floor area and shelf space, as well as calculate the total percentage of selling area devoted to a particular type of product like produce or staple foods.

Tour leaders complete a self-guided and individualized training on our online Learning Space, where they can connect with other leaders across the country and find resources to make their tours a success. After completing the training and setting up their tour, leaders receive a ringed flip book with talking points that are divided by the section of the store allowing them to rearrange the sections to match the layout of the store hosting the tour. It also includes information on MyPlate as a tool to plan and guide your shopping decisions through the store, and each section comes with objectives, suggested timing, key talking points and skills to cover and practice with tour participants.

This fact sheet provides an overview of a model produce cart ordinance and describes the many benefits of produce cart vending. The model ordinance creates a streamlined permit program to make it easier for produce cart vendors to bring fresh, uncut fruits and vegetables from a mobile cart directly to a neighborhood.

Growing food on public property – from vacant fields, to schoolyards, parks, utility rights-of-way, and even the rooftops of public buildings – can yield a diverse crop of community benefits. Fresh, healthy food is just the beginning: growing food on public property can also promote civic participation, public safety, food literacy, job skills, and urban greening – in short, healthier, more vibrant places. This guide provides users with the tools they need to access public land for growing food, including: 1) opportunities to work with public agencies to identify and inventory suitable growing sites, and develop a process for partners to access these sites; 2) common types of agreements that govern the relationship between food-growing groups and public entities, such as leases, licenses, and interagency agreements; 3) common provisions in agreements, such as liability, utilities, maintenance, growing practices, contamination, access and security, and improvements; 4) special issues related to growing food on school district property; and 5) sample agreements from real-world urban agriculture projects on public land.

Use these guides to find which fruits and vegetables are in season in Arizona. Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall are all included in this zipped file.

This toolkit describes food hubs as an emerging retail strategy that has the potential to create a more equitable food system.

The primary purpose of the toolkit is to provide marketing collateral Fresh Pick, farmers markets - local flavor, family fun. In this toolkit you will find materials for all four Arizona seasons. 

This guide provides an overview of farmers’ market policy issues and community tested best practices. It also features a set of complementary model land use policies for comprehensive plans and zoning ordinances. This guide was written for local government staff (planners, public health departments, etc.), elected officials, farmers’ market managers, food policy councils, and other stakeholders, to provide practical guidance and tools that communities can customize to create more farmers’ market opportunities and to ensure their long-term viability.

This primer summarizes state and federal law and provides guidance for setting a preference that complies with both. It also provides step-by-step guidance on how a school district can implement a geographic preference policy starting with articulating the legal authority and rationale for buying local.

This guide provides a general overview of economic development and ideas for how to approach economic development agencies with healthy food retail proposals. It also provides a comprehensive overview of local, state, and federal economic development programs that have been or could be used for healthy food retail projects.

This toolkit is designed to help overcome the legal and practical barriers to establishing community gardens on land that is not municipally owned. It provides several model agreements and other documents that can easily be tailored, simplifying the process of building an agreement that benefits both landowners and the community.

This guide covers procurement basics, defining local, where to find local products, and the variety of ways schools can purchase locally in accordance with regulations. Throughout the guide, examples illustrate the many mechanisms available for districts to procure local food.

This toolkit describes how to create a strong, healthy small food retailer certification program that requires participating stores to increase the variety of healthy foods they sell, reduce the offerings of unhealthy foods, and proactively market healthy options with help from a sponsoring agency or organization. Ir provides step-by-step instructions for developing a certification program, with ideas and examples from existing programs.

The primary purpose of the toolkit is to provide marketing collateral for healthy food products being sold in retail stores of all sizes. The toolkit uses USDA’s recommendations on how to translate the Dietary Guidelines for Americans into key consumer messages. Some tips to highlight Be Inclusive (all forms of food), Encourage personalization, Empower change (positive, action-oriented steps). The subheading of the toolkit, Small Steps to Healthy Habits, drives this idea home.

School gardens offer opportunities for fun and physical activity while serving as an important educational tool to help students understand how healthy food is produced. Before you start a garden of your own, read and download this step-by-step guide, which offers important information about how to safely grow your own fruits and vegetables with your students.

This tool is intended to provide a range of promising, innovative strategies for overcoming the challenges of sourcing and marketing fresh produce at affordable prices.

This toolkit provides a framework and model language for land use policies that local policymakers can tailor to promote and sustain urban agriculture in their communities.

This guide will help you learn the Program rules and answer common questions about SNAP. At the end of this publication there is information about the Program and how to apply for SNAP benefits. This guide covers sections which include information on basic guidelines, what SNAP benefits can buy, Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, and penalties for breaking rules.

The Summer Lunch Buddies Toolkit was developed to promote the Summer Food Service Program across Arizona. The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Child Nutrition Program established to ensure that low-income children, ages 18 and younger, continue to receive nutritious meals when school is not in session. Free meals, that meet Federal nutrition guidelines, are provided to all children at approved SFSP sites in areas with significant concentrations of low-income children by schools, private non-profits and local or county governments. The SFSP is administered at the State level by the Arizona Department of Education (ADE). Food sites are located throughout Arizona. Sites provide FREE meals to children, ages 18 and younger, during approved meal service times and dates. Some sites may also offer adult meals at a discounted price.

This handout details the ten steps to a successful vegetable garden.

The Farm to School Planning Toolkit guides you through questions to consider and helpful resource to reference when starting or growing a farm to school program. It is designed for use by schools, school districts, and community partners. The toolkit is filled with tips and examples, insights from others, and lists of resources for further research.

This fact sheet discusses the benefits of well written shared-use agreements.

Nemours Health and Prevention Services created these physical activity guidelines to help promote and support quality physical activity for children and youth.

This fact sheet provides talking points and information to use when advocating for healthier street design.

This fact sheet provides talking points and information to use when advocating for healthier street design.

This comprehensive fact sheet discusses the legal implications of establishing a crossing guard program and identified concrete steps public entities – including school districts – can take to minimize their exposure to liability. While this ChangeLab Solutions’ resource was designed for California communities, information contained within the fact sheet can be adapted for use in other states as well.

This checklist is designed to identify issues to consider when developing a joint use agreement to share existing facilities.

This fact sheet is intended to help districts, parents, and active transportation advocates understand the legal implications of implementing a remote drop-off program and determine whether it is appropriate for their community. It also includes a cost-benefit worksheet for districts to assess the relative risks of implementing a remote drop-off program versus existing drop-off routines. While this ChangeLab Solutions’ resource was designed for California communities, information contained within the fact sheet can be adapted for use in other states as well.

This resource guide is intended for education policymakers, administrators and personnel at the state, school district, and individual school levels. It provides a detailed examination of the most up-to-date and relevant research linking physical activity and academic achievement, as well as the current rates of activity among school-aged youth. Common challenges and obstacles faced by schools—such as transportation costs, safety and liability issues—are discussed, as well as ways Safe Routes to School programs can help to mitigate these issues.

This guide provides a roadmap to making all types of communities bicycle friendly. This guide helps policy makers figure out where to start, and spells out how to effectively use policy to promote bicycling.

Congratulations on getting your Club up and walking! You got the motivated, now keep them motivated for big success. Use these tips to make sure your Walking Club doesn't break stride.

This resource guide provides public health and community partners with a concrete path to improve community health. These tools can be used comprehensively in an integrated approach that examines how well the physical characteristics of a community promote positive health outcomes, or individually to address a specific problem.

These slides come from the Heralthy Community Design workshop series hosted by AZ Health Zone (3 parts). The Slides walk through a built environement, how to make change and who you can look to for help. This PowerPoint is meant to provide background and knowledge for LIAs, not SNAP-Ed participants.

Part 3 takes a look at where in the implementation process you can get involved, how to be an advocate and who to partner with

These slides come from the Heralthy Community Design workshop series (3 parts) hosted by AZ Health Zone. The Slides walk through a built environement, how to make change and who you can look to for help. This PowerPoint is meant to provide background and knowledge for LIAs, not SNAP-Ed participants.

Part 2 takes a look at the planning process and how you can get involved.

These slides come from the Heralthy Community Design workshop series (3 parts) hosted by AZ Health Zone. The Slides walk through a built environement, how to make change and who you can look to for help.This PowerPoint is meant to provide background and knowledge for LIAs, not SNAP-Ed participants.

Part 1 walks through the different types of plans and the levels of government that affect planning.

This toolkit has been prepared to assist Arizona communities make changes what will result in the creation of a healthy physical environments for our residents. It provides a general overview of the process – explanation of the requirements and purpose for the plan, who to talk to in local government, how to get involved, a checklist for what policy topics should be addressed, and example policies that may be considered for incorporation into the plan.

The day has finally arrived - your Walking Club is ready for its debut! Celebrate the launch of your Walking Club with a kickoff event. This flyer will help get you started.

Follow these four simple steps, andy you'll be on your way to plotting a course with your new Walking Club.

Now it's time to spread the word. Put out a call for Walking Club comrades and keep them in the know using these easy strategies.

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs and projects help schools and communities improve safety, and get more children walking and bicycling to and from school. This resource guide focuses on schools and communities where at least half of students or community residents are low-income; it is intended to fill that gap.

This infographic outlines a few of the many strategies that can help get people bicycling around town.

This fact sheet outlines three principles of walkable streets: safety, convenience, and comfort. It also offers strategies for combining efforts across different local agencies, and provides advice for making short-term improvements and lasting, long-term change that make it easier for people to choose healthier ways to get around.

This fact sheet explains why liability fears shouldn’t keep schools from supporting Safe Routes to School programs, and offers practical tips for schools and community advocates.

The National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN) developed model joint use agreements to aid the development of such agreements. There is no one model joint use agreement and there is no single method to develop an agreement, but these are a great start.

This report explains how to use one set of tools – zoning and subdivision codes – to make communities more walkable and bikeable. It was designed to assist public health department professionals and advocates in their efforts to revise their local codes, but it may also be useful to other stakeholders routinely involved with updating and revising zoning and subdivision codes, including elected officials, planners, and local advocates.

This resource calls out specific approaches and tools that may be particularly helpful for rural schools, exploring elements of the Safe Routes to School District Policy Workbook. It walks through why safe routes matter, how to succeed with safe routes, and policies that support walking and biking to schools.

The Open Streets Project is collaboration between the Alliance for Biking & Walking and The Street Plans Collaborative. The goal of the project is to share information about open streets and increase the number, size, and frequency of initiatives occurring across North America. The Open Streets Project includes a published guide and this interactive website, which allows advocates and new open streets organizers to explore open streets efforts in other peer cities. To learn more, please visit: http://openstreetsproject.org/

This fact sheet explains how state laws, insurance, and joint use agreements can help protect school districts from liability.

The Midcourse Report is intended to identify interventions that can help increase physical activity in youth across a variety of settings. It focuses on 5 settings which include: schools, preschool and childcare centers, community, family and home, and primary care. The report also discusses the importance of each setting and its relation to youth physical activity and important precedents for policy involvement.

This toolkit is a nuts-and-bolts guide designed to help school staff and other community leaders craft and implement joint use agreements. Complete with model agreement language and success stories from communities around the country. This toolkit provides a comprehensive overview of the most common ways to finance joint use arrangements, and guidance on how to overcome obstacles that may arise in negotiating and enforcing a joint use agreement.

This guide is a comprehensive reference manual designed to support the development of Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs. It provides links to other SRTS publications and training resources. It contains several chapters about specific topics of a SRTS program and is an “all-inclusive” guide.

This illustrated roadmap outlines thirteen policy options that can help make Safe Routes to School a permanent part of our communities. The accompanying brochure breaks down the policy options even further.

This illustrated roadmap outlines thirteen policy options that can help make Safe Routes to School a permanent part of our communities. The accompanying brochure breaks down the policy options even further.

This fact sheet provides talking points and information to help communities create Safe Routes to School programs and policies. English_Spanish

These successful demonstrations showcased proven methods of slowing traffic and increasing safety with traffic calming designs. The demonstrations were used to educate community members, elected officials, and city staff on how we can work together to create safer, more vibrant, and healthier communities. These educational events have the potential to influence policy change for better street design.

This resource has a library of how-to guides featuring useful advice and tools for creating a successful Walking Club. You’ll find a variety of ideas here, so you can do what works best for your Walking Club.

The purpose of this guide is to provide a clear description of how to plan and organize a walking school bus using adult volunteers as leaders. This step-by-step guide outlines how to plan and implement a walking school bus for your school, and includes proven tools, tips and resources for a fast and easy start. Whether or not you are familiar with SRTS, this guide will get you started on the right foot.

VERB™ Scorecard is a practice-based intervention designed to increase activity levels of tweens (9-13 year olds) through a community-wide campaign effort. This includes promoting physical activity opportunities and utilizing a “passport” (scorecard) system of tracking physical activity during a designated time period. This is a community level environmental change intervention that targets individual behavior.

This checklist helps give insight into walkability of a neighborhood. It contains insightful questions, allowing the user to evaluate specific aspects of a neighborhood’s walkability. In addition to the questions, the checklist provides both immediate answers and long-term solutions to a neighborhood’s potential problem areas.

Get your Walking Club off on the right foot by learning and sharing the basics of walking. Here's what Walking Club members need to know before hitting the pavement.

This tool aims to help get kids more physically activity on their way to school. This resource identifies areas to work on in order to get a walking school bus in your community which includes where to start, reaching more children, identifying potential routes, finalizing logistics and kicking off the program. To learn more, please visit: http://www.walkingschoolbus.org/

This fact sheet provides an introduction to and basic information about joint use agreements.

Many children consume up to half of their daily calories at school, so it is essential to make sure they have healthy snacks and drinks available, in addition to healthier meals.

This book offers 52 physical activities and their variations that are fun for young children. This is designed for children to develop fundamental movement skills and physical fitness, inclusive of children with special needs.

This assessment tool will help communities, school-siting professionals, schools, and city officials identify barriers that prevent students from walking and biking to and from school each day and create solutions to encourage neighborhoods to be more physically active.

This fact sheet discusses how school districts can use their school wellness policies to reduce sugary drink consumption. It includes information on what beverages schools can sell to students, the importance of addressing sugary drinks in local school wellness policies, and optional sugary drink policy elements that school districts can include in their local school wellness policy. While this ChangeLab Solutions’ resource was designed for California communities, information contained within the factsheet can be adapted for use in other states as well.

Caring for Our Children, 3rd Edition (CFOC3) is a collection of 686 national standards that represent the best evidence, expertise, and experience in the country on quality health and safety practices and policies that should be followed in today's early care and education settings.

The new CACFP meal patterns lay the foundation for a healthy eating pattern for children and adults in care. USDA also developed optional best practices that build on the meal patterns and highlight areas where centers and day care homes may take additional steps to further improve the nutritional quality of the meals they serve. The best practices reflect recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the National Academy of Medicine to further help increase participants’ consumption of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, and reduce the consumption of added sugars and saturated fats. Best Practices are optional and not required for meal reimbursement.

USDA recently revised the CACFP meal patterns to ensure children and adults have access to healthy, balanced meals throughout the day. Under the new child and adult meal patterns, meals served will include a greater variety of vegetables and fruit, more whole grains, and less added sugar and saturated fat. The changes made to the meal patterns are based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, scientific recommendations from the National Academy of Medicine, and stakeholder input. CACFP centers and day care homes must comply with the new meal patterns by October 1, 2017.

USDA recently revised the CACFP meal patterns to ensure children and adults have access to healthy, balanced meals throughout the day. The changes to the infant meal pattern support breastfeeding and the consumption of vegetables and fruit without added sugars. These changes are based on the scientific recommendations from the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics and stakeholder input. CACFP centers and day care homes must comply with the new meal patterns by October 1, 2017.

CSPAP is a multi-component approach by which school districts and schools use all opportunities for students to be physically active, meet the nationally-recommended 60 minutes of physical activity each day, and develop the knowledge, skills, and confidence to be physically active for a lifetime

This worksheet provides a guide for school boards, superintendents, district staff and others to develop and review board policies and administrative regulations related to physical activity.

Children develop eating competence step-by-step throughout the growing-up years when they are fed according to a stage-appropriate division of responsibility. At every stage, parents take leadership with feeding and let the child be self-directed with eating.

These guidelines are a set of recommended practices for programs to use as they strive for excellence in the care and education of young children throughout Arizona. This document is intended to provide guidance by delineating quality and providing a set of indicators that concretely describe what a program will look like when providing high quality early care and education for children birth through age six.

Children develop eating competence step-by-step throughout the growing-up years when they are fed according to a stage-appropriate division of responsibility. At every stage, parents take leadership with feeding and let the child be self-directed with eating.

Children are born loving their bodies, curious about them and inclined to be active. Parents provide structure, safety, and opportunities. Children choose how much and whether to move and the manner of moving.

Children are born loving their bodies, curious about them and inclined to be active. Parents provide structure, safety, and opportunities. Children choose how much and whether to move and the manner of moving.

This handout will help guide participants in making feeding decisions for their child.

This toolkit contains the materials necessary to plan and deliver an Empower Advanced training. This toolkit should only be utilized after completion of an Empower AdvancedTrain the Trainer session.

Note: Videos are included throughout the training presentation. Refer to the Facilitation Notes for indication when a video is meant to be played. Video files are included for download in the toolkit.

This toolkit contains the materials necessary to plan and deliver an Empower Basic training. This toolkit should only be utilized after completion of an Empower Basic Train the Trainer session.

Note: Videos are included throughout the training presentation. Refer to the Facilitation Notes for indication when a video is meant to be played. Video files are included for download in the toolkit.

Use this infographic as a tool with providers, parents, and community partners to communicate how the Empower Standards may be implemented and how daily practices support each standard. Keep in mind that your work in the AzNN applies to the Empower Standards related to obesity prevention (1, 3, 4, 5, and 6).

Sample policies for Empower Standards 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. ECE decision makers may use these policy templates when creating or revising policies in their setting.

This guide is intended to help early care and learning professionals and their programs, including center based, family child care, Head Start and public preschools, successfully implement Family Style Dining practices. This guide focuses on serving meals family style with toddlers and preschoolers, though afterschool programs may adopt these practices as well.

Model school wellness policy language for limiting unhealthy marketing to students.

Good nutrition and the value of healthy food choices are often taught in the classroom. However, many times foods served in the classroom, in the case of a class party or rewards for behavior, are low in nutrients and high in calories. This sends students a mixed message – that good nutrition is just a part of their education and is not important to their health. To send the right message and to keep our children healthy, teachers, staff, and parents can work together to offer healthy classroom party alternatives.

This fact sheet is designed to help parents and community advocates ensure that their district’s policy is enforced.

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs and projects help schools and communities improve safety, and get more children walking and bicycling to and from school. This resource guide focuses on schools and communities where at least half of students or community residents are low-income; it is intended to fill that gap.

The purpose of this guide is to explain why your ECE center or family child care home should serve water to children under your care, and to give you information on how to do it. It also describes how providing water fits in with serving other beverages.

These guidelines describe expectations about what infants and toddlers should know (understand) and do (competencies and skills) across multiple domains of development during specific age ranges, as well as what adults can do to support children’s optimal learning and development.

When you think back to elementary school, recess is often a highlight of the day. Recess was a time to play with friends and socialize. Research shows that recess is more than just a break from classroom time — it helps students not only increase their daily physical activity promoting healthy growth and development, but also helps students practice social skills (e.g., cooperation, following rules, problem solving, negotiation, sharing, communication), positively engage in classroom activities (e.g., being on-task, not being disruptive), and enhance cognitive performance (e.g., attention, memory). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlines the following benefits of recess for students:

• Increasing their level of physical activity.

• Improving their memory, attention, and concentration.

• Helping them stay on-task in the classroom.

• Reducing disruptive behavior in the classroom.

• Improving their social and emotional development (e.g.,

The evidence is clear - healthy, active students are ready to learn and contribute to a positive school climate.

Engage school staff and parents in school wellness using these ready-to-go communication tools. Sharing news about your Local School Wellness Policy is easy with these flyers, presentations, newsletter articles, and social media posts. Your school can personalize them to make them specific to your Local School Wellness Policy activities.

This fact sheet explains why liability fears shouldn’t keep schools from supporting Safe Routes to School programs, and offers practical tips for schools and community advocates.

The National Policy & Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN) developed model joint use agreements to aid the development of such agreements. There is no one model joint use agreement and there is no single method to develop an agreement, but these are a great start.

This resource is a state-level tool for state boards of education, state policymakers, and school health advocates supporting healthy school food environments.

This guide is intended to serve as a practical tool for implementing feeding best practices for optimal nutrition in early care and education settings. Those who work in child care centers, schools, community organizations or primary health care practices play an important part in supporting children’s development of healthy habits, both by providing nutritious food and by teaching children how to make healthy food choices. Children who learn these habits when they’re young are more likely to continue making healthy choices in adulthood. By sharing information with families and early care and education providers, you can work with them as partners to support healthy children.

Nemours Health and Prevention Services (NHPS) created these physical activity guidelines to help promote and support quality physical activity for children and youth. Those who work in child care centers, schools, community organizations or primary health care practices have powerful opportunities to ensure children have access to health-promoting physical activity on a daily basis. Equipped with information about best practices, parents, family members and neighbors can serve as important advocates to ensure that physical activity becomes a regular and enjoyable part of daily life for children.

This workbook serves to help child care providers, families, and communities work together to raise fit, happy children. Child care providers and other early childhood professionals can use this workbook to develop their own individualized wellness policies.

This toolkit is intended to provide a range of science-informed, promising or emerging obesity prevention strategies to address childhood obesity in rural communities in five different sectors that serve children.

This guide was developed to aid in designing and painting playgrounds with a goal of increasing opportunities for physical activity in preschools. The guide addresses: preschool physical activity recommendations; fundamental movement skills; suggested playground elements; and preparation and instructions for painting and tools to assist with playground designs.

This toolkit is a nuts-and-bolts guide designed to help school staff and other community leaders craft and implement joint use agreements. Complete with model agreement language and success stories from communities around the country. This toolkit provides a comprehensive overview of the most common ways to finance joint use arrangements, and guidance on how to overcome obstacles that may arise in negotiating and enforcing a joint use agreement.

The second edition of Preventing Childhood Obesity in Early Care and Education Programs is the new set of national standards describing evidence-based best practices in nutrition, physical activity, and screen time for early care and education programs. The standards are for ALL types of early care and education settings - centers and family child care homes. This manual provides the foundational knowledge and reasoning that supports obesity prevention standards in early care and education settings. Use this manual to understand rationale and more comprehensive background information pertaining to nutrition and physical activity standards. 

This guide is a comprehensive reference manual designed to support the development of Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs. It provides links to other SRTS publications and training resources. It contains several chapters about specific topics of a SRTS program and is an “all-inclusive” guide.

This illustrated roadmap outlines thirteen policy options that can help make Safe Routes to School a permanent part of our communities. The accompanying brochure breaks down the policy options even further.

This illustrated roadmap outlines thirteen policy options that can help make Safe Routes to School a permanent part of our communities. The accompanying brochure breaks down the policy options even further.

This fact sheet provides talking points and information to help communities create Safe Routes to School programs and policies. English_Spanish

This Guide (created by the AZ Health Zone Cooperative Extension - Nutritional Sciences) is meant to be used with student groups to give them an opportunity to provide schools with knowledge, motivation, and resources needed to build a lunchroom environment to make healthier choices.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 requires USDA to establish nutrition standards for all foods sold in schools — beyond the federally-supported meals programs. This infographic shows the difference between the types of snacks sold before Smart Snack standard and the types offered after the standard was implemented; it also highlights the difference in empty calories.

The purpose of this guide is to provide a clear description of how to plan and organize a walking school bus using adult volunteers as leaders. This step-by-step guide outlines how to plan and implement a walking school bus for your school, and includes proven tools, tips and resources for a fast and easy start. Whether or not you are familiar with SRTS, this guide will get you started on the right foot.

This document, Strategies for Recess in Schools, describes strategies for planning and providing recess in schools to help increase participation in physical activity and improve academic achievement (e.g., performance, behavior, attention). The audiences for this document include state and school district leaders that provide technical assistance and professional development on recess

ECE providers are in a special position to empower young children to learn habits that can keep them healthy for life. ADHS developed the Empower Program in 2010 as a voluntary program to support licensed ECE facilities’ efforts to empower young children to grow up healthy and is based on 10 program standards.

This tool aims to help get kids more physically activity on their way to school. This resource identifies areas to work on in order to get a walking school bus in your community which includes where to start, reaching more children, identifying potential routes, finalizing logistics and kicking off the program. To learn more, please visit: http://www.walkingschoolbus.org/

With a Smarter Lunchroom, your lunchroom team can have a positive impact on your students’ eating habits. This toolkit contains materials and resources that will help make the creation of your Smarter Lunchroom more manageable.

A conversation guide for parents and adult caregivers of children age 7 to 11 years old as it relates to being overweight and obesity.

This fact sheet provides an introduction to and basic information about joint use agreements.

YPAR is a proven framework and model used to engage, empower, and activate youth on research to improve their schools, afterschool programs, communities, and/or service groups. YPAR is a model SNAP-Ed program, as noted in the SNAP-Ed Strategies and Interventions Toolkit. Implementing this program requires a Training and Technical Assistance, which is provided by the Public Health Institute in California: Contact Amy DeLisio, MPH, RD • (916) 265-4042 x109 • [email protected]

First comes shopping, then comes putting food away — but where? You may be surprised to learn the best places to store your groceries! Here's a helpful guide from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act establishes strong nutrition policies for child nutrition programs. Many of these policies foster healthier school environments for kids, provide a variety of nutritious foods to millions of children nationwide, and prepare them to be productive students.

Curriculum Description

Botany on Your Plate is a life science unit that inspires children to explore the fascinating realm of plants we eat. Every lesson begins with plant tastings that spark curiosity, interesting question, and social dialogue to fuel the learning process. This inquiry approach engages children as botanists observing and collecting data, discussing findings, and reflecting on what they learn as they study edible roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons #1 and #8 are recommended. Lessons #2-7 are required. The lessons are designed to be implemented in sequence. These lessons are not stand alone.  Lessons can be taught in 30 minutes, but 60 minutes is recommended.

In an effort to brighten your table, we've supplied you with a weekly journal to keep track of your vegetables and fruits. Simply check off the boxes and try to eat a variety of vegetables and fruits to brighten your day.

This handout describes how to refrigerate food promptly and properly to reduce the risk of foodborne illness.

This handout focuses on the importance of washing hands and surfaces often.

Color Me Healthy is a program developed to reach children ages four and five with fun, interactive learning opportunities on physical activity and healthy eating. It is designed to stimulate all of the senses of young children: touch, smell, sight, sound, and, of course, taste. Through the use of color, music, and exploration of the senses, Color Me Healthy teaches children that healthy food and physical activity are fun.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons can be taught as stand-alone lessons. Color Me Healthy is designed to be used in family daycare homes, Head Start classrooms, and childcare centers serving 4 and 5 year olds.

This handout highlights the proper cooking temperatures for food.

This handout reports the safe minimum internal temperatures for cooking food.

This handout series provides basic cooking information to use with families.

This handout series provides basic cooking information to use with families.

This handout series provides basic cooking information to use with families.

This handout series provides basic cooking information to use with families.

This handout series provides basic cooking information to use with families.

Cooking Matters for Chefs and Kids is an easy-to-use guide that helps chefs, nutrition educators, and food service professionals provide hands-on instruction that will help kids develop a love of cooking and the skills to make healthy food choices wherever they go. Within the guide you will find a variety of resources to help you engage kids, including tips and advice for planning fun activities, materials lists and activity instructions, appealing and interactive recipes for kids, and fun handouts that supplement the lessons of each activity.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons can be taught as stand-alone lessons and can be implemented by anyone with culinary training in any community.

This handout describes how to compare labels to choose foods lower in sugar.

Tour leaders complete a self-guided and individualized training on our online Learning Space, where they can connect with other leaders across the country and find resources to make their tours a success. After completing the training and setting up their tour, leaders receive a ringed flip book with talking points that are divided by the section of the store allowing them to rearrange the sections to match the layout of the store hosting the tour. It also includes information on MyPlate as a tool to plan and guide your shopping decisions through the store, and each section comes with objectives, suggested timing, key talking points and skills to cover and practice with tour participants.

Discover MyPlate is fun and inquiry-based nutrition education that fosters the development of healthy food choices and physically active lifestyles for children. Kindergarten teachers can meet education standards for Math, Science, English Language Arts, and Health using the 6 ready-to-go and interactive lessons. Children become food-smart as they practice counting, reading, writing, and more.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons are part of a series (not stand-alone lessons). Intended to be taught in 6 weeks or it can be taught over a course several months. Lesson may be extended based on supplemental activities from this curriculum.

Use these guides to find which fruits and vegetables are in season in Arizona. Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall are all included in this zipped file.

Eat Smart, Live Strong is an intervention designed to improve fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity among 60-74 year olds participating in or eligible for FNS nutrition assistance programs. The intervention can support the efforts of program providers and communities in delivering nutrition education to low-income older adults. Each session in Eat Smart, Live Strong focuses on changing behavior by guiding participants in learning and practicing new skills.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Curriculum can be taught as a series or as stand-alone lessons.

The Eat Together, Eat Better lessons support nutrition, parent, and youth educators in teaching the importance of family meals. The lessons use a mix of interactive learning formats, including small-and large-group discussions, brainstorming, planning, and cooking activities. All of these activities create discussion, encourage problem solving, and develop skills to support family meals.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons can be taught as stand-alone lessons, but each session of the lesson must be taught (child, parent and family sessions).

Eating Smart • Being Active is a healthy eating and active living curriculum designed to be taught to limited-resource adults. The lesson plans of Eating Smart • Being Active are appropriate for use by paraprofessional (peer) nutrition educators when teaching limited-resource adults about healthy lifestyle choices. The curriculum consists of nine core lessons, each designed to be taught in less than 2 hours. All participant materials are available in English and Spanish*. All lessons include a food preparation activity and lessons 2 through 9 include a physical activity segment. Eating Smart • Being Active can be used to teach adults 1-on-1 or in small groups (2-12 people). While the materials could be used in larger groups, adult learning principles guide us toward smaller groups to encourage greater participant involvement and enhanced learning.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

The curriculum consists of nine core lessons, which are designed to be taught in order.

A component of the Healthy Classrooms Health Schools curriculum, FitBits^™ is an innovative, best practice resource that gets students up out of their seats and moving while, at the same time, reinforcing nutrition and health concepts that are aligned with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, grade level National Health Standards and USDA MyPlate. The activities are arranged into four content areas: Healthy Bodies, Food Groups, Fruits and Veggies and Healthy Snacks.

Fruits and Veggies More Matters ™: Storing Fresh Fruits and Vegetables for Best Flavor handout.

Go4Life from the National Institute on Aging at NIH is designed to help older adults fit exercise and physical activity into their daily life. This resource explores the kinds of exercises and physical activity that improve health and physical ability.

Without leaving the classroom, students participate in a variety of purposeful movement designed to get the wiggles out and refocus the classroom — all in five minutes or less. GoNoodle involves movement activities that develop memory and fluency in math, spelling, and vocabulary.

Grow It, Try, Like It! is a nutrition education kit Featuring MyPlate is a garden-themed nutrition education kit for child care center staff that introduces children to: three fruits - peaches, strawberries, and cantaloupe; and three vegetables - spinach, sweet potatoes, and crookneck squash. The kit includes seven booklets featuring fruits and vegetables with fun activities through the imaginary garden at Tasty Acres Farm! It also has a CD-ROM with Supplemental Information and a DVD with Cool Puppy Pup's Picnic and Lunch Parties. Each set of lessons contains: hands-on activities, planting activities, and nutrition education activities that introduce MyPlate. Use the kit to promote learning at home with fun parent/child activities and family-sized recipes that give tips for cooking with children.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

The booklets are designed to be taught in sequential order and follow a Day 1 to Day 5 Planning Chart. Booklets may be taught in any order or individually, following the lesson order within each booklet.

Growing Healthy Habits is a gardening and nutrition education curriculum for elementary aged kids. This resource focuses on integrating nutrition into the classroom through gardening and scripted lessons that meet science, language arts, social studies, health, and math objectives. Growing Healthy Habits uses gardening as a tool for encouraging students to consume more fruits and vegetables and whole grains, and increase physical activity.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Units can be taught in any order and each lesson within each unit can be taught in any order, but all units of the curriculum must be taught.                                                                                 

Health Through Literacy is a book set of five to six books, age-appropriate for each grade K–5. Each set includes books with nutrition or physical activity themes. Every book comes with a tip sheet to enhance the health messages in the book. The tip sheets help teachers discuss the books with their classes, incorporate physical activity into the reading of the book, provide ideas for a food tasting for students, and integrate health messages with other areas of the curriculum.

Healthy Classrooms, Healthy Schools helps teachers transform their classroom and school into environments promoting healthy eating and physical activity. This curriculum includes two sets of supplemental lessons, one for grades K-2 and one for grades 3-5. Healthy Classrooms, Healthy schools can also be ordered with companion books that have nutrition and physical activity themes tailored to individual grades, K-5.  The curriculum includes eight lessons incorporating 27 activities. FitBits^™ is a best practice resource component that gets students up out of their seats and moving while, at the same time, reinforcing nutrition and health concepts that are aligned with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, grade level National Health Standards, and USDA MyPlate. Another accompanying resource is Health Through Literacy, which is a book set of five to six books, age-appropriate for each grade K–5. Each set includes books with nutrition or physical activity themes.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Unit 1 must be taught first and the last lesson to be taught must be the last Unit. The Units in-between may be taught in any order (Per the Ensuring Success sections “beginning and Ending the Program” and “Completing the Units”). At least 6 lessons must be taught (including the first and last Unit). Fit Bits and Health Through Literacy are supportive materials/ resource and not lessons in and of themselves.

A nutrition and lifestyle handout that encourages family’s to live healthier lives.

Tips on the many ways you can use healthy foods from the food bank.

Tips on how to stretch your food dollars while on a budget.

Tips to help save time, money, and food.

This handout teaches how one-pot meals make cooking easy, fun, and can be more affordable.

This resource kit will give child care providers the tools they need to teach children about eating right and being physically active using familiar Sesame Street characters.

Curriculum Description

The 2016 revised Junior Master Gardener (JMG) Level 1 curriculum provides elementary teachers with the tools to teach the world of gardening with eight chapters of novel, hands-on and proven lessons. The curriculum also helps develops life skills, includes career exploration and provides opportunities for students to culminate the JMG experience with service-learning projects. As students complete areas of study, they can earn different recognition certifications including designation as Certified Junior Master Gardeners. Each chapter is divided into sections called teaching concepts. Then, there are multiple activities within each teaching concept.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons may be used individually as stand-alone lessons. The program can be implemented in schools, after-school programs, or other groups interested in young gardeners. Teaching multiple activities within a teaching concept is recommended.

Curriculum Description

The Junior Master Gardener (JMG) Level 2 Operation Thistle module allows students to participate in novel, hands-on activities focusing on Plant Growth and Development. Students will work as a group to complete lessons in each of learning concepts in the guide then work independently to complete activities which are found within the mission briefs and mission option pages. JMG Level Two combines Teacher/Leader Guide and reproducible pages of independent student “handbook” activities into a single book. This premier program encourages youth to take part service projects in their community.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons may be used individually as stand-alone lessons. The program can be implemented in schools, after-school programs, or other groups interested in young gardeners. Teaching multiple activities within a teaching concept is recommended. Please note: JMG Level 2 Operation Water is not approved for AZ Health Zone use.

Curriculum Description

Learn, Grow, Eat & Go! (LGEG) is a 10-week unit of study (two lessons per week) that is hands-on, multi-faceted, and academically rich. It combines the interdisciplinary elements of nutrition, garden science, physical activity, food preparation, and fresh vegetable tastings to improve the health and wellness of children, families, and the school community.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

• The lessons are designed to be implemented in sequence. These lessons are not stand alone.
• This curriculum guides each class in planning and planting a garden. The size of the garden may be modified according to the curriculum.
• At least six food exposures are recommended. Two Garden Kitchen recipe demonstrations are recommended. Ten Go Strong classroom exercises are recommended (one per week).  “Growing further” lesson extensions are optional.

Use this log to determine how much time you are spending in front of a screen.

“I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing…” The first person to go completes the sentence with a word that starts with “A.” The next person repeats what the first person said and adds a word that starts with “B.” Continue through the alphabet until you can’t think of any more things to bring on your picnic! Game When you’re finished, draw your favorite picnic items on the table below

Cut out the conversation starters to the right along the dotted lines, and place each strip in a cup or jar. Whenever you want to get the family talking, pull one out and let the fun begin!

Use the tips in this guide to fill your plate with healthy foods without breaking the bank.

This colorful handout developed by the Indian Health Service shows balanced meals with reasonable portion sizes. This tool shows three easy steps to knowing what and how much to eat. The front features a dinner plate. The back shows youth breakfast, lunch, and optional dinner plates. Based on the USDA MyPlate and designed for Native audiences.

MyPlate for My Family: SNAP Nutrition Education is a MyPlate resource that supports SNAP-Ed nutrition education and obesity prevention efforts, and is based on recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. It is targeted to parents and caregivers who are SNAP participants or eligible for SNAP, and play a key role in planning, purchasing, and preparing food for their families.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lesson can be taught as stand-alone sessions. This curriculum is designed to be taught to parents with children ages 2-18 years old.

The PAK is based on best and promising practices to increase physical activity. The PAK toolkit can be used in schools, communities, worksites, Head Start programs, elderly centers, and youth programs. The goal of the PAK is to increase the time American Indians and Alaskan Natives spend in medium to high physical activity for all ages across the lifespan. While the activities have been field tested to be culturally appropriate for Native communities, others might find PAK useful in their community.

Put a Little Play Into Your Day - Mind Map Activity Sheet. Refer to the map legend for ways you can put a little play into your day. For each activity you complete, check off the box on the mind map below. From your head to your heart, physical activity keeps your mind and body strong.

Curriculum Description

Seed to Supper is a six week classroom-based beginning gardening curriculum developed by Oregon Food Bank in collaboration with Oregon State University Extension. The goal of the program is to increase food security of low-income audiences by providing training in beginning vegetable gardening. The curriculum uses structured PowerPoint slide sets, a participant workbook, and time for instructor/student Q&A. Materials to train volunteer teachers from the community are also provided.

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Seed to Supper lessons are not stand-alone and must be taught in the sequence provided. Participants should be provided with the course booklet plus additional resources educators use to supplement their teaching. The pre- and post-program survey included in the curriculum is required. The curriculum is flexible to meet participants' needs. For example, there is a presentation on container gardening that may be useful to urban gardeners.

Discover which fruits and vegetables are sweetest, crunchiest, and juiciest through a series of investigations and fun experiences connecting the school garden to the classroom, school cafeteria, and home. This eleven-lesson curriculum for 3rd and 4th grades includes bulletin board materials, veggie dice, fruit and vegetable flash cards, and ten issues of Garden Detective News for parents/caregivers.   

Curriculum Implementation Guidelines

Lessons are part of a series and taught in order. Curriculum flexibility based on garden type and size of garden.

Visit this website to learn more about:

• The five Arizona SNAP-Ed Focus Areas for FY '19 – FY '20
• Resources for evaluation-related trainings, materials, and helpful links
• Our FY16 - FY18 annual evaluation reports, as well as scholarly publications and posters led by members of our team
• Each of our team members under About Us

Go to the Website