Building understanding

Linking meals to times of the day

Numeracy

﻿Hello, my name is Helen, and I'm your teacher. Today's lesson is lesson three of four of the time lessons in the number unit, Building Understanding. For today's lesson, we're going to be looking at different times of the day and different types of food, and trying to link them together so that we have sensible food at sensible times of the day. For this lesson, you will need different food you could find around your house, but please ask an adult before you take any food from your kitchen, or you could use pictures of food. You will also need written headings of different meal times for example, breakfast, lunch, tea or supper. You could draw pictures of these if you don't want to write them. So now you know who I am and you've got your resources ready. Let's find out what we're going to do during today's lesson. First, I will show you how to match food to the correct time of day. You might find this more than one sensible answer and that's okay. Next, you will have a go at matching the food to the correct time of day. Finally, you will complete an exercise where you will spot my errors, I've muddled up a menu and need some help to rearrange it. Breakfast is a meal that we eat when we first get out of bed in the morning. What kind of food could we eat for breakfast? There's lots of different answers. What did you have for breakfast this morning? Let's have a look at these suggestions and see if you can find what you had to eat. We could have some cereal, or maybe some porridge. An egg boiled, scrambled, or even fried. Some toast, a croissant, or some bacon and eggs. Lunchtime is a mealtime that we tend to eat in the middle of the day around noon or midday. What type of food could we eat at lunchtime? Let's have a look at some suggestions, a sandwich, or wrap. A toastie, some crisps, a salad, or a bowl of soup. Teatime is a meal time that tends to be eaten in late afternoon or early evening. Sometimes this is the main meal of the day. What type of food could we eat at teatime? Let's have a look at some suggestions, a roast dinner, meatballs and spaghetti. Sausages and mashed potato. Well, maybe a curry. Supper is a meal that can be eaten usually before we go to bed. So we might like to have a lighter snack at suppertime. What types of food could we eat at suppertime? You may like to have some cereal before you go to bed. Well, maybe a bowl of porridge, some toast. Or a light salad. I've got some written headings for different meal times of the day. I've got breakfast, which is the meal that we tend to eat in the morning when we get out of bed. Lunch is usually quite a light meal in the middle of the day so around noon or midday. We might've busy so you might not have time for a big meal at that time. Tea which is, quite often a main meal usually eaten late afternoon or early evening. And supper, this is usually a light snack that we eat before we go to bed. Now, some people might call lunch, dinner. They might call tea, dinner. Before this activity, we're going to be looking at breakfast. We're going to call it lunch in the middle of the day, tea late afternoon and supper, just before we go to bed. I've also got some food that I've found in my kitchen, and I'm going to try to match these different types of food to sensible meal times of the day. You might find there's more than one sensible answer and that's fine, but I'm going to see if we can find a sensible time of the day to be eating these types of food. I'm going to start this, a bowl of cereal. When do you think might be a sensible time of day to eat some cereal, would I except for breakfast, for lunch, for tea, or for supper? Excellent, breakfast. That's a great idea. I'm going to eat that when I first get out of bed in the morning, I certainly wouldn't want to eat cereal for my tea, because it wouldn't be a main meal that I looks to eat at that time of day. Okay. What's about a sandwich, when would I eat a sandwich? For breakfast, for lunch, for tea or for supper? Lunch time is great time of the day to be eating a sandwich. Really sensible time of the day to be eating a sandwich. I said it's an important once a week to it for breakfast. When I first got out of the bed. How about a pasta dish, pasta meal? What time of day would I eat pasta? Breakfast, lunch, tea, or supper? Teatime is a really sensible time to be eating pasta. So actually it's like a main meal, that you may find that you want to eat some pasta at lunchtime and that's fine, but you might not have time if it's a particularly large bowl of pasta or plenty of pasta. And I said to be able to want to eat pasta in the morning when I've got out of bed for my breakfast. When would I eat a bowl of soup? Would I eat a bowl of soup for breakfast? No, I wouldn't do that. I could eat it at lunch time. I could also eat some soup before I go to bed at supper time because it's quite light, but I'm going to put it on lunch. 'Cause I like to have soup at lunchtime in the middle of the day. When would I eat a plate of fish and chips? Would I like to eat fish and chips at breakfast time? No, that wouldn't be very nice when I've just got out of bed, would it? I would eat fish and chips for my tea, as a main meal. You may find you would like to eat fish and chips at lunchtime, that would also be sensible. But sometimes I find I've not got time for fish and chips at lunchtime. So actually I have to eat them myself for teatime. When would I eat a croissant? Would a croissant be sensible to eat at teatime? It's not really a main meal, is it? So I wouldn't eat it teatime, but it would be sensible to eat it either for breakfast or maybe I prefer to eat it at suppertime. Well done. Finally, when would I eat a packet of crisps? Could I eat a packet of crisps when I've got out of bed at breakfast time? No. That wouldn't be very nice. I prefer to have this at lunchtime in the middle of the day. Well done. Now it's your turn to match meals to the correct time of day. Ask your parent or carer to help you find food in the house, or you could have real pictures of food. Place the food you found in your house or pictures of food in front of you, match your food to the correct time of day you would eat it. Breakfast, lunchtime, teatime or supper. Pause the video to complete your task. And when you finished click to resume. I have muddled up my daily menu. Please, could you help me rearrange the menu to make the meals more sensible? Can you find any meals that shouldn't be with the meal times that they're currently in? Where would you put them? You may even find some of your own meals you can add to the menu. Remember there may be more than one meal time that you could eat this food at. So there may be more than one correct answer. That's much better. These meals are much more sensible to be eaten at these times of the day. Well done. You've done really well today linking meals to different times of the day. If you'd like to make some of these tasks a little bit easier, you could first focus on learning about the food you could eat for breakfast. Next focus on learning about the food you could eat for lunch. Then repeat this for tea and then for supper. If you wanted to make it a little bit harder, you could try to think of your own food to match each meal we have discussed. For more ideas on how to complete tasks similar to these. You could use pictures or words to create your own menu for each meal of the day or when in the supermarket, see how many items of food you can find to match each meal of the day? Well done. That was a fantastic lesson. You've been able to link meals to the different times of day. Next lesson we'll be looking at sequencing mealtimes during the day. If you'd like to, why don't you ask a parent or carer to share your fantastic way with Oak National Academy on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Don't forget to tag Oak National Academy. I'll see you next lesson. Bye.

Linking meals to times of the day

Linking meals to times of the day

These resources will be removed by the end of the Spring Term 2026.

Lesson slides

Lesson details

Key learning points

Equipment

Licence

Lesson video

Worksheet