In this imaginary project, pretend you're designing the packaging for one of the foods in It's Disgusting—and We Ate It!—like 40,000-year-old woolly mammoth meat or fried grasshoppers.  What would you draw for the front of the package?  What slogans would you make up?
        How about these?
        "Uggo's PrehistoricWoolly Mammoth Burgers—The Food That Smells Real."
        "BuggiOs—Get your morning jumping with the cereal that kicks back!"
        What else would you put on the package?  Directions for conventional oven and microwave?  Nutrition information?
        Make up your own package for a food in the book and draw a cool picture on the package front.  You can even make several on cardboard and trade them with your friends as trading cards!

        How about black tomatoes that taste better than anything in the store, or bright purple potatoes?  Visit the web site for SeedSavers Exchange and order seeds of heirloom vegetables from around the world, including the delicious Black from Tula tomato!

        It's Disgusting—and We Ate It! is a book that uses every school subject to explore the world of wacky real-life foods. It is written to adapt itself to every classroom and even to the playground.  Here are some festive classroom activities that can help teachers use It's Disgusting as a teaching tool. Like the book, these activities focus on having fun in order to bring social studies, math, and every other subject to life.
        Feel free to modify these activities to fit the abilities and interests of your students.
        The first three are rather elaborate; click on number 4 to find NUMEROUS simpler ideas that mostly require less preparation. The activities range from easy to very challenging, but most can be changed to fit different ages. And make up your own! Maybe these will inspire you.
 

1. 500-Year-Old Food Makes Me Sick!

Subjects: language arts, social studies
Based on: pages in It's Disgusting titled "A Royal Feast" and "Eat Yourself Sick, Your Highness" (pages 20-21, page numbers not marked)
Purpose: to learn how to play with language, developing creativity

2. Feast of the Century--The Sixteenth Century!

Subjects: art, social studies, recess
Based on: pages in It's Disgusting titled "A Royal Feast" and "Eat Yourself Sick, Your Highness" (pages 20-21, page numbers not marked)
Purpose: to have fun drawing silly pictures, and to learn the names of famous people in history
Teacher Preparation: hand out pictures of historic people with a few facts and dates about each—giving a different person to each child, trying to match the famous person to the child. A good source for pictures and information about a variety of famous folks (both male and female and of different races) is the series by Kathleen Krull including Lives of the Writers, Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Musicians, and Lives of the Presidents.

3. Recess Makes Me Queasy (a game)

Subjects: social studies, art, P.E., recess
Based on: world map endpapers (inside covers) of It's Disgusting
Purpose: to have fun , stay in shape, and learn about the world

4. Other Activities