Printable Healthy and Unhealthy Food Activity Worksheets for Grade 1

Four different task formats — circling, labeling, word-list sorting, and column matching — ask students to tell healthy foods apart from unhealthy ones.

Year groups: Primary, Years 2–6
Pages: 8
File type: PDF
Preparation: Print ready

Updated May 10, 2026

Subject: Health, Nature & Plants, P.E. & Health, Life Sciences, Science
Topic: Healthy and Unhealthy Food Worksheets, Nutrition Activities for Kids
Resource types: Worksheets, Worksheets & Printables
Preparation: Print ready

From the author

About this resource

Introduction

This worksheet set was made to help young learners talk about healthy and unhealthy foods in a simple and fun way. The activities give students practice recognizing different foods while also encouraging conversations about healthy eating habits.

Students will sort foods into categories, complete labeling activities, and work with common food vocabulary. Most of the pages are visual and easy to follow, which makes them a good fit for younger learners or beginner ESL students as well.

What’s Included:

Healthy and unhealthy food sorting activities

Picture identification exercises

Simple labeling and categorizing tasks

Food vocabulary practice with common everyday foods

Cut-and-paste style sorting pages

Easy matching and circling activities

Visual exercises designed for young learners

Activities that support healthy eating discussion

Grades / Ages:

Ideal for Grades 1–5

Implementation Format:

Perfect for classwork, homework, centres, or independent practice
Great for health lessons, science activities, and vocabulary review
Supports both guided and independent learning

Answer Key:

Not included

File Type:

PDF (Non-editable)

Number of Pages:

8 pages total

License:

Paid product for personal or single-classroom use only

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Identify pictured foods as healthy or unhealthy by circling only the healthy examples.
Sort a list of named foods, such as apple, yogurt, and doughnut, into Healthy food and unhealthy food categories.
Label individual pictured foods as healthy or unhealthy based on their nutritional content.
Classify healthy and unhealthy foods into the correct column across a repeated worksheet format.

Teaching tips

Use the word-list pages (3–4) first if picture identification is difficult, since every food name is spelled out directly on the page rather than shown only as an illustration.
Preview less familiar words with students before the sorting pages — the lists include items such as porridge, brownie, and slush that may need a quick definition.
Double-check page 2 before assigning it: it is titled ‘unhealthy food’ but repeats the same instruction as page 1 to circle the healthy foods, so confirm with students which items they should be marking.

Skills covered

Food classification — students sort foods, by picture or by name, into healthy and unhealthy categories across four worksheet formats.
Vocabulary recognition — students match food words such as porridge, brownie, and doughnut to a nutrition category on the two list-based sorting pages.
Visual discrimination — students examine printed food pictures and decide whether each one belongs in the healthy or unhealthy group.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

How do the picture pages differ from the word-list pages?

The picture pages (1–2, 5–8) show illustrated foods for students to circle, label, or sort by sight, while the word-list pages (3–4) spell out 14 food names — such as apple, yogurt, cabbage, and toffee — for students sorting by reading rather than by image.

What do the column-matching pages (7–8) ask students to do?

Each page provides a Healthy food and an unhealthy food column heading and instructs students to place the pictured foods into the matching column, giving a third sorting format after circling and labeling.