Up & At'em: teachers share activities to build kids' bodies & minds - Special Report: Kids' Health

Instructor, March, 2003 by Denise Willi

Darla Perry knows an active body means an active mind. So when her third-grade students have been sitting in their chairs too long, Perry gives their bodies--and their brains--a boost. She weaves 10 minutes of movement into her curriculum. When they're done, her students feel recharged and refreshed, Here are some creative ways other teachers are incorporating physical activity and nutrition into the classroom day. They all help to improve kids' exercise and healthy eating habits,

1 Ready, Set, Spell!

This game uses movement to stimulate the brain and motivates students to remember their spelling words. To do this activity, you'll need clipboards, crayons, and room for your students to walk briskly. First, create a worksheet for each child. Down the side of the worksheets write the names of six to ten colors. Have the children line up at a start line. Each child should have crayons that represent the colors listed on the worksheet. Place the clipboards with the worksheets about 15 to 25 yards away. Then, call out a color, announce a spelling word from that week's vocabulary list, and say "Go!" Have students walk briskly to their clipboards, spell the word on the correct space on their worksheets in the color you have called out, and return to the start line. Repeat this activity, each time with a different color and vocabulary word, until students have completed their worksheets. When students are finished, have them grab their clipboards and head back to the start!

-- Carol Goodrow, Grade Two, Parker Memorial School, Tolland, CT

2 Quick-Feet Math

Running and/or brisk walking lends itself to an unlimited number of lessons that reinforce math concepts. Whether you run or walk as a class, tell students to set a goal at the beginning of the year of how many miles or laps around the schoolyard they will complete each week. Have students keep a calendar to record their laps or miles as they try to reach that goal. Then have them use those calendars to add their total laps, convert the laps to miles, get the class total for the week, and average their daily, weekly, and monthly totals. You can even use brisk walking or running to teach the metric system, converting meters into miles.

-- Peter Saccone, Grade Five, Meridian Elementary School, El Cajon, CA

3 Healthy-Body Salad

This lesson is a great way to teach young children about how healthy eating benefits the heart and mind. You can do it to celebrate a great week of student work, or as the culmination of a thematic unit about My Amazing Heart/Body. Tell students you will have a "heart-friendly party" with healthy foods that are fun to prepare and tasty to eat. Ask each child to bring in a healthy ingredient to make a salad--such as green-leaf lettuce (rather than iceberg, which has low nutritional value), carrots, black olives, low-fat cheese, or fat free dressing. As each child adds his or her ingredient into a large bowl, describe how the ingredient is a heart-smart food. Then toss the salad and enjoy! For added fun, serve angel food cake with fresh strawberries.

--Cammie Breedlove, Grade One, Grove Hill Elementary, Grove Hill, AL

4 Animated Food Chain

When students incorporate movement into a unit about the food chain, they're more likely to remember what they've learned. To help them, have students choose a plant that is a producer--either a fruit or vegetable--hat they will act out during an imaginary growing period. Tell students not to reveal their choice and remain silent. Then have them make their bodies as low to the ground as they can, as if they were simulating the shape of a plant that has yet to grow. Tell students they will grow based on the sound and rhythms of a hand drum. Then play the drum very softly when they are seedlings in the ground, medium loud when they are half way to maturation, and very loud when they are fully mature and ready to be harvested. Walk around and gently tap each student to signal that they can reveal what plant they have grown into. You might also ask students to tell what they know about the plant or describe its nutritional value.

--Patty Aronofsky, Grade Four, Beulah Heights Elementary, Pueblo, CO

5 Heart-Thumping

This cross-curricular lesson will show students the benefits of being physically active by teaching them what a healthy heart rate should be. As part of a science respiratory system unit, have students create a three-column chart with the following headings: date, pulse at rest, pulse after activity. Teach students how to find their pulse on their wrists or necks. Have them count their pulse rates for 15 seconds and multiply that number by four to get a pulse rate per minute. Set aside 15 minutes a day for the following: First, have each student record his or her pulse at rest on the chart. Then have kids do a vigorous activity indoors or out--a fast walk, jog, or jumping jacks--for five minutes. After five minutes call "time," and count down 4,3,2,1. Have students record their pulse after the activity. At the end of two weeks, have students use their data to find mean, median, mode, and range of resting versus active pulse. Use the statistics to build double-line graphs with both pulses. Then have students w rite an essay or paragraph comparing and contrasting the two and telling what they learned.