You've gotta be heart smart!

Teaching Pre K-8, Feb 1998 by Bushnell, Ruth J B

Activities that will help young children get a healthy-heart start in life

When young children arrive at school, we rightly focus our efforts on helping them develop "readiness" skills so that they'll learn to read and write early in the primary grades. But children need other readiness skills, too - skills that will help them stay healthy for a lifetime.

As an elementary physical education teacher and an American Heart Association volunteer, I make it my responsibility to help young children learn about proper nutrition, the benefits of physical activity and how to live a tobacco-free life.

It's urgent that we teach these behaviors to our children. Here's why: According to some studies, up to one-third of American children are obese, contrary to popular belief. Americans are getting less exercise than ever before; and tobacco use is again on the rise among young people.

Presentation counts. Young children can grasp heart-healthy concepts if they're framed in a way that builds on their experiences and engages their imagination.

Begin by posting the AHA HeartPower! motto:

You can have a healthy heart! It's as easy as one, two, three! Eat healthy stuff move around enough and live tobacco-free!

Set the motto to music; use it as a chant or a jump-rope sing-along.

Put it in writing. To help young children understand the function of the heart, ask them to use their imagination. On a sheet of chart paper, write, "The heart is like..." Then read aloud what you've written and invite children to brainstorm possible endings to the sentence. To give children an example, say, "The heart is like a motor that keeps running."

On separate sheets of chart paper, write down what the kids come up with, such as "the heart is a pump" or "the heart is something we can't live without." Bind the pages together with yarn to create a big book and invite children to illustrate it.

Transition activities. Weave teachable moments about the heart into transition times, such as between recess and reading or cleanup times between science and social studies. Teach kids this catchy rhyme:

Please be smart says your heart. Smoking is something you shouldn't start.

As students are getting ready for the next activity, chant the rhyme and clap your hands to the beat. Once the children have settled down, talk about what the chant means and then begin the scheduled activity.

For a variation, have students sing familiar songs with new lyrics - for example, "Heart, Heart, Love My Heart" to the tune of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"; "I've Been Working on a Healthful Diet" to the tune of "I've Been Working on the Railroad"; and `This Strong Heart, It Pumps Blood" to the tune of "This Old Man." Kids love to sing from - and about - the heart.

Follow up these "heart-smart" activities with those that focus on critical behaviors - the joy of getting enough exercise, making smart eating choices and choosing never to smoke. Here are a few activities that work well.

Get a move on! To help children understand that a balance between active and nonactive leisure activities is important, distribute large sheets of drawing paper with a line drawn down the middle. Ask children to tell you what their favorite nonactive activities are. Write their suggestions on the left side. On the right side, write their favorite active leisure activities. Point out that this can be an organized activity, such as a dance class or team sport. Invite the children to illustrate your chart.

Salad song. Discuss the importance of healthy food choices. (The HeartPower! activity cards and posters are terrific for this.) Show pictures of foods that might be part of a healthy salad. Bring in salad ingredients and have the children help you mix the salad. Then, to the tune of "Did You Ever See a Lassie?" sing the following lyrics, using a mixing motion and swaying as you sing. Vary the lyrics with the names of other fruits and vegetables.

Did you ever mix a sala4 a salad a salad? Did you ever mix a sul,alM,ce in this way or that? With lettuce and tomatoes and peppers and tomatoes. ..

Did you ever mix a salad, in this way or that?

Smoke? No joke! Children love this clean-air rhyme and take pride in shouting it In teaching it, help them understand that smoking is bad for people, that it hurts our bodies. Also help them understand that people who smoke aren't bad people. They need encouragement to stop smoking - for their health and that of those around them.

We're not joking. We don't like smoking. It ruins our air. That's why we care! We're not joking. We don't like smoking.

Also make a big book titled "I'm Glad I Don't Smoke ..." Include children's suggestions such as, "because my lungs work more easily," "because I won't hurt my heart." Start each day by reading the big book.

HeartPower! These are just a few ideas inspired by my work as an AHA volunteer and contributor to HeartPower! To find other activities that are easily adaptable and developmentally appropriate, call your local office of the AHA at 800-AHA-USA1 and ask about Heart-Power! This five-level program contains activity cards, posters, videos, a big book, audiocassettes and a teacher resource book.