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| Didax "Class Ideas" Newsletter Archive |
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Children are becoming less and less active these days and the typical American diet is becoming less and less nutritious. What is this doing to our kids? Statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics show that the percentage of overweight children has almost doubled from 6% in 1980 to 11% in 2002.
As teachers and parents, we need to be aware of the exercise and nutrition habits of our students and children. We can help them gain the knowledge needed to make healthy choices in their lives. This month's article provides easy ways to incorporate activity into daily lessons. Kids, by nature, love to move and reminding them how fun it is will help them choose physical activities over sedentary ones.
Along with this great article, you'll find an email-subscriber only special, useful Internet links and downloadable activity pages. I hope you find this issue meaningful and informative. Please feel free to email me if you have any suggestions for future newsletters; I love to hear from you!
Anna Mullen, Editor
anna@didax.com |
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| Get Moving: Preparing Children for an Active and Healthy Lifestyle |
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 by Dr. Beth Hands
University of Notre Dame, Australia
Did you know
• schools are banning many active playground games?
• schools are shortening recess and lunchtimes – key opportunities for children to be active?
• children are spending more hours watching TV and playing computer games than running around being active?
As a society we are making it easier and easier for children to be sedentary. It is much easier (and safer) to look after a child who is sitting quietly than one who is running around. It is much easier to remove challenging play equipment and ban vigorous games than to teach children how to play safely. However, the long-term consequences for our children’s health and wellbeing are significant. Inactivity is only second behind tobacco smoking as a preventable cause of early death.
So what can teachers do to reverse this trend?
Make physical activity sessions positive learning experiences
• Teaching children to move safely.
This is a far better option than banning an activity. Children need to learn how to move around various settings (e.g. how to land safely from a height or how to climb up and over an obstacle) and the only way this can be done is providing lots of opportunities to practice.
• Teaching children interpersonal skills.
Physical activities such as playground games and sports are wonderful opportunities to learn how to interact with others in a positive way. Children learn how to negotiate, resolve conflicts, agree on rules and win and lose graciously. Sometimes, simple games such as “rock, paper, scissors” are all that are required to teach children to sort out disagreements.
Make activity part of the school day
Physical activities can be embedded into a school day in lots of fun ways. They are ideal as short transition activities from one experience to another, from one learning area to another, as short time fillers between activities or at the end of the school day. Try these:
• Say “Good morning” by jumping in the air and clapping hands, rolling or throwing a soft ball to a friend, or standing on one leg.
• Move in or out of the classroom while walking on tiptoe along a line, jumping backwards, or putting a beanbag between the feet and jumping.
• Fill a spare 10 minutes by making up a hopping rhyme, dancing, standing on one leg and counting to five, 10, or 20; discovering ways to balance with a partner on three, four, or 5 different body parts; or making the letter “W” with a partner.
• Say “Goodbye” by forming a circle and skipping or tossing a beanbag in the air and catching it.
Integrate movement into each key learning area
For example:
• Learn the parts of the body by giving challenges such as “Can you twirl a hoop around your waist, your right arm, or your left ankle?”
• Ask the students to design and make the targets to be used for practicing throwing or kicking skills. Letter or number grids can also be used for targets (e.g. “Can you hit the letters that spell cat?”)
• Challenge the students to make letters or numbers with their bodies. Form small groups and make numbers, letters, or words!
• Use task cards or flash cards with instructions for movement; e.g. “Hop three times,” “Jump twice,” “Clap 10 times.”
• Ask students to make up a rap, a dance, or a song using action words such as bump, jump, slip, skip, hop, stop, clap, tap.
• Learn to count numbers of catches or hops in a different language.
• Measure the distance jumped, hopped, leapt, or thrown. Compare to students’ heights.
• Time an activity. Make timers with sand or rice in bottles.
• How many bounce and catches can you do in 30 seconds?
• Count the number of steps taken to cover the length of the basketball court, from the classroom to the water fountain, around the playground, etc.
• Play tag games. Children are safe if they form a group which is the same number as the answer to a number problem; e.g. 3 + 4, 10 – 3, 2 x 3, etc.
• Students design then setup their own obstacle courses.
• Play tic-tac-toe on a large grid using beanbags.
Make activity sessions challenging and interesting for each child.
The children in your class will be competent in a range of different skills, which are often based on their interests. If they are big soccer fans, for example, they will want to develop and master soccer skills such as dribbling and dodging. On the other hand, some children will not have had the opportunity or interest to master more fundamental skills such as balancing, throwing and catching. To accommodate for the variety of abilities in your class, provide different levels of challenge for each activity.
For example, for an activity involving throwing a ball at a target, offer:
• a choice of target size;
• a choice of distances to stand from the target; and
• a choice of ball sizes or object shapes.
Make activity sessions fun!
This is the most important point. We want children to develop and maintain a positive attitude towards physical activity so they will choose action options rather than inactive options for the rest of their lives. |
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| Downloadable Activity Pages |
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 This month's free activity pages come from Didax's brand new series, Healthy Choices. There are six pages for each grade range, three pages of activities and three pages of accompanying teacher notes and background information. Each set of pages include a general healthy lifestyle activity, an activity about fitness and an activity about healthy diets. Simply choose the grade range appropriate for your students, download and start learning! |
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| Healthy Choices Internet Links |
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 With children's health being such a hot topic these days, the resources offered by the Internet on this issue are practically endless. Here are a few wonderful sites to get you started. Some are for your students, like BAM.gov having fun games and quizzes. Some are for your reference, like MyPyramid.gov which is packed with information about the new food pyramid. |
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| March Newsletter Theme: Visual Learning in Math |
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 Join us next month for the first of a two-part series, Visual and Hands-on Learning. March will bring you information about visual learning in math class with an article by popular author Stuart J. Murphy. Then look forward to April's tips and techniques for using manipulatives in math class for your tactile learners. |
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