These two weeks will focus mainly on physical activity. I will discuss the other section in their unit journal where they have to document their activity time as well as mood for the day. I will point out that eating right is only one part, being active is also important. We will start going outside for recess daily, and use the gym on rainy days. I will plan activities for the class to do during recess, and leave some days free for free play where the students can play on the playscape with each other freely. After recess, the students will come into the classroom and work in their journals. They will chart their food eaten at lunch, as well as what activity was played and the mood that they are in. It will be at this time that the students will start to see the correlation between eating right, exercising and how they both affect a child's mood.
Physical Activity and Mood-
Lessons 1–4: Modeling for the students is the most effective way to get the student to understand what type of behavior you expect from them. Over the next 2 weeks, the students will be introduced to heart rate monitors. The monitors will be exciting for the students and will promote active living. Show the students the heart monitor and ask them questions such as, "Why does one use a heart rate monitor?" "How does this help us to be active?" Invite the students to explore their heart rate monitor and explain that we will be using them during active parts of the day. First step to get the students used to the monitors. Start trying things that are normally done during the day (i.e. walking to lunch, walking to the bathroom etc.) Have the students look at their heart rate and record for each activity. After a few different activities, speed it up! Take the students outside or in the gym and have them run around and not their heart rate after 2 minutes, 5 minutes then 10 minutes. Bring the students back into the classroom and discuss what they noticed about their heart rate when they were active outside as opposed to when they walked in the hallways. Chart student's responses on chart paper to display on the walls.
Lesson 2–4: For the rest of the week, the students will wear a heart rate monitor to observe and record their heart rates during active times of the day. Their heart rates will be recorded into their journals and at the end of the week, the students will graph their
activities completed each day as well as their heart rate. An example of a graph is shown in figure 1.3. We will look at each students graphs after they have completed them and discuss what we have noticed about activity and heart rates.
Week 6: During the second week, we will still keep track of our healthy eating, amount of sleep and heart rates. We will be recording them into our journals as well as having a lot of meaningful discussions about the changes we have made to our diets and lifestyle. During this week, I will focus my attention on great picture books to read to the class.
Book 1:
Exercise
By Liz Gogerly is a great book to read to second graders. The book is about a grandmother who is fit and in great shape because she was always active growing up. She is did not watch television, she did a lot of other things including walking to and from school every day. This book will introduce my lesson on "screen time" the students are still doing. Hopefully, since we are keeping track of our heart rates and enjoying a healthy and active lifestyle, the amount of time the students spend in front of a television and/or computer screen has already gone down. I will point out to the students that sitting in front of a television doesn't raise heart rate. We will discuss what a healthy amount of time should be spent in front of a television and computer screen each day. We will come up with a time that all students must follow every day and the students must log the hours in their journal if they took, for example all 20 minutes of screen time, or if they only spent 5 minutes.
Book 2:
Arthur and The Race to Read
, By Marc Brown. This book has a character every second grader is fond of, Arthur! Arthur is in top shape in this book and he tries to get his friends into shape for a reading fund–raising race. This book will encourage the students to think of more ways to stay active every day! After the story, we will brainstorm a list of new and exciting ways to be active every day and keep our heart rates up.
Book 3:
I.Q. Gets Fit
, By Mary Ann Fraser. This book is all about being active! It is health month and the students must pass a fitness test! The book will review for the class the food pyramid, getting plenty of rest and how to stay active. This is a great book for mid–week since it will review everything the students have been learning about. After the book, the students will have a choice assignment. They will choose from a writing assignment about what they have learned about being active. Or the students can complete an encouragement poster, where the students will design a poster that will be posted in the hallways to encourage other students to eat right, be active and get plenty of sleep. Either assignment will assess the students knowledge of all aspects of the unit.
To close this unit, I will pass out the questionnaire that was completed prior to the unit. The students will now fill it out and we will compare our answers from the beginning of the unit, till now. We will also reflect on how different our lives became. Are we eating more fruits and vegetables? Are we going to sleep earlier? Are we in better moods during the day? Do we feel better? I will also highlight the fact that just because we are closing this unit, does not mean we stop being healthy. A healthy lifestyle and a healthy mind is important every day for the rest of our days.