Sit on the edge of the chair with your back straight. Pull your belly button in to engage your ab muscles and protect your back muscles. With your knee bent, lift one leg up slightly and hold for a few seconds. Then do 50-100 small pulses. Make this movement from your hip. (Pretend like your leg is a lever making your knee go up.) Don’t let your leg drop below parallel. Repeat on the other side. This exercise is great for strengthening your leg muscles!
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Raise your arms out at your sides and up to your shoulder level. Make a gentle fist with each hand. Bend each arm at the elbow with your fists pointed up at a 90 degree angle. Keep your neck relaxed. Your upper body will look like a goal post ready for a field goal. Do 50-100 small pulses up and down with your elbows, pushing your fists straight up toward the ceiling. Keep your goal post looking nice and perfect!
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Raise your arms out at your sides and up to your shoulder level. Make a gentle fist with each hand and keep your neck relaxed. Rotate your shoulders forward, making tiny circles with arms. Do this for 2-3 minutes. Then reverse the direction and rotate your shoulders backward, making small circles with your arms. Do this for 2-3 minutes.
When doing this exercise, do not let your arms go below your shoulders. Keep your shoulder, elbow and wrist in a straight line.
Hold the resistance band or PVC pipe with a wide grip (more than shoulder width) in front of your body. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. While holding the band or PVC pipe, slowly raise your arms over your head and then behind your head. Keep going until you reach a gentle stretch. Slowly bring your arms back to the front of your body. Repeat 10 times.
Poor balance: Lean back against a wall or sit in a chair with your feet flat on the ground, shoulder width apart.
Asthma is a disease that causes the small airways in your lungs to become inflamed or swollen. It may also lead to airway spasms. Both of these conditions narrow your airway and make it hard for you to breathe.
Commons asthma triggers include:
Warning signs of an asthma attack vary from person to person. In general, the following are signs of an attack:
You can manage asthma by:
Asthma Medicines for Children
There are different kinds of medicines to treat asthma. Different medicines work for different people. Two common kinds of medicine are:
Controllers. These are used daily to help prevent a person’s airways from getting inflamed. They are also called anti-inflammatories.
Rescuers (relievers). These are used when person is having symptoms to keep an asthma flare-up from getting worse. Rescuers sometimes can help relieve asthma symptoms. They are also called bronchodilators. It is important for people with asthma to always keep a supply of rescue medicine on hand, and keep this supply up-to-date.
Ask them to flip over their checklists to the “How to Care for Asthma” side and to work in pairs to brainstorm things they can do to support a friend or family member who has asthma, or to manage their own asthma if they’ve been diagnosed. For a friend or family member this might be reminding them to take their medicines, being kind and understanding if they have to take a break for an activity, not wearing strong perfumes or other scents around them, or telling a teacher or other adult right away if they think someone is having an asthma attack. For themselves it might be remembering to do all these things. Encourage young people to be creative with this brainstorm.
Ask young people to say aloud their ideas and make a list on a white board or flip chart paper of the ways they can support people with asthma or manage their own asthma. The idea is to build awareness of and compassion for people who live with this chronic condition. Distribute the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish and ask them to be sure to share it with their parents.
Asthma 101: Helping kids breathe easy
Asthma videos – Allina Health Video Library
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Picky eating often occurs at ages 3 to 5. At this age, children like to explore food rather than eat to it. Usually it is a phase that children go through and then grow out of over time. Children often refuse foods because of color or texture. Teaching them to explore foods and describe the flavors, smells and textures instead of just using words like; “like or dislike” can help improve their willingness to try new things over time.
Children don’t always take to new foods easily or right away. Here are some tips that can help a child learn to like new foods.
Source: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/preschoolers-picky-eating
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish and encourage young people to surprise their families at the next meal they share by using one or more of the words you talked about and learned today to describe taste, texture or smell.
http://www.choosemyplate.gov/preschoolers-picky-eating
Number youth off as 1’s and 2’s. Ask the 1’s to stand in a line facing the 2’s (like a mirror). Each student’s partner will be standing in front of him or her, as if a reflection. Ask the 1’s to tell the 2’s about something exciting, while the 2’s “mirror” their excitement. Switch roles and repeat. After each partner has had a chance to play each role, change the emotion of the story to mad, sad, happy, etc.
Ask the youth to write a spelling word in the air with their fingers. Once they write the word in the air, ask them to trace a line moving from left to right underneath the letters, then right to left. Take it to the next level! Ask the youth to point to the letters (in their correct placement) as they are called out. Remind youth to use their opposite hand and then, other parts of their bodies such as their toe or elbow.
Studying one of the 50 great states in the U.S.? Take a tour by physically moving through the landmarks! For example, take a tour around Minnesota: walk across the Mississippi Headwaters in Itasca State Park, climb a white pine, walk tall with a moose, swim in one of the 14,000 lakes, play an instrument at Orchestra Hall, climb Eagle Mountain (the highest point in Minnesota), march up the steps at the State Capital and run around the Spoonbridge and Cherry in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Follow the curriculum for pictures and maps.
While reading out loud, ask the youth to listen for the action verbs. Each time one comes up, move like the word! For example, if a sentence says, “The worm wiggled through the hole in the dirt”, have youth wiggle!
