Lesson Overview

This exercise lesson helps kids understand why being active is important for their bodies and minds. The youth will experience how they feel different before and after physical activity. In this activity, kids will estimate how much daily exercise they get and think of ways they can be more active.

Introduction

Ask young people, why is it good for us to move around and get exercise?

There are so many reasons why exercise is important. Some of the most important things for kids to know are:

1. Exercise is good for heart health. It helps your heart pump blood all through your body. Your heart can never take a rest, so it needs to be strong! Good food and plenty of exercise help.
2. Exercise can put you in a good mood. When you exercise, your body makes a chemical — called an endorphin — that helps you feel good.
3. Exercise helps your body stay at, or reach, a healthy weight. The food you eat is energy that you put into your body. This energy is also called “calories.” To stay at a healthy weight, you have to use up the energy you eat. Exercise helps you do that. If you don’t use the energy, it stays in your body and can make you gain weight that you don’t need. Extra weight is hard on your heart, muscles, and bones.

Energy In vs. Energy Out

In this exercise lesson, explain that “energy in” is the food we eat and the beverages we drink. “Energy out” is the physical activity or exercise we do every day.

Talk with the children about what happens when we take more energy in than energy out and vice versa. Our bodies need energy to properly grow. If we take in more food and beverages on a regular basis than our bodies need, it is possible for us to gain excessive weight. Explain not only the importance of exercise for kids, but also how a healthy balanced diet helps our bodies grow and be healthy.

Activity: Before and After

1. With the kids sitting quietly, explain that you are going to do a classroom experiment involving exercise.
2. On the flip chart or whiteboard draw a vertical line down the middle. Label one column “before” and the other “after.”
3. Ask for words that describe how they are feeling as they are sitting quietly in their seats. Encourage them to pay attention to what kind of mood they are in, what their bodies are telling them, and how much energy they have. They may say things like: calm, tired, antsy, bored, comfortable. Whatever they say is fine as long as they say what they actually feel. Write these words or phrases in the “before” column.
4. Lead the kids in a variety of exercises, such as high-knee marching around the classroom, sit-ups, push-ups, jogging in place, or jumping jacks. See if anyone has suggestions of activities. Exercise for at least five minutes before having them return to their seats.
5. Now have them share how they are feeling after exercising. Write those words in the “after” column. They may say things like: alert, awake, happy, full of energy, excited.
6. Talk about the activity. Reiterate information on the positive health benefits and importance of exercise for kids:
   • It helps your body maintain overall good health.
   • It helps build and maintain healthy bones and muscles.
   • It increases flexibility.
   • It feels good, if done right.

Activity: Thinking Through Exercise Habits

1. Ask: How much time should kids exercise each day? How can you get more? The answer is that it’s good for kids to exercise daily for at least one hour, but wait to offer this until the kids have made suggestions of their own. Then use the following questions to help them think about their own exercise habits.
2. How much exercise do you get at school? Prompt them to think about how much time they spend in gym class, and how much time outside for recess. Ask them if that adds up to one hour a day. You may want to add up the amount of time mentioned on the board.
3. How much exercise do you get when you’re home after school? If young people say that they don’t get much exercise after school, ask them what they do instead of exercise. Ask what their favorite exercise is and plan how they can do more of it. They could turn off the television after 7 p.m., encourage the family to go on a walk before or after dinner, or go outdoors and play with their friends.
4. What about exercise on the weekends? Ask the kids to make a list. Make sure they remember things like soccer, dance, etc., in addition to playing outside with friends. In fact, it can be anything that involves moving your body, like going for a bike ride, walking the dog, running, helping in the yard, ballet class, soccer practice, gym class—anything that gets your body moving. After the kids make their lists, ask them to write downtimes during the day that they can add these exercises to what they’re already doing so that they reach one hour a day.

Conclusion

After this exercise lesson is complete, encourage the group to try more simple exercises for kids at least one time, even if they don’t think they will be very good at them. Remind them that you don’t have to think you’re good at something to enjoy and to benefit from it. If they stay open to new possibilities they may be surprised by what they discover.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, so that families can explore new ways to exercise together at home.

Additional Instructor Resources

Encouraging Your Child to Exercise video

Lesson Overview

Bodies get a lot of attention in our society, some of it not very positive, much of it focused on appearance more than actual health. This lesson helps young people understand different components that make up the structure of the human body. Youth will learn how eating and exercise habits influence how much muscle and fat each person has inside their body.

Instructor Notes

Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about body composition. These facts can also be shared with young people during your discussions.

• Body weight is the combination of muscle, fat, organs, fluid, tendons, ligaments, and bones.
• The human body is made up of about 600 to 700 muscles.
• Voluntary muscles attached to the skeleton allow the body to move, while involuntary muscles allow the movement of internal organs.
• Voluntary muscles are the muscles that you can move by thinking about it. You can flex your bicep muscle by lifting up your arm and “showing how strong you are.” They are called voluntary because you can make the decision to do it, just like you can volunteer to wash dishes after dinner. Involuntary muscles are those muscles that work automatically; you do not have to think about digesting your food, or flexing your own heart to pump blood around your body.
• Ligaments are tissues connecting bones to other bones to form joints.
• Tendons connect muscle to bone.
• Bone is hardened connective tissue that supports the body, protects organs, and aids movement of the body. Bones store minerals, these minerals are phosphorus, magnesium, fluoride and calcium, and are involved in cell formation. The body is made up of 206 bones.
• The heart is an organ. It is also a muscle that pumps blood through the body.
• The lungs are organs that exchange oxygen from the air with carbon dioxide from the blood.
• Fat is unused energy.
• The intestines absorb nutrition from food to be used by the body. They allow the nutrients to enter the blood.
• The stomach releases enzymes that break down food into nutrients that can be used by the body.

Introduction

Show the youth the two containers (don’t show the inside). One box is filled with a heavy item the other a lighter item.

Ask: Can you tell what is inside? Both boxes are full.

Let the young people handle the boxes, feeling the differences in weight.

Ask: Do you think both boxes have the same materials inside? Why?

Explain that you can’t tell what is inside the packages by looking at the outside. Our body is just like these packages. We see the outside, but do not know what is inside. Each body is different. All of our bodies have: muscle, fat, organs, fluid, tendons, ligaments, and bones. All these combined make up our total weight.

Activity: Body Components

Looking at how the body is put together will help young people understand that everybody is different. Each person has a unique body and unique needs. Introduce 5 components of the human body.

If you have access to a projector and the proper software, use the the interactive whiteboard files to guide young people through learning about the parts of the body. In unavailable, discuss the following facts with the youth.

• Your body is made up of five separate components, each of which has an important role:
  • Bones give you height and support your body. How many bones do you have in your body?  206
  • Muscles give you movement and strength. How many muscles do you have in your body? 600 to 700
  • Internal organs support life. Can you name some of your organs? Skin, stomach, intestines, liver, spleen, pancreas, heart, brain, lungs, gall bladder, kidneys, and bladder.
  • Skin keeps you together and your organs inside your body.
  • Fat keeps you warm, protected, and provides stored energy.
• All of these components change with age and level of activity.
• Two people could look alike on the outside and weigh the same, but be very different on the inside. Our eating and exercise habits, along with age and genetics, determine how much muscle and fat each person has inside their body. Eating healthy and being active helps our bodies in the following ways:
  • strengthens our muscles
  • keeps our heart, lungs, and bones strong
  • helps build the right amount of protection and stored energy
  • and helps our organs work properly.

If we eat unhealthily and are not active, our muscles and bones become weak, our heart and lungs have to work harder to do their jobs, and sometimes we store extra fat our bodies do not need.

Ask: What happens to your body when you get older (grow taller, gain weight, muscles become stronger)? What are some activities we can do to keep our bodies healthy as we get older? What are some foods we should eat to keep our bodies healthy as we get older? What kinds of food and activities could make you unhealthy and be bad for your body?

Conclusion

Point out that our human beings are amazing and complex! Encourage young people to try to make choices every day that help their bodies be healthy, strong and fit.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish so that families can continue discussing body composition at home.

Additional Instructor Resources

• Body Composition on Reference.com
• Midwest Dairy Council Bone Health Brochure

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand how their hearts work and why it is important to keep them healthy. The youth may participate in any of the five activities that teach how the heart delivers oxygen-rich blood to every part of the body.

Instructor Notes

Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about the heart. These facts can be shared with young people during your discussions.

Your heart is a muscle that pumps oxygen-rich blood to your body and brings oxygen-poor blood back to your heart and lungs. Your blood travels through several miles of blood vessels. The cells in your body need the oxygen to survive.

Your heart is located near the middle of your chest, slightly to the left. This tough muscle is about the size of an adult fist, and it weighs about one pound. The average human heart beats 72 beats per minute.

We work to keep our hearts healthy to help avoid these serious and relatively common health problems:

• Heart disease – Fatty deposits can form and harden in the arteries of your heart. This material, or plaque, narrows the arteries in a process called atherosclerosis, which can restrict blood flow to your heart. The more plaque in your arteries, the greater your risk for a heart attack.
• High blood pressure – Blood pressure is the amount of pressure within the walls of arteries. Many factors can cause high blood pressure including having too much salt. High blood pressure puts stress on your blood vessel walls. There are usually no signs or symptoms. The silent condition can lead to:
  • heart attack
  • heart failure
  • stroke
  • kidney disease.
• Stroke – A stroke happens when blood and oxygen flow to the brain is stopped or interrupted. This happens because of a ruptured or blocked blood vessel. A stroke is similar to a heart attack and just as serious.
• Heart attack – Heart attack happens when an artery becomes blocked with plaque or a clot. When blood cannot flow to the heart, damage or death to the heart muscle may occur.
• Sudden cardiac arrest – This is a sudden loss of heart function caused by an abnormal heart rhythm. Heart and breathing stop. Death can occur without immediate help. Sudden cardiac arrest is sometimes referred to as a “massive heart attack.” Sudden cardiac arrest can happen to anyone, anywhere at anytime.

Introduction

Provide young people with information on the human heart.

According to the American Heart Association, the normal human heart is a strong, muscular pump a little larger than a fist. Each day an average heart “beats” (expands and contracts) 100,000 times and pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood. Red blood cells carry oxygen. In a 70-year lifetime, an average human heart beats more than 2.5 billion times.

Now let’s take a closer look at our hearts and how they are connected to our overall health and physical fitness. The more oxygen your body gets the more energy you will have.

Ask the young people to take slow deep breaths to help their bodies build up a supply of oxygen. Does it feel different when they pay attention to their breathing? The higher a person’s heart rate the greater the demand for oxygen. In other words, as your heart rate goes up so does the need for more oxygen. We breathe harder, pulling more air into our system which eventually goes into our bloodstream.

Activities

Here are five heart health activities:

1. Have the young people each make a fist and squeeze their bicep (upper-arm) muscle, then relax. Now have the young people flex their quadriceps (thigh muscle), then relax. Next, tell the young people to flex their “heart.” Pause while the young people realize they can’t voluntarily move their heart. The heart is a muscle but not one we can flex when we tell ourselves to do so. Therefore, we need exercise to get the heart muscle to flex and get a good workout.
2. Have the young people lay their forearms on their desktops, palm up. Have them gently make a fist then release the fist fully and rhythmically, as many times as they can for one minute. As you are timing the minute, observe how the young people react.  Is the exercise getting hard? Are some young people pacing themselves? Did some quit before the minute was up?  Review what you observed with the youth. Tell them that even though they may be getting tired after just one minute of opening and closing their fist, their heart needs to pump all day long, everyday without taking a break. Explain that when the heart is filling with blood, it is like the hand when it is open, and when the heart is pumping blood to the rest of the body, it is like the hand squeezing into the fist. This is why it’s important for us to get exercise because it strengthens muscles in our body including the heart muscle. The stronger the heart, the easier the pumping.
3. Refer young people to the Healthy Heart word find worksheet. Allow five minutes to complete the word find. Next review the “everyday heart health tips” listed on the handout. Write the young people’s heart health ideas in an area where they can see the full list. Encourage youth to write their heart health tips in the space provided on the handout.
4. Pass out one activity chart per young person. Read the instructions aloud. They are to take the activity chart home and track their physical activity for one week. The goal is to get 60 minutes of physical activity each day. Note – They will receive bonus minutes if a family member is physically active with them.
5. What’s your heart rate?
   • Your heart rate is the number of times your heart beats each minute. This amount will increase with activity.
   • To check your heart rate, place your index (pointer) finger and middle finger on the side of your neck (carotid artery). Count the number of beats for 60 seconds. You can also count for 30 seconds and then multiply by 2.
   • The number counted is your heart rate or how many beats per minute your heart is currently beating.
   • Your heartbeat can also be felt by placing your hand over your heart or by placing two fingers (excluding thumb) on the inside of their wrist. Young people can do this before and after physical activity to get an idea of the speed at which their heart beats in comparison to their physical activity level.

Conclusion

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish so that families can continue discussing heart health at home.

Related Health Powered Kids Blog

Stay active to keep your heart healthy

Additional Instructor Resources

www.HeartRescueNow.com

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand how to use a pedometer to measure their daily activity levels. The youth are introduced to the pedometer, learn how to operate it and test its accuracy. In the subsequent days or weeks, young people can track their steps on the provided forms. Challenge your group by adding up enough steps to reach Minnesota landmarks or make it all the way to Disney World in Florida!

Introduction

• Provide young people information on the positive health benefits of physical activity.
  • It helps your body maintain overall good health.
  • It helps build and maintain healthy bones and muscles.
  • It increases flexibility and aerobic endurance.
  • Ask the youth for more ideas on the positive health benefits of being physically active.

Activity: Introduce Pedometers

1. Introduce young people to the pedometers. Here are some things you may want to say:
   • A pedometer is a small device that counts your steps. It runs on a battery and is breakable.
   • It is worn on your clothing (pants/shorts/skirt) at waist level, straight up from either knee cap.
   • “If you shake it, you may break it” or “if you shake it, I may take it” are good phases to share with the youth when you introduce these devices.
   • It may be a good idea to number or put young participants’ initials on the pedometers to help keep them straight and accountable.
2. Distribute Pedometers
   • Allow young people a few minutes to examine the unit and various buttons.
   • Have them locate the reset button. Tell them to push the reset button until the numbers all return to zero. This is the number they should start at each morning.
3. For the pedometer to measure steps accurately it needs to be positioned correctly. Follow these three steps for proper placement.
   • Place a finger on your knee cap and draw an imaginary line straight up to your waist.
   • Secure the pedometer to your clothing.
   • Make sure your pedometer is level and not tilted.
4. Test the pedometers
   • In a long hallway or gym or on a sidewalk, set up a starting line and finish line.
   • Have each young person put on their pedometer, push the reset button, and walk from start to finish.
   • Have each young person count how many steps they are taking (silently to themselves).
   • At the finish line compare the number they counted to the number on the pedometer. Tell the youth that the number should be within five steps. If it’s not, have them try it a second time and if it’s still not accurate try a different pedometer.

Activity: Introduce the Challenge

Pass out and explain the Pedometer Fitness Challenge Worksheet or the Pedometer Fitness Challenge Step Tracking Spreadsheets (see What You Need). These will be their method for tracking daily and weekly totals.

• Tell the the young people to write the days of the week at the top of the step log. Have them start with the day of the week that the class is held. (For example, if the class is held on Wednesdays, have them write Wednesday, Thursday…all the way to Tuesday.)
• The goal of the pedometer fitness challenge is to work as a group to simulate walking from the Mall of America in Minnesota to Disney World in Florida. The group will need to take about 3,290,000 steps to get from Minnesota to Florida.
• Track your classes’ weekly progress on the spreadsheet and a map of the USA, if possible.

Pedometer tips

• Reset your pedometer to zero each morning.
• Wear your pedometer each day, all day long.
• Record the number of steps you took each day at the end of the day.
• Add up your step totals each week.
• One mile equals about 2,000 steps.
• Determine your individual daily step goal.
• See if you can find new ways to add steps to your daily total!

Conclusion

Track your classes’ weekly progress on the spreadsheet and a map of the USA, if possible. Note progress toward the goal of adding up enough steps to reach Disney World in Florida. If that goal is reached quickly add other elements to keep it interesting, such as making the trip back, or calculating the number of steps needed to reach other landmarks and aiming for that many steps. Also encourage young people to work on increasing their own personal steps-per-day or steps-per-week. Help them identify challenging but realistic goals.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes these tips, so that families discuss the Pedometer Fitness Challenge at home.

Related Health Powered Kids Blog

Are you getting 10,000 steps a day?

Additional Instructor Resources 

10 Thousand Steps video

Lesson Overview

This lesson helps young people understand how to keep their skin safe in the sun. The youth will identify signs of melanoma and take note of any moles to watch on their own bodies.

Introduction

Start by telling the youth that everybody needs some exposure to the sun.  It is our body’s main source of Vitamin D which makes our bones stronger and healthier by absorbing calcium. Most people do not need a lot of sun exposure to get the vitamin D that they need, in fact too much unprotected sun exposure can cause damage to the skin, eyes, and even cause skin cancer.

There are many ways to prevent these dangers.

• Young people should wear a sunscreen with a SPF (sun protection factor) of 30 or higher while in the sun.
• They should also be especially careful from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. when the sun is the strongest.
• It is important that sunscreen is reapplied often, especially after getting the skin wet.
• It may be helpful to wear long sleeves and a hat to protect the skin from overexposure.
• Tell the youth that wearing sunglasses with 100% UV (ultraviolet) protection while outside will help protect their eyes from being damaged by the sun.
• Remind the  young people that their skin can get burned even on cloudy days so make sure to be careful if spending time outside.

If the skin does burn, there are some things you can do to make it feel better.

• Take a cool bath.
• Apply pure aloe vera gel to any part of the skin that is sunburned.
• Use a moisturizing cream to rehydrate the skin to treat itching.

Activity: Body Map

1. Hand out some laminated photos with different types of skin cancer for the class to pass around.  Tell them that a lot of skin cancers show up in moles. Teach them about the ABCDE’s of a mole (see right). Visit What Does Melanoma Look Like? for more information.
2. See if the youth  can find any moles on their arms or legs. Have them inspect the mole using the ABCDE’s for skin cancer.
3. Have each young person make a skin map of their bodies:
   • Hand out a copy of the body ‘map’ using the template provided.
   • Have each young person look at their arms, hands and neck and fill in any moles, birthmarks or freckles they have, onto the body “map.”

ABCDE’s of a Mole

• A = Is it asymmetric or irregular in shape?
• B = Does it have a border that is ragged or notched as healthy moles generally don’t.
• C = Is it a funny color (red, black, mixture of colors)?
• D = Is it larger in diameter than a pencil eraser?
• E = Is it evolving or getting bigger? Any change in shape, color, elevation or any new symptom such as bleeding, itching or crusting is a danger sign.

Conclusion

Each young person should bring the body ‘map’ home to have the rest of the body completed with the help of a parent. Tell the youth that they can look back to the body ‘map’ if they see any new or changing spots.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which includes tips for keeping skin safe in the sun and instructions for watching the ABCDE’s of moles.

Related Health Powered Kids Blog(s)

Summer sun protection

Sun protection – we’ve got you covered

Additional Instructor Resources

Sunwise for Kids computer games by EPA.gov

Books:

What Are These Spots On My Skin by Scott Naughton
Skin Sense: A Story about Sun Safety for Young Children by Lori Lehrer-Glickman