Active Every Day: Physical Activities in All Seasons

After School Curriculum Active Every Day: Physical Activities in All Seasons Objectives 1. Students will understand the importance of doing high energy activities. 2. Students will understand that physical activities can be accomplished in any season and weather condition. 3. Students will understand how to define low and high energy activities. 4. Students will understand how to classify actions into one of the following categories: Screen Time, Active Time, School Time or Down Time. Materials needed for this lesson 1. Several large sheets of butcher paper 2. Pencils, markers, or crayons 3. Masking tape 4. Paper on which to write an outline 5. Construction paper or the My Weekend Activity Book 6. Staples, glue or yarn and paper punch (to bind the book) Background information and notes Nine out of ten parents believe their children are physically fit, but in reality only 1 in 3 children are physically active. In fact, 63% of children are physically inactive by the time they are in high school. Instead, children spend approximately 20% of their waking hours playing videogames, watching television or playing on the computer/internet. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the average child is watching about 3 hours of television a day and the average kid spends 5 1/2 hours on all media combined as reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation. According to the 2005 dietary guidelines from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), all children 2 years and older should get 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise on most, preferably all, days of the week. The AAP recommends that children under the age of 2 years watch no TV at all and that screen time should be limited to no more than 1 to 2 hours of quality programming a day for children 2 years and older. National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE): Recommended Guidelines Age Minimum Daily Activity Comments Infant No specific requirements Physical activity should encourage motor development Toddler 1 1/2 hours 30 minutes planned physical activity AND 60 minutes unstructured physical activity (free play) Preschooler 2 hours 60 minutes planned physical activity AND 60 minutes unstructured physical activity (free play) School age 1 hour or more Break up into increments of 15 minutes or more References: http://kidshealth.org/parent/fitness/general/exercise.html http://missourifamilies.org/features/childcarearticles/childcare9.htm http://www.globalhealthandfitness.com/children.htm

After School Curriculum Presenting the Lesson Ask students to name low- and high-energy activities. List them on the chalkboard, transparency or butcher paper. Ask students to identify the best type of activity: lowenergy or high-energy activities? Explain that one is not better than the other. Both types of activities can be done each day. Low-energy activities include reading or doing homework. High-energy activities include running, playing four square, and hopscotch. Doing high- and low-energy activities are important because they provide a balance. Explain that many of the activities that we do every day are low-energy, so we need to make an effort to make sure that we do at least one high-energy activity every day. Ask students why they think it is important to do one high-energy activity every day. List their responses on the chalkboard. Explain that doing high-energy activities: Gives the heart a good workout and makes it stronger. Makes muscles and bones stronger. Strong muscles and bones will help us to grow Reduces stress and anxiety. Doing a high-energy activity for 20 minutes relieves stress and can make us feel better. Improves the immune system which makes us less likely to get sick. Increases a sense of calmness and helps us sleep better at night. Makes us feel more energetic and better able to concentrate on schoolwork. The more you do high-energy activities, the better you will become at them. Your whole body gets a workout and gets stronger when you do high-energy activities. A healthy and strong body is able to do many activities well. Ask the students for strategies for engaging in high-energy activity. Ask them why it is important to make sure that they do a high-energy activity every day. Ask them when, how and which activities they could fit into their days. List their answers on the chalkboard. Some strategies include the following: Do push-ups, crunches or sit-ups during commercials. At recess, play a high-energy game with your friends or play hard by yourself. During gym class, participate as much as you can. Gym classes usually involve doing high-energy activities and supervised weight lifting. Cut Screen Time to 30 minutes every day. Screen time is any time you spend watching a screen--watching TV or a movie, playing a video game or using the computer. Screen Time cuts into your time to do a high-energy activity. Join a sports team. Your school or community most likely has sports teams like soccer, football or cheerleading. Ask your parents if you can join one. Take lessons in a high-energy activity which you like. Dancing, swimming and martial arts are some examples. If you do not know a high-energy activity that you like, try doing different things until you find something you like. Do your chores at a fast pace. You can make just about anything high-energy if you do it quickly and move around a lot. Outside chores like raking the leaves and gardening are some high-energy chores.

After School Curriculum Now have students brainstorm different activities that can be done during different seasons or weather conditions. Learning Activity Extension: Complete the Physical Activities in All Seasons Activity (see Additional Resources). Students will design a Weekend Activity Book to identify how much time they ve spent on specific activities that include screen time, down time, school time, and active time. After they have completed their Weekend Activity Books, students will create a Pie Chart of Weekend Activity that further illustrates how they spent their time. Learning Activity: Weekend Activity Book Explanation of the activity: Seventy six (76) percent of elementary school girls and Twenty six (26) percent of boys cannot do one chin up; therefore, this activity will help students identify high energy activities that will improve strength and endurance. Preparation: To create a My Weekend Activity Book, fold 3 sheets of construction paper in half and staple or bind in the middle to make a booklet for each student. Then, label the pages in the booklet in the following order: - Saturday Morning - Saturday Afternoon - Saturday Evening - Sunday Morning - Sunday Afternoon - Sunday Evening You may wish to have the students do this preparation themselves. Note: This lesson should be done on a Monday, as it involves recalling and recording the past weekend s activities. Doing the lesson later in the week will make it much more difficult for students to be able to recall and record their weekend activities accurately. Directions: 1. Before the students begin writing in their books, have them create an outline to organize their thoughts. The outline should include the time of the day (morning, afternoon or evening) and what activity they did. Most likely the students did more than one thing during each specified time frame. Encourage them to recall what they did the majority of the weekend. (If it is difficult for them to remember, ask them to identify the activities that stick out in their minds.) 2. Using their outlines, have each student write at least two sentences about what they did during the specified time period for each page of the book. 3. After students have completed the My Weekend Activity Book, allow them to illustrate their books and share them with the class in small groups or in pairs. 4. Allow students to look through their books while having the following discussion. Do you think your weekend activities were mostly high-energy or low-energy? Do you think you could have been more active? If so, what are some ways you

After School Curriculum can be more active and do more high-energy activities? What are some benefits to being active and doing at least one high-energy activity per day? Learning Activity: Pie Chart of Weekend Activity Level Directions: 1. Have each student look through the Weekend Activity Book that they created in Activity 1. 2. Have the students place each of the activities described in their Weekend Activity Books in one of the four categories: Screen Time, Active Time, School Time and Down Time. Some of their activities may not fit neatly into one category, but have them choose the most appropriate category for each activity. The categories are listed below. Screen Time: time spent playing video games, watching TV and using a computer. Active Time: time spent actively playing, exercising, walking, doing household chores, etc. High-energy activities fit in this category. School Time: time spent in classes or doing homework or reading for school or for fun. Down Time: time spent relaxing, talking with family or friends, doing art, etc. Low-energy activities fit in this category. 3. Incomplete fractions are under the pie chart on their worksheet. These fractions show the fraction of the weekend spent doing each of the four categories listed above. Have the students write down the number of activities in each category, to complete the fractions. 4. Then, have the students color in the pie chart above according to their fractions colors. The slices depicting active time should be colored red. Screen time should be colored in black. Color school time green and down time blue. For example if 2/6 of their weekend was spent on Active Time, then two of the slices on the pie chart should be colored in red. 5. Discuss with students the composition of the pie chart. Explain to students that if the pie chart is mostly one color it means that all of the activities you wrote about were in the same category. In contrast, if your pie chart is many different colors, it means that you did something from all, or many, of the categories. Ask students to identify the color that is not necessary to include on the pie chart. Inform students that the pie chart does not need to include black because it represents Screen Time; however, Active Time, School Time and Down Time are all things you need every day to be healthy. Screen Time does not add to your health. It is OK to have some Screen Time, but it is more important to do things from the other categories.

Example of Finished Pie Chart: Active Time: 1 /6 Screen Time: 3 /6 School Time: 1 /6 Down Time: 1 /6

NAME What activity did you spend most of your weekend doing? Active Time: /6 Screen Time: /6 School Time: /6 Down Time: /6

Learning Activity Extension: Physical Activity in All Seasons Physical Activity in All Seasons Activity Preparation: Create posters that have each season written at the top. In parentheses, write the weather condition that is specifically associated with the respective season. For example, if winter was the season, snow would be written in parentheses. Place the butcher paper posters and writing utensils around the room. Directions: 1. Remind students that it is important to do a high-energy activity each day to improve cardiovascular health and strengthen muscles. Explain to students that weather conditions do not have to be perfect for them to be physically active. Students can be active indoors when it is cold, raining, snowing, or very hot outside. Some activities can be done when it is cold or snowy and others are accomplished best in hot weather during the spring or summer. 2. Divide students into groups and send each group to a poster station. 3. Give the groups 2-3 minutes to brainstorm fun activities and write the activities in each category. Allow students to write both high-energy and low-energy activities. 4. After 2-3 minutes, rotate the groups to give each group an opportunity to write an activity in each category. After each group has identified an activity for each category, post the results in front of the class. 5. Go through each fun activity written on the posters, and have the students determine if each activity is high-energy or low-energy. 6. Begin discussion with students using the following questions. Are there highenergy and low-energy activities in each category? Are some activities listed in more than one category? Can some activities be done during more than one season (or weather condition)? Are there some activities which can only be done during one season? Are high-energy activities only sports or exercises, like situps?

Learning Activity Extension: Four Seasons Freeze Tag Game Four Seasons Freeze Tag Explanation of the activity: This activity is a take on TV tag and other versions of freeze tag where naming an example from a particular category keeps a player unfrozen. Directions: 1. Designate a season for the round of play. 2. Designate 3-4 students to be It. When they tag a student, they will say the name of a season to that student. 3. The student must name a high-energy physical activity that they can do during that particular season. 4. If the student does not say an appropriate physical activity (i.e. skiing during Summer), then the student is frozen and must not move for the rest of the game. *If a student says a physical activity that is questionable about fitting into the season (i.e. basketball during winter), ask them where that activity takes place (i.e. in a gym) or give them some time to explain their answer. 5. Activities can only be said once by each player, and each player only has 10 seconds to give their answer, or else they are frozen in that place for the rest of the game. 6. The game continues until all players are frozen.