Overview:
Extend physical education to include regular exercise in the home, and present proper sleeping, eating and exercise habits as part of a larger picture of personal well-being.
Teacher Preparation:
Prepare handouts of various exercises.
Procedure Ideas:
* Talk regularly about the relationship of exercise to health, productivity, even economics.
* Discuss various health problems that can be eliminated or minimized by regular exercises or stretching.
* Students invent their own exercises, focusing on certain parts of the body or muscle groups, or…
* Pick from existing exercises already used in class.
* Students can teach exercises to adults at home.
* Have kids figure out an exercise regimen they can undertake at home.
* Include stretching exercises that may be done as part of TV watching
* Children can talk with their parents about their physical activity as children, and why they do or don’t exercise now.
* Students can keep a chart of exercises performed nightly by themselves and their parents.
* Write about results of their teaching experience.
* Can have adults help them check and record their heart rate before and after exercise.
Options/Variations:
Posing a question recently to our own high school age children of “how many of your friends DON’T smoke?” resulted in the answer: “none.” Need we say more?