Day 140- K-2 Health Fair

Tomorrow Parkridge Medical Center is putting on our second annual Science Fair for the students in grades 3-5. We didn't want our K-2 students to feel slighted, so today was our first Health Fair.

The Health Fair covered the topics of:
1. Physical Fitness
2. Heart Healthy Living
3. Healthy Eating Habits
4. Dental Hygiene
5. Body Hygiene
6. Hand Washing

I tried to get pictures and video of each segment.

Physical Fitness by Mr. Burney

Mr. Burney started by giving us 4 tips to living a longer, more enriched life.
1. Eat healthy
2. Gets lots of sleep
3. Be happy
4. EXERCISE!

The fourth one is the one that he focused on. Exercise is important because it helps blood flow through your body and keeps your heart healthy. Here is an activity where we checked out heart beat before exercising, and then after. The students were to run in place for 20 seconds.

But it's not all about one's heart rate. Exercise should also test your mind. In this video, Mr. Burney gives the students a task with the stacking cups.

Then they had one last challenge:

*Phew* That was some workout! Thanks Mr. Burney!

Heart Healthy Living by Mrs. Overton

 Mrs. Overton shared how important it is to keep our hearts healthy. She began by having the students make a fist, then study it. Did you know that your heart is about the size of your fist? I'll wait for a moment while you check it out for yourself...

Then she told my students that she wanted them to make a hypothesis about what would happen if we started exercising. Would there be a difference between a heart in a person who is resting and a person who is exercising?
Of course, as soon as she said hypothesis my students' eyes brightened because we know all about making hypothesis!

My students hypothesized that the heart would be beating faster after exercising. 

Of course we had to test this, and I was the guinea pig. First we tracked my resting heart rate- 70 bets per minute. Then I 'exercised' for a minute. (I cranked up some music and danced around the room. Thank goodness no one had the camera for that!) My heart rate after exercising was 110 beats per minute. Our hypothesis was proven correct!

Healthy Eating Habits by Mrs. Custer and Mrs. Blowe

No picture, but good video! Our wonderful Lead Math and Reading teachers shared with us how to make sure we are eating healthy foods. First we created a tally chart of how many people were already eating healthy.

How wonderful is it that they included our math topic into the lesson? Love it!

Did you know that the Food Guide Pyramid has been changed? I didn't either! Now students can track their healthy foods by just thinking about their plate. Check out Choose My Plate.gov for more details!

 

The best part of the lesson was when Custer/ Blowe told the kids that there are 3 types of foods:

1. Go!

2. Slow! 

and 3. Whoa! 

GO foods are foods that give energy and vitamins. They are healthy foods that are good anytime.

SLOW foods are foods that are ok to eat sometimes, but not all the time,

WHOA foods are foods you need to stop and think about before eating. These foods are not healthy, full of sugar or fat, and fill up your tummy so you won't feel hungry to eat healthy foods.

Here's a little video of the lesson. Click {HERE} or watch it below.

Dental Hygiene by Mrs. Hughes

Mrs. Hughes introduced the lesson by sharing with us a little experiment she conducted at home. She used apples to illustrate the importance of dental health.

This apple was part of the control group. This apple was treated well and not damaged by gross germs or too much sugar. (just go with it)

This was the experimental group. This apple was damaged by having too much sugar which caused a cavity. Gee, I wonder what happened to the inside of the apple after being damaged with a cavity?

Oh my goodness! The cavity caused the apple to turn brown and tender!
I guess this goes to show, we should make sure to eat the right foods and treat our teeth nicely by brushing and flossing regularly to make sure that our teeth don't become brown and tender too!
(Mrs. Hughes also shared an awesome video, but I left the website at home. I'll post it here tomorrow.)

Body Hygiene by Mrs. Barnes

 We've talked about taking care of our bodies on the inside, but what about on the outside? Mrs. Barnes reiterated how important it is to eat healthy foods because it keeps your insides healthy, but it also helps your skin, hair, nails, and vision. 
Past that, physical hygiene is also about making sure that your body stays clean. It's important to wash your hands throughout the day to kill germs and it is important to take baths or showers regularly to wash away germs and odors. 
Just like not cleaning your car can cause rust and decay, not cleaning your body can cause disease and sores. I know we don't want that!

Hand washing by Me! 
This was originally to be taught by Nurse Burney (our wonderful school nurse, and Mr. Burney's cousin) but she was out sick today. So, each teacher was to teach this lesson to their class during the time Nurse Burney would have been in their classroom. 

I actually didn't have to do much, it was my class that taught me! 
Did you know that you shouldn't eat right after you sneeze into your hands? Apparently sneezing spreads germs and if you sneeze into your hands, the germs will be on your hands! So I had my students walk me through washing my hands properly, and we all practiced washing our hands in the bathroom. 
Fun times! 

Thank you, everyone for sharing such wonderful information! Let's do this again next year!