Get Up and Get Moving!

December 10, 2015

What is the Problem?

By, Ellie Ellison

For more information or

references contact at
ellisoet@dukes.jmu.edu

Recess and PE time and frequency during

the week is shrinking across America

Schools that are cutting time are cutting at

an average of 50 minutes or recess and 40
minutes of PE a week

PE specifically has dropped an average

from 23 to 15 minutes a day, and it is
typically restricted to only a few days of the
week

Kids should be engaged in 60 minutes of

activity (mostly aerobic) a day. If thats all
the activity a day the students are getting,
then they are short 75% of the physical
activity they need

School meal plans are not helping. 9394% of meals failed to meet all nutritional
standards, mostly due to surplus of fat,
saturated fat, or calories

71.6% of students nationally qualify for free

or reduced lunches, and their lunches
received may be the only substantial meal
they have of the day

How Does Fitness Improve Students

Academic Performance?

Children with an overall higher fitness

perform higher scores on standardized tests
across socioeconomic status, gender, and
race when compared to high aerobic fitness,
lower BMI, and overall fitness data gathered
from the state fitness tests
There has also been evidence supporting
overweight children with significant
improvement in cognition and academic
achievement tests when they engaged in
aerobic exercise

How can we Fix This?

Teachers can:

This proves that childrens academic

performance in the classroom is linked and
enhanced by a healthy lifestyle

Incorporate movement into their

lessons

Promote exercise

There have been scientific studies showing

that because aerobic exercise gets the
blood pumping, its also bringing extra blood
and therefore more oxygen to the brain
which improves its functioning ability

Teach healthy nutrition and encourage

healthy snacks

Have children involved in the making of

their food

Parents can:
o

Get their children involved in organized

activities

Start before/after school programs to

get children active
Pack fun and healthy snacks and
lunches

How to Keep a Healthy Classroom

Here is a list of ideas for keeping students moving and well
nourished:

Deal or No Deal
A great way to review for a test. Have small activities
written out on note cards and place a number on the blank
side. Post the numbers up on the board. Have a student
answer a review question and if they are correct, they may
pick a number. Read the task on the note card and ask,
Deal, or No Deal? If the student says Deal the whole
class participates in the activity, if No Deal, the student
chooses another task from the board but the class must do
the activity the second time without the option of choosing
again. Some activities could be resting for a moment, read
aloud time, squats, jumping jacks, walk like a crab once
around the room, etc.

Slap Counting
A fabulous activity that can be used to practice counting by
groups of numbers, practicing spelling words, or any listing
memorization. The activity is a partner activity, mimicking a
patty cake like action. With each clap to the partners hand,
one piece of the list is recited. Slap Counting can be done
for informal data collection on recall of the subject being
taught.

How Parents can Motivate a

Healthy Lifestyle
Parents can organize a club to get kids
active before/after school for free! The
parents can rotate hosting a variety of
activities such as soccer, basketball, yoga,
dance, jump rope
Encourage the school to incorporate fitness
in any way they can. A fun idea would be
for fundraisers to be sports or fitness related
and to make money off selling tickets
Organize a walking bus with the other
parents to share the supervision duties
Pack fun healthy snacks and lunches like
these to encourage them to eat their fruits
and veggies:
The Coral Snake Snack
Strawberries
Bananas
Cheese Wraps:
o Whole wheat wrap
o Neufchatel cheese
o Strawberry jam
o Bananas

Money, Measure, Mix

A few years ago I implemented a lesson with money and
measurement objectives while creating trail mix. You
should have a variety of different ingredients for your trail
mix (try to keep it on the healthier side, but adding some
M&Ms or chocolate chips allows for students to be more
excited to try the mix), a balance scale, and a few bags or
bowls with a mixture of different coins. Have the students
pick out a certain number of a certain type of coin from the
pile. Each ingredient can either have the same
measurement of coins or keep a constant (I had
Kindergartners find four pennies to use for each
measurement). Have the coins on one side of the balance
scale, and measure out ingredients on the opposite side
until the weight is balanced. Students have worked on
identifying coins, learned about weight, and obtained a
healthy snack! For older grades, density and math word
problems can be created for extensions to the activity.

Create a Class Garden

Classroom gardens are a wonderful way to get students
moving and involved in their nutrition. Gardening genuinely
align with science standards involving the study of plants,
their life cycles, photosynthesis, and ecosystems. Math can
be incorporated with measurement of seeds, amount of
water, frequency of watering, graphing exercises keeping
track of growth, and so much more. Students can read
literature about plants and the specific ones growing in their
gardens, or stories with garden settings.

Fruit Racers
Apples
Grapes or String Cheese
Toothpicks

Fruit Racers
Apples
Marshmallows or string cheese
Spread, such as peanut butter)