This month is Healthy Heart month, and our thoughts turn to the ways we can help our students develop healthier eating and exercising patterns. One of the finest ways to do this is to model the behaviors ourselves.

Sometimes we are working so hard to create activities and experiences for our students that we neglect our own health. That sends a pretty clear message to students who do, whether we want them to or not, watch our actions closely. For that reason, it is important to take time for ourselves this month too...eat well, take time to play, and treat yourself to the gift of relaxation in your days. You'll be better for your students too!

Cindy Kuhrasch
Interdisciplinary Section Editor

Healthy Heart Workout Quiz - Find out what you know (and what you still need to learn!) about a healthy lifestyle! Give your students the link, and have them take the quiz as a homework assignment for PE.

PE Central Kids Quiz - "a fun, daily quiz designed for kids between the ages of 8 and 18. After a teacher registers your school, kids are provided with a daily quiz question about nutrition, health, physical activity, sports, and a host of other topics and trivia. Kids getting the correct answer are eligible to win prizes in a weekly drawing."

Here are a few activities that are designed to strengthen hearts by engaging in aerobic activity...enjoy!

Food for Heart Challenge - Grades 2-5
Connections: physical education, health.
Purpose: To have children understand and identify which foods are considered healthy for the body/heart, and which ones are not. This activity also helps students work on gross motor movements.

Nutrition Station Circuit - Grades 3-5
Connections: physical education, health.
Purpose: To have the kids review and understand the different fitness concepts along with different basketball skills.

Scooter Bring Back - Grades 3-5
Connections: physical education, health.
A fun way to work on strength by carrying objects can be included as a station or one component of a strength workout.

Fitness Monopoly - Grades 3-5
Connections: physical education, health.
Fitness monopoly is an activity that makes the gym into a game board for fitness activities.

Cue Tag - Grades 3-5
Connections: physical education, health.
When a student is frozen, they must raise their hand. To get unfrozen a Defroster must come by and they must tell a cue (e.g., step with the opposite foot for throwing, bend knees when jumping and landing) about overhand throwing or whatever cues you have been teaching.

Healthier Generation is a great new website designed to educate and engage your students in the movement toward healthier living. From e-cards to game shows, this site invites students in, and teaches them as they move through the site.

Have students select and send an e-card to a friend to encourage them toward a healthier lifestyle. Assign students to go to the site and enter the game show as a player. Ask them to write about what they learned afterward.

Have students explore the possibilities of the future without exercise, and design their own future instead. Have students take the poll or submit their ideas through the survey.

Use this great site to find lots of healthy recipes. Here are a few:

	Ants on a log
	Crunchy Munchy Granola
	Incredible Edible Veggie Bowls
	Peanut Butter Muffins
	Berry Tasty Muffins
	Blueberry Pancakes
	Fun Fruit Kabobs
	Tiny Pizzas
	Pretzels

Cited: The mission of Bess Streeter Aldrich Elementary, a community partnership in which our children come first, is to guarantee academic excellence and responsive citizenship by utilizing innovative and diverse opportunities to optimize each child's individual potential. Check out their Olympic Day '05 & Olympic Kick-Off pictures! The sight provides TONS of thumbnail pictures that you can click on to see the large version. This school has a wonderful Olympic Day.

This school also has some great pictures. Sounds like a fun day, doesn't it? Check out the Olympic Field Day lesson plan from PE Central, used to provide a theme-based field day every four years that helps celebrate the Summer Olympics.

Healthy Choices, Healthy Me! - A First and Second Grade Nutrition Education Program. Revised to align with the 2005 Dietary Guidelines and USDA's MyPyramid. This free program reinforces language arts and math while teaching health in a fun way. The program focuses on food choice behaviors that students can use to make healthy choices and develop healthy habits.

The following lessons are for grades 9 - 12.

Have a Heart!
Subject: Science/Health/Language Arts
Estimated Time: 6-8 fifty minute class sessions
In this lesson the student will pretend to be a doctor, detective, and decision maker. The student will research the function of the heart, the diseases associated with the heart, and lifestyle choices that are heart healthy.

Thin Is In!
Subjects: Language Arts/Technology/Health
Estimated Time: 2 to 4 fifty-minute periods
In this lesson students will learn how to be smart and healthy consumers, to make wise health decisions, and to create original commercials that promote healthy living.

Nutrition Decision
Subject: Health/Science/Math/Language Arts Estimated Time: 6-8 fifty minute class sessions
The class will become decision makers in this lesson. They will research and determine the nutritional needs of young children, teenagers, and adults. The students will compile their finding in a nutrition portfolio. Class groups will assume the role of hospital dietician and plan meals for their patient based upon research and the information given to them about the patient.

Read That Label!
Subject: Language Arts/Health /Technology/Math Estimated Time: Four to five 50 minute class sessions
This lesson teaches students to be health conscious consumers and use product labels as a tool to improve their buying patterns and get the best buys for their dollar. This lesson is a simulation. Students will prepare and design a label for a new recipe that they want to market and get it approved by the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.

Building a Great Pair of Lungs
Subject: Language Arts/Health/Math/Science Estimated Time: three to four 50 minute classes
The student, a detective and problem–solver, will use their problem solving skills to use materials to create a pair of lungs. This lesson uses a portfolio on the respiratory system to motivate students to research the respiratory system complete with drawings and diseases that affect it.