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Teacher Tips—What Works!

Teacher tips are tried-and-true teaching strategies developed by health education teachers around the country. Take a look at some classroom activities that really work, then share some of your own!

What You Can Do

Donna Lloyd-Kolkin, Ph.D., Health Communication Specialist

Although changing state legislation or school policies to increase physical education and recess requirements may be beyond your means, you can still find ways to help your students increase physical activity. A few minutes here and there is often all it takes.

Here are some suggestions from the VERB program at CDC. VERB-It's What You Do-is a campaign to promote physical activity among "tweens" from 9 to 13.

Authentic Graphing: Have students do different activities, such as standing still, walking, and running in place. Have students measure their heart rate after two minutes of each activity by taking their pulses. Graph and discuss the results. Include a discussion of ways to increase heart rates throughout the day.

Q&A Catch: Play a game of catch in which a student catches the ball, calls out the answer to a question posed by the teacher, then quickly passes the ball to another student to answer the next question.

Fitness Breaks: Schedule a two-minute fitness break between lessons. Ask for student volunteers to lead the class in stretches or play a popular song and let students dance.

You can find more ideas for 10-minute activities that can be integrated into various academic areas for elementary and middle school students at Energizers developed to support North Carolina's physical activity initiatives or Brain Breaks developed for the Michigan Department of Education.

You can also encourage students to be active outside the classroom. For example, you could:

• Have the class "walk" across the country by having students walk the schoolyard or track during recess or before and after school, then recording their cumulative miles on a map posted in the classroom.
• Request donations from parents of used sports equipment for use at recess.
• Ask students about their physical activity outside of school and encourage them to participate in school and/or community recreation programs.
• Create a bulletin board where students and teachers can post pictures of themselves being active.

Finally, you can encourage students and their families to have youngsters walk or ride their bikes to school. KidsWalk to School is a national initiative to promote physical activity. It provides an excellent opportunity for schools and communities to work together to support children's health. Check the CDC for many resources available to help you encourage your students to add this valuable avenue for increasing physical activity to their day.

Call for Articles

As a teacher, you have a unique perspective on teens in the health classroom. Contribute your thoughts on school-health—related topics to the Glencoe Health and Fitness Update e-newsletter. We'll provide the Web space for you to reach other teachers, share ideas, and open a discussion to talk about the needs of teachers in today's health classrooms. Send us your short (25 to 100 words) classroom tips and ideas, or develop an article (100 to 500 words) for publication in Teacher Tips—What Works! that we can publish in the next issue. Just click on Feedback/Contact Us link or send a note to submissions@glencoehealthnews.com to reach the editor and let us know what works in your school or classroom.