Health Education Ideas for Kids
Health education encompasses a variety of different subject matters from nutrition, fitness, hygiene and dental care, to stress and mental health. Introduce children to health education through hands-on learning experiences that provide a visual illustration of the concept being discussed. Conducting experiments and discussing possible outcomes is a way of making the science of health come alive for kids.
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Sugar Study
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Present kids with the nutrition facts from a variety of commercial cereals. Find the information on the manufacturer's websites. Decode the label with the students. Point out where sugar is mentioned and the many different words used for sugar. Use sugar cubes or a teaspoon, bowl and a bag of sugar to illustrate how much sugar is in a serving size. Compare the amount of sugar in different varieties of cereal and chart the results.
Have students keep track of the amount of sugar they consume in a week. Transition into a study on dental health and the effects of sugar on the teeth.
Hygiene Potato Experiment
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Present children with a clear illustration of hygiene. Peel three potatoes while wearing rubber gloves so the potatoes stay perfectly clean. Place the first potato in a plastic baggie. Pass the second potato around the class room. Ask the kids to look at it closely to check for germs. Place this potato in a plastic baggie. Now have all the kids wash their hands. After everyone's hands are washed and dried, pass the third potato around and then put in a baggie.
Set the three potatoes aside and have the students make a guess, or hypothesis of what they think will happen to the potatoes, and ask which one was exposed to more germs. Discuss how germs are spread, and proper hand washing techniques. Observe the potatoes over the next few days and record results of the experiment.
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Journaling
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Ask students to come up with a list of things that are stressful for them. List the different situations and then discuss what affect stress can have on the body. Talk about ways kids can deal with stress in a second list. Have the kids start a journal to record their feelings over the next week, month or school year. Encourage honesty and creativity. Use the journal to write in a letter form to themselves, poems, stories or a general account of the day and what they think and feel. Provide writing prompts occasionally.
Hydration
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Illustrate how important water is through an experiment. Hand out a small dry sponge to each child and a cup of water. Have students wash their desks with the dry sponge. Ask how well the sponge worked. Wet the sponge and wash the desk again. Explain that just like the sponge needed water to work, our bodies need water to work properly. Discuss using sugary drinks rather than water to wash their desk, would it work just as well, or create a mess? Talk about how much water a body needs to function efficiently.
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References
- Photo Credit sugar building image by timur1970 from Fotolia.com
