In the Classroom
Tips for Teachers: Motivating Movement – the Alliance for a Healthier Generation – It is extremely beneficial for teachers to integrate physical activity in their classrooms throughout the school day so all students have multiple opportunities to participate in physical activity breaks on a daily basis.
HealthMPowers – promotes healthy behaviors and environments by empowering students, school staff, and families to improve health and academic achievement.
Brain Breaks – A collection of activities for students in grades K-6 that integrate physical activity into a variety of subject areas, including math, social studies, and language arts.
J.A.M (Just a Minute) School Program – Teachers lead one-minute workout routines each consisting of five different exercises that kids can do in the classroom. Ideally, teachers make these one-minute exercise bursts a part of the classroom curriculum 3-5 times throughout the school day. The program has 45 routines to choose from. In addition, a monthly Health-E-Tips newsletter will be sent to the school with nutrition, exercise and health tips to share with students, staff and parents.
Minds In Motion – Developed by the Coordinated School Health Program in the South Dakota Departments of Health and Education. Simple movement activities are designed to provide classroom teachers in elementary and middle schools an active option to reinforce core concepts and enhance learning.
Take Time! Physical Activity Program – Includes resources for teachers and principals, support materials for parent involvement, and activity/lesson plans for integrating physical activity and nutrition into academic lessons. The goals of the program include making 10-20 minutes of accumulated time available during the school day for physical activity for all students and incorporating nutrition and education messages into activities whenever appropriate.
Movin’ and Munchin’ – Wisconsin’s Movin’ and Munchin’ Schools program designed to integrate physical activity and healthy eating into the school environment by involving students, school staff and families.
PE Central – provides resources for PE and Health Teachers. Resources on lesson plan, adaptive PE, best practice ideas, and links to other related sites.
The Children Health Fund – a rich source of information on a wide array of topics related to health and the health care needs of medically underserved children. Online users can sign up for newsletters geared for elementary or secondary nutrition and physical activity topics.
PE Links 4 U – provides numerous links to PE articles/news, technology, adaptive PE, health, fitness and nutrition, and more.
Eat Well & Keep Moving – “an interdisciplinary nutrition and physical activity curriculum aimed at building lifelong healthy habits in upper elementary school students. The book focuses on classroom lessons, but it can also be used to reinforce healthy practices in the cafeteria, gymnasium, home and community. The read-to-use materials fit easily into any existing curriculum. These materials help classroom teachers overcome any uneasiness they may have about presenting unfamiliar health topics while they build student’s language arts, math, science, social studies, and physical education skills.”
Planet Health: An interdisciplinary Curriculum for Teaching Middle School Nutrition and Physical Activity – includes 66 lessons desgined to integrate nutrition and physical activity into physical education, language arts, math, science, and social students for students in grades 6-8.
Take 10! Classroom-based physical activity program for K-5 students that integrated physical activity into language arts, math, social studies, science, and health throughout safe and age-appropriate 10-minute physical activities.
10 Simple Activities to Encourage Physical Activity in the Classroom
ABC for Fitness (Activity Bursts in the Classroom): This program shows schools hwo to restructure physical activity into multiple, brief episodes of activity into classrooms throughout the day without taking away from valuable time for classroom instruction.
Active Academics: A website developed to provide practical ideas to classroom teachers for integrating physical activity throughout the school day. Lesson ideas are short, 10 minutes or less, activities that get students moving while practicing content standards in a variety of subject areas. Active Academics is currently for K-5 and the subjects areas of math, reading/language arts, health/nutrition and physical activity.
Jump Start Teens: Creative, stand-alone lessons that integrate physical activity, nutrition and mass media with community service, language arts, math, science, social studies, and more.
Energizers: Classroom-based Physical Activities (The way teachers integrate physical activity with academic concepts): Activities are free and available off the website.
