Healthy Body, Balanced Lifestyle: Unit Overview
When we teach our children about making healthy choices, there is a lot to consider. How much sleep do we need? What kinds of foods should we eat? How do we keep our minds as well as our bodies healthy? What about exercise? Each of these themes is addressed in this library integration unit. As we work on these Unit of Inquiry ideas, we also build skills, including how to ask meaningful questions and the importance of listening and observing the world around you. Keeping healthy has never been more enjoyable, so get busy with your students and explore this cultural and culinary-filled unit!
Healthy Body, Balanced Lifestyle #1: Oliver’s Vegetables, by Vivian French, Question Skills
Lesson Overview: This lesson is the most successful I’ve ever designed for early elementary students to promote the skill of developing questions. It is tied to the Unit of Inquiry on health and making healthy choices, and I’ve chosen a popular text and paired it with a question-asking exercise. The… Read more
Healthy Body, Balanced Lifestyle #2: Go To Sleep, Gecko, by Margaret Read MacDonald
Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students think about sleep and its importance for health. Using a Balinese folk tale as the source text, children will describe how, where, and under what conditions they like to sleep. Then they will draw a simple picture of themselves sound asleep. To make this… Read more
Healthy Body, Balanced Lifestyle #3: Mabela the Clever Learns Wisdom, by Margaret Read MacDonald
Lesson Overview: Switching gears a bit, this lesson does not focus on physical health, but on learning wisdom and making healthy choices through listening, thinking, and observing the world around you. I am a huge fan of Dr. Margaret Read MacDonald’s work, and her Mabela the Clever text is my… Read more
Healthy Body, Balanced Lifestyle #4: Fast Food, Food as Art
Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students experience just how much fun healthy choices can be. Using texts that feature food as art, kids get to “play with their food” in creating either a simple caterpillar (pineapples chunks, banana slices, and two chocolate chips on a skewer) or a racing car… Read more
Healthy Body, Balanced Lifestyle #5: From Head to Toe, by Eric Carle
Lesson Overview: In this lesson, students get a chance to learn a traditional dance, listen to a story that incorporates movement, and show off their creative steps in a guided dance from GoNoodle. Making healthy choices has never been more fun than in this movement-based, literary song-and-dance lesson. Lesson Plan:… Read more