Back to school is an exciting, stressful, energizing, challenging time! In honor of this back-to-school season, Healthier Generation just released a “toolkit” with tips and ideas to promote positivity, family bonding, and holistic health.
As per the free download: “This toolkit is full of activities and resources to help your family feel well, live well, and learn well during this busy transitional season.”
Check out the Healthier Generation toolkit here – and try one of the strategies today!
From the Division of Adolescent and School Health within the CDC, this page offers an excellent compilation of resources and methods for managing classes and enhancing connectedness. “CDC researchers reviewed scientific papers on classroom management and identified these classroom management approaches that promote student connectedness and engagement. Strategies to support these approaches were identified through a structured review of web-based practice resources.”
The resources are categorized into six themes, each with research, examples, tools, and additional links:
While this resource is not specific to classroom physical activity, it does address holistic wellness, student learning, and classroom climate, all of which can directly or indirectly impact student activity and the likelihood of success for classroom movement.
Check out the index page here: https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/classroom-management/index.htm
This campaign, from the Trauma Responsive Educational Practices (TREP) Project, strives to promote awareness of mental health and support for students during the first 30 days back at school. By pledging to engage students in mental health lessons, educators will receive access to a resource guide on how to talk with students about mental health.
For information, see the 30 Days of Mental Health to Start the Academic Year website.
Over the past year and a half, the topic of social-emotional learning for students has emerged as a conversation front-runner. This is a much-needed discussion and essential to the overall health and well-being of our youth population. However, we must not overlook the psychological health of our teachers! I recently heard a great analogy – putting on your own oxygen mask before helping others on the airplane is like focusing on your own mental health so you can support mental health in others. It is critical to promote and enhance teachers’ social-emotional-mental health so that they have the capacity to foster a safe, supportive, inclusive, effective, healthy learning environment for students. As such, I applaud these materials put out by the Southern Education Foundation:
Teacher Stress and Burnout: The High Cost of Low Social and Emotional Development (July 2021)
“Teachers are the most important school-based factor in student success, impacting every aspect of students’ achievement and overall development.”
Burnout. A common and distressing problem, especially among teachers. And, over the past year, circumstances leading to stress, anxiety, and burnout have escalated. While self-care has always been an essential component for holistic health among teachers, it may be even more critical now.
Thankfully, the scope of resources for teachers that address psychological wellness, coping strategies, and self-care continues to expand. Taking advantage of these resources may help enable us to be at our best as teachers, a benefit which translates directly to the health of our students.
In a free webinar from SHAPE America, The How — How to Be Combative to Our Stress Levels, “participants will be introduced to several strategies for promoting self-care and creating a personal self-care plan.”
Access the webinar here (free account needed): https://www.shapeamerica.org/prodev/webinars/Free-webinars.aspx#the-how
From Action for Healthy Kids, the week of April 26, 2021 is designed to promote awareness and action to get “every kid healthy”. Resources are available for school and for home and cover a different theme each day.
Mindful Monday: Social emotional health
Tasty Tuesday: Nutrition and food access
Wellness Wednesday: Self-care strategies
Thoughtful Thursday: Connectedness, relationship skill, social awareness
Fitness Friday: Physical activity and active play
Check out the ideas and materials here! https://www.actionforhealthykids.org/every-kid-healthy-week-resources
In collaboration with the University of Nebraska Omaha’s School of Health and Kinesiology with funding from CHI Health, The Wellness Partners created an e-learning course for teachers and childcare providers for the purpose of increasing physical activity in the classroom. “While this information will always be applicable, special consideration was paid to current COVID-19 restrictions, including how to include physical activity in a virtual classroom setting.”
There are seven self-paced modules with supplemental videos:
Thanks to those involved in this project for disseminating these important, and timely, informational videos!
Check it out here: Classroom Physical Activity Video Series
Active Schools also provides some great video resources about classroom physical activity. Although they’re recorded prior to our current pandemic and don’t address the virtual classroom, they still offer beneficial ideas and insights. Check them out here: Active Classrooms Webinar Series Recordings and Presentation Slides
There have been many casualties, minor to monumental, surrounding COVID-19. Education, and the format in which we teach, has obviously been directly impacted. It is critical to support health and safety for protection and prevention, but the lack of face-to-face interaction and engagement during the learning process is distressing, both academically and psychologically. That said, with the restrictions put on face-to-face classes, there are benefits to facilitating real time web-based class sessions. While vastly different strategies are necessary depending upon the age of the learner, there are ways to enhance the effectiveness of web-based instruction. To capture some of the advantages of in-person education, teachers can implement online versions of active learning. Those with a social and/or movement component may be particularly beneficial to students during these challenging times.
Derek Bruff, the director of the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University, posted an informative article entitled Active Learning in Hybrid and Physically Distanced Classrooms that shares a multitude of techniques for engaging students in “meaningful learning” within current constraints. (Of particular interest is the sub-section on “Physical Movement” which includes an online version of an activity I refer to as Stand Up for Yes.)
Link to article: https://via.hypothes.is/https:/cft.vanderbilt.edu/2020/06/active-learning-in-hybrid-and-socially-distanced-classrooms/
You can also check out my interview on Integrating Physical Activity into Distance Education, available here.
I was honored to be interviewed for this story “Integrating Physical Activity into Distance Education” for the Texas A&M University College of Education and Human Development news media outlet.
The interview is available here: https://education.tamu.edu/qa-integrating-physical-activity-into-distance-education/
How to stay active during this quarantine? The simple answer here is to be active and to encourage activity. One positive result of the social isolation requirement is that people seem to be embracing the opportunity to go for a run, or a walk, or a bike ride. It is critically important to stay home and maintain social distancing, but our shelter-in-place regulations permit outdoor exercise. In the past few weeks, I have seen more people on the sidewalks than I have in the past few years. Children and parents are out for a walk. Children are on their bikes (wear a helmet!) and rollerblades while parents walk or run or push strollers. The multiple benefits gained from these activities extend past those specific to physical activity. Getting outside, especially when we’re cooped up indoors for a majority of the day, positively impacts mental health. Spending time with loved ones, away from media or screens, positively impacts social and psychological health. And, of course, engaging in physical activity is good for mental, social, psychological, and physical health.
When outdoor activity is not available, and to supplement those helmeted bike-rides, there are numerous resources available to parents and educators to promote physical activity during quarantine. (Updated September 2020)
