Joy School - Healthy Living

Well, I forgot to bring my camera with me to Joy School this week, so I know my recap will be less fun to read, and that I will miss things, but I'll do my best. (Arg!)

Lesson Time: The unit we were learning was Healthy Living. The host mom did a great job of covering lots of different aspects of the topic. She spent most of the time teaching ways to keep our bodies strong and healthy, but she also touched on emotional health.

Each child was givena chart of faces expressing different emotions, and they got to go through and find the one that showed the way they were feeling that day. I have plans for mine that I am sure I will share when I am done.

Art Time: Here, I thought she had a great idea. Instead of teaching everything and then moving on to the art, she passed out some dental health colouring pages, (I couldn't find where she found hers, but here is a link to some dental colouring pages if you are looking) and while the kids were colouring, we talked about the ways to keep our teeth healthy such as brushing, flossing, and eating the right foods.

Snack Time: Again, instead of teaching then doing the activity, she taught as they snacked. She pulled out the snacks one at a time, and we learned what food group they were in, and how that food group helps our bodies. She served carrots and apples and we learned they were from the fruits and vegetables group, which have lots of vitamins and are good for keeping our tissues healthy. She passed out cheese, from the milk group, and it has calcium which helps your bones and teeth. The grains group was represented by crackers and by mini muffins (oh, so good!) and she taught that grains were good for giving us energy to play. She also served little cubes of ham for the meat and alternatives group and we reviewed that meat has protein and helps us build muscles. To drink she served water and taught us that staying hydrated was important for our health too.

Craft Time: We made popsicle stick puppets. She had prepared supplies for many different animals for us to choose from: pigs, lions, sloths, giraffes, cats, monkeys, mice.... We coloured the pictures, and glued on the sticks. Then while the kids were playing with them, she taught the importance of sleep and how it is when we are sleeping that our bodies can focus on growing and healing. Then we guessed which of the animals we had made slept the most and which slept the least. Did you know a giraffe only sleeps for half an hour per day??? CRAZY! The animal that slept the most was the sloth. Twenty-one hours per day.

We also learned the stages of the sleep cycle, and ways to help us fall asleep at night. These included having a routine before bed, not eating a big meal right before it is time to lay down, and getting lots of exercise during the day.

Story Time: She shared two books.

The first was about the going to bed routine, since we need to get rest to stay healthy.

The second was so cute. The two animals played together, tired themselves out, and fell to sleep all snuggled up together.

Wiggle Time: This was so fun. She taught us that we needed to be active to stay healthy. She started by asking the kids what kind of activities the kids liked to do. Their answers included going to the park, running, kicking balls, and swimming. We learned that all of these things were exercise. Then we did some yoga posses to do some exercise. This was my guy's favourite part. She chose poses that were all the names of animals and as we did them we made the animal sounds. It is killing me that I didn't bring my camera for the tiger and the lion. Oh my!

Play Time: We had a little extra time at the end so the kids got to have some toy time. This was actually great since it was this mom's first time hosting, and none of the children, (except her own, obviously) had been there before and they were all dying to check out all the new toys they could see, and it let them get to know each other a little bit better since we have a couple of new-ish kids that have joined the group.