Practice Preschool - Healthy Habits Week 1 (Exercise and Sleep)

This is the first week of our healthy bodies theme! Ask your child what he/she has knows about taking care of our bodies as an introduction to this theme. You may be surprised! And if he/she doesn't know much, you know where to start or build from! 

Week 1: Exercise and Sleep (FYI, future weeks will be germs, eating healthy, teeth/overall body hygiene--subject to change)

**Prep for Week 2: Place a slice of bread in three different Ziploc bags, using tongs. Label the first bag: Control, the second bag: Dirty, and the third bag: Clean. Leave the first bag/slice untouched. With the second slice, have child(ren) touch the bread--even wipe it on a few surfaces. Finally, have the child(ren) wash hands really well, then touch the slice in the third bag. This lends itself to a great lesson on germs and why it's important to wash our hands, even when they don't "look" dirty.

Day 1

• Sunbeam Lesson 6 "Heavenly Father and Jesus Love Me" (5 min)

Sing " Heavenly Father Loves Me" (use visuals from Lesson 3, Making Music Week 3 blog post or from the Sunday Savers lesson manual for this lesson). 

Hold a mirror up for your child to look at themselves and remind them that Heavenly Father and Jesus love him/her very much.  

•  Brainstorm (5 min)

Make a list of healthy habits, or ways we can take care of our bodies, on your large sketchpad or on a poster board. Try to mention/highlight all the ones you'll be talking about this month. Draw a picture of an outline of a body as well to aide in discussion.

• "ABC Exercise Cards" (5 min)

Prepare cards or print them out after a simple google search. I have these from years ago :D Pull out cards from the stack at random and do the exercise together. Repeat as long as children are engaged.

• Snack (5 min) 

Today's tip: Quesadilla! Whole wheat tortilla, microwaved with cheese inside. Cut into triangles for bonus mini geometry lesson ;)

• Free Play (20 min)

Go to a place that involves exercising (swimming, trampoline park, bike ride, playground, gym, etc.), play Simon Says, giant parachute if you have one (and enough children), Go on a Bear Hunt song (Rowan's all-time fav!), Toe-Knee Chest-Nut song, Jumping Lines (tape on the ground, like hopscotch).

Day 2

• STEAM Lesson (Technology) "Apple Boats" (5-10 min)

This month's theme is healthy bodies--science based. Because there are only four weeks, I will skip the "S", science and won't have an explicit science lesson but will incorporate it in. Fortunately, there's also a lot of overlap in many STEAM lessons/activities. Today we will make apple boats and talk about how boats are technology because they are a tool that help you get from one place to another over water.

To incorporate or modify it for science, you could talk about sinking and floating. For engineering, you are "building" a boat. If you wanted to make it more of an art project, you could spend more work on the sails. Lastly, for math, you could compare and contrast different apple boats (varieties, sizes, shapes, etc.) on a chart/graph of some sort. See my point? :)

I chose apples because of our theme :) If it's fall when you do this, or even if it's not, there are MANY apple activities out there! Counting the seeds, apple painting, literacy extensions...just do a google search and you'll be overwhelmed. 

Instructions found here: 

https://www.adabofgluewilldo.com/apple-boats-stem/ 

•  Sleep (5 min)

Talk about how sleep and rest are important in keeping our bodies healthy. Talk about the bedtime routine and its importance. Sing "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed". Have "Pajama Day" at preschool :) 

• Snack (5 min)

Today's Tip: Rowan loves having his snack in those small, Rubbermaid containers with the red lids. You can find so many fun containers at the dollar store as well! Perfect for portion control and for some reason, a fun container makes the snack inside so much more fun :D Side note: We bought those snack containers that have the floppy lids and didn't love them, so we converted them into bath toys :) Haha! Rowan loves them because they have handles and are perfect for dumping water out. There's always another use for things if you don't like them. Even if that "use" is giving them away.

• Free Play (20 min)

Read books about sleep (Goodnight Moon, Llama Llama Red Pajama, How do Dinosaurs say Goodnight?), compare/contrast day and night, put dolls to sleep, make a moon or design some pajamas on paper, etc.