First grade teachers do a LOT of activities around washing hands and stopping the spread of germs, but there are a TON of important health standards in 1st grade that can help build a foundation for healthy living now and in the future.
Enter our “I Can Be Healthy” book that is a favorite of ours in first grade! I love to make it into a health book that we can work on throughout the year as we cover our various health standards. This way, I can check their understanding of the concept and take a grade, too!
We always kick off the year by discussing germs! What are they? How are the spread? What can they cause? How can we stop them from spreading? We do a lot of role playing and sharing of ideas. This is also a great time to remind students where they can wash their hands, get sanitizer, or find tissues in our room!
Another thing we study at the beginning of the year are healthy habits and practices. I love the discussions that happen around these topics. We don’t have a health curriculum that we follow in my district. We use the first grade health standards and we supplement with books, videos, discussions and charts we make together, activities, and more…and I love it! 🙂
Our P.E. Teacher does a lot of work with the kids involving the importance of physical activity. We have a walking/jogging program at our school that kids participate in before school, at lunch recess, and sometimes in PE. It’s so good for them and I’ve had first graders log 100+ miles in a school year!! This program is a great starting point for our physical activity lessons!
One of our most important things we cover is students knowing their emergency contacts. It’s often a mixed bag…some know names/addresses/phone numbers, etc. while others do not know phone numbers of parents or guardians or their home address. Before we complete this page, I always give parents a heads up so they can write their contact information down for kids before we complete that page in our health book. That way, students will have the best number to reach a parent if needed.
Helping students create healthy habits is a very important concept in first grade! And you can have fun doing it, too!
Are you interested in getting this “I Can Be Healthy” Booklet to use with your health lessons?
Click the image below to grab it today!
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