Healthy Schools
Hub News
Health Breaks healthy schools hub is full of resources and tools for teachers to support the health and wellbeing of their students.
Healthy Schools 2022
June
School Holiday Fun for School Holiday Programs
Stay active over the school holidays with our fun Amazing Race Spinner. This is a great school-holiday program or end of term class activity.
Teachers or adults can split children into groups and check they have completed the challenges selected. Students can have fun as they can tick off the ‘challenge’ list.
Have fun with the challenges, detours and roadblocks along the way! The first group to complete the challenges wins!
Theme of the Month – Energy
Have you heard of the Winter Blues? Long cold days with dark mornings and early night-falls, rain, wind and muddy school ovals can all add up and make us feel a little flat.
So, let’s talk about energy and what we can do about lifting ourselves out of the Winter blues.
Energy can mean many things.
- a measure of power – kilojoules, kilowatts, calories or fuel.
- the way you are viewed by other people (“this person has negative energy / this person has positive energy”)
- the way you feel (“I feel full of energy”).
So, let’s break this down a little bit.
What is Personal Energy?
Your personal energy is about:
- your feelings,
- your thoughts,
- your attitudes towards things in daily life,
- how you express yourself,
- how you behave, and
- how other people describe you.
Health Breaks is challenging you this month to bring more positive energy to your environment, at school and in life.
We challenge you and your classes to complete a few minutes of positive mindfulness or movement as the foundation for creating positive energy within your space.
Try this exercise below this week. The 5 senses.
Stay tuned…. we will send you some positive energy experiences to practice each day.
Click on the boxes below to see how to flip the negative into the positive.
Negative Feelings
Positive Feelings
Negative Thoughts
Positive Thoughts
Negative attitudes
Positive Attitude
Negative Behaviours
Positive Behaviours
Negative Actions
Positive Actions
Colour Corners
Using the Spinner on Health Breaks App, the leader calls out the colour displayed on the spun wheel. Children run to the corresponding cone and back while the wheel is spun again and the next colour is called out.
A few of the schools using the Program have trained their student Sport Captains to be Health Champs. These Champs take turns to lead the Colour Program activities with younger year levels in the school every Friday lunchtime. Schools who use student health champs are also providing opportunities to develop leadership skills in senior students and cooperation skills in younger students.
Next week we will feature another activity from the Colours Program.
Hints for Health Champs:
-Stand in a visible position, nice and tall.
-Use a loud voice to give instructions and call ut the colours.
-Use encouraging words like “well done……you are all so fast…..keep going”.
-Highlight safety – look and check before you change directions.
-Have fun!
Stretching has many benefits for children (and adults). Firstly, it helps to cool down muscles after activity and exercise and in some cases this helps to prevent delayed muscle soreness. Stretching helps keep joints mobile and this can help prevent injury. Stretching is also great to calm over-active bodies and minds. The act of stretching can slow down breathing and this in turn can slow down thinking and thoughts.
A five minute stretching routine can be a great way to transition from a chaotic playground to a quiet classroom.
Health Breaks app has several stretching routines for different parts of the body. To inspire your students, why not print out some of the stretch posters and post up in the classroom.
Here is a nice routine for the legs. Hold each stretch for about 20 seconds and keep breathing slow and calm.
Your Health and Wellbeing Calendar
