Healthy Highway
An innovative and imaginative nutrition and exercise program for children
Wendy Cooper
123 Eileen Drive
Rochester, NY 14616
585 621-1986
healthy-highway.com
Healthy Highway
With our children’s health at risk and research indicating that for the first time in history they may not live as long as their parents, one question arises: how do we implement a meaningful and timely program to help our children increase their nutrition and exercise knowledge? Healthy Highway is the answer.
Healthy Highway is an innovative and imaginative nutrition and exercise program for children. A progression of “traffic theme” activities encourages students to engage in fun “fuel” exercises, as well as being able to “drive” through a nutrition rich curriculum that can be easily implemented. Actual traffic signs take on both safety and nutrition slogans that reinforce key concepts. The program was a result of five years of lessons that progressed each year. It is based on educationally sound concepts, it is fun, and it works!
Benefits of “driving” down the Healthy Highway:
· Curriculum is designed around a “car” theme to make learning fun.
· Lessons are sequential and interdisciplinary (language arts, math, health).
· Activities are meaningful that connect to students’ lives outside of school.
· Activities are “brain friendly”.
· Corresponds to criteria of Child Nutrition Act legislation for local wellness policies; addresses the child obesity issue.
· Expands into a school wide program to give consistent nutrition information.
· Coordinates with before and after school programs.
· Development of a home/school connection.
· Easy to implement.
Activities to earn a “learner’s permit”:
· Each of the 6 traffic signs are connected to corresponding slogans: ex: Traffic light – stop for healthy snacks; Yield – watch out for oils, slow down on fats, pass by sugars
· A progression of activities are then designed to reinforce these slogans: ex: nutrition bingo, memory, traffic sign treasure hunt
· Movements are matched with each rule to enhance learning.
· Each food group is described as a “fuel” for the engines and the student’s read in their “owner’s manual” to learn more on the maintenance of their “car”.
· Foods are categorized as “red, yellow, and green light” foods.
· Exercises are matched with food groups: ex: jumping jacks as you say “carbohydrates”; bicep curls as you say “protein”
· A theme is developed: drive on the “super 8 highway”; pull up to the drive-thru and order a food exercise of the day: apple pull, green bean lean; safety patrols to “enforce” safe movement in the hallways; speeding tickets; 4 way stop game.
· Language Arts: monthly newspaper of nutrition objectives; “traffic reports”; recipes for a healthy body; word search of key words from nutrition unit; “chefs” writing recipes for a healthy body; “food detectives” reporting on breakfast choices of staff and students and making a graph to show the results of the survey.
· Math: counting steps as “driving” to different destinations in the school.
· School wide involvement: nurse’s office: “body shop” – only come for repairs; library – “pit stop” – to read owner’s manual. Establish year end goals. Involve the PTA. Put on family nights to educate the families on the goals of the program.
Drive down the Healthy Highway
The culminating lesson is designed to celebrate the nutrition knowledge that the students have learned.
Warm up: Drive the perimeter of the gym. Have 3 circles of paper to represent the traffic light colors: green is your choice of movement: ex: skip, gallop, hop, etc; yellow is to walk; red is to stop. Set up “situations” as they drive: put their “windshield wipers” on; “out of gas” - stop and do wall push ups; “flat tire” – stop and pump arms up and down; “slippery road” – stop and sit and spin 3x on their gluteus maximus.
Healthy Highway
Students work in partners to travel the highway. This may be done with scooters where they will take turns being the driver or the passenger.
1. Fuel Pump: a poster can be made to look like a fuel pump with each food group listed on the poster. Students drive up and choose a food card. They will place that card next to the food group “button” that matches their card.
2. Pyramid Parking Garage: Students choose a food card and place it on the correct “parking level” that matches the food group.
3. Balance Box: Students choose a food card out of a box. They then can do jumping jacks or laps according to the type of food they chose. Red light foods = 25 jumping jacks. Yellow light foods=10; Green light foods=5. This incorporates the balance of calories in and calories out.
4. Workout Center: Students perform “food” exercises: green bean lean, apple pull, banana peel, orange squeeze.
5. Traffic light: Students choose a food card and place it in a red, yellow, or green hoop as determined by the number of grams of fat.
At the conclusion of this lesson the completed stations are a great visual for the students to see the foods categorized into food groups, and “traffic light” color foods. This also provides a quick and easy assessment of knowledge as seen at all stations.
By creating an imaginative and educationally sound program you will discover how fun it is to “pump” nutrition and exercise knowledge into the children’s fuel tanks. The program is easy to implement and will expand year after year. And what other program has constant reinforcement on each and every road in the country!
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