The Healthy Refrigerator

Here is a great website that deals with teaching young children about leading a healthy and active lifestyle. It is based at a grade three level in the subject area of health and deals with controlling deals as well. The site mainly focusses on the fact that if you eat right and stay active you can prevent many diseases and keep your heart healthy! There are links in the right hand corner that you as a teacher or your students can access such as the healthy fridge, good nutrition, heart of the matter and then there is a link just for kids. I also enjoy the main page of this website, it draws you in because it has the cartoon heart pumping and colorful images that engage your attention. I could definately see myself using this website in my future classroom!

To incorporate this website into my lesson plans at school I would first give an introductory lesson to my class about controlling diseases and leading a healthy and active lifestyle and what it can do for your body. I would use areas such as the food guide on display, a list of physical activities that are simple and fun, etc. After this, I would allow for my students to access this website and click on the link "just for kids!" They could read about fun recipes, facts about heart disease, take a healthy fridge quiz from what they learned and seek a word game. I would allow for my students to go on the computers in partners when accessing this website because they then can collaborate information and ideas to complete the word game and quiz. After the students are done on the site, we would meet back at our desks and brainstorm healthy foods and learn more about the food guide. As a teacher, I would then send a note home with the parents/guardians to ask them to send their child with one healthy snack. Our class would have a potluck lunch including foods from the four main food groups. Some could bring veggies and dip, another a fruit platter, others could bring cheese crackers and meat, etc. During our lunch we would then further examine and learn about the heart and how healthy eating can benefit our health and body so greatly. We would also talk about some favorite areas of the website, how did everyone do on the quiz, what recipes sounded good, etc.

I feel that this website would benefit the learning of my students because it is kid friendly and engages the students attention through the images and interesting information. Instead of it being a site where it just lists information and facts, it includes recipes, quizes and word games which students really seem to enjoy. By providing this variety the students find it enjoyable and the content more easy to follow. Child obesity is such as growing issue within today's society, so as a future teacher I plan to help decrease this problem by beginning in my classroom with my students. This site is a great way to educate your students about a healthy heart, type 2 diabetes and how they can lead a healthy and active lifestyle. I would also send home this website in the parents/guardian newsletter so that the students can also access it at home to learn even further about this subject area!