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What’s it like to use the School Wellness Education model with Grades 5 and 6?

This is an excerpt from K-12 School Wellness Education by Hannah Holl,Randy Nichols.

Lexi Douglas

Spring Grove Area School District, Grades 5 and 6

My Wellness Story

My experience at Slippery Rock University led me to take a wellness approach and to make sure that all students benefited from my class. I hope each student leaves my class feeling more confident than when they arrived and having developed a positive relationship with physical activity. My lessons aim to create lifelong learners who can search for accurate health information and utilize it in their lives.

I teach wellness in the classroom for two days and physical education in the gym for four days per cycle. This allows me to create a fluid connection between Living Well concepts, health, and physical activity. My physical education lessons are unique because the activities I choose incorporate wellness topics. For example, if we are learning about body systems, students might do muscular endurance and strength stations in the gym to “feel” and learn the names of the muscles they are working. Then, they will use their knowledge of muscles and exercises to create their own workout plan. Or, while doing a mindfulness/stress management yoga lesson, I restate why we are doing it throughout the lesson and have the students talk about how they could use it to benefit their own lives. At other times, we simply stop to take heart rates or notice how our bodies are feeling during activity and talk about how frequent physical activity benefits your health. My PE lessons focus on skills rather than sports and allow students to practice “challenge by choice” through adaptations. For example, during a MyPlate relay race, students can choose to bounce and catch, dribble with their dominant hand, or dribble with their non-dominant hand.

My biggest barrier is the student’s perception of what “gym” class should be. I teach fifth and sixth grades, so my students have had physical education experiences with teachers who do not focus on wellness. They often ask to play dodgeball or sports, and sometimes my explanation for why those are not appropriate learning activities does not satisfy them. Typically the more athletic and coordinated students are the ones asking these questions and are the most challenging to get to buy into wellness. However, I have virtually no participation issues in my class. Those athletic, coordinated students who already love physical activity are active participants in anything, and the less confident students feel safe enough to try because my activities are not the traditional sports that they have had a negative experience with.

My Advice to You

My advice is to stick to your philosophy, even when you experience pushback from students who don’t see the value in your class. These students might need you the most, and even if they don’t realize it, they are benefiting from your lessons. You might never get validation from those students, but you can feel confident knowing that you gave them a solid foundation for living a healthful life.

More Excerpts From K-12 School Wellness Education

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