• Activity Lesson For Educatorshealthy Active Living Center
• Activity Lesson For Educatorshealthy Active Living Facilities

Includes games, activity sheets, videos, songs and resources on nutrition and active play. Physical Activity (Active Play) Motion Moments – Videos from the National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care with ideas on how to weave physical activity into everyday activities for infants, toddlers and preschoolers. Active for Life is pleased to offer the following ready-made lesson plans for educators, caregivers, camp leaders, and after-school program leaders who want to deliver physical literacy instruction to children. All lesson plans are in PDF format. To see how these fundamental movement skills look, check out these videos at KIDDO. 3 – 5 Years Continued.

Healthy Active Living

Growing Healthy Flipchart

Healthy habits start early in life. Encouraging and supporting very young children to enjoy active play and choose healthy foods can set a lifelong pattern of healthy active living. There are lots of ways to grow healthy but you don't have to do them all at once. The 5-2-1-0 message provides suggestions for building healthy, active lives for everyone. Staff can share this information with parents as a reminder to make healthy choices every day.

These supplemental pages look at serving sizes for the different age groups and how they are different from adult portions. There are talking points for home visitors to use with families when discussing how to develop healthy meal routines.

Growing Healthy Family Goals Worksheet

All parents know that they should teach their children to eat healthy and encourage them to exercise. However, that can be hard to do, especially when it feels like everything about your current lifestyle needs to change. Head Start and Early Head Start staff may use this worksheet with families to help them start behaviors that will improve the health and wellness of everyone at home. The 5-2-1-0 message provides suggestions for building healthy, active lives for everyone in the family.

Growing Healthy Family Postcard

The 5-2-1-0 message provides suggestions for building healthy, active lives for everyone in the family. Staff can share this postcard with parents to put on the refrigerator as a reminder to make healthy choices every day.

Food Faces and Salsa Gardens: Fostering Healthy Habits with Young Children

Ever wonder what staff can do to promote children’s health? Learn why and how to promote healthy habits for children’s nutrition, physical activity, and safety. Also, discover ways to help families continue healthy habits at home.

Active Play: Tips for Families

Head Start health managers and family service staff can use this fact sheet to share information with families on the NCH priority, active play. It includes tips families can use to help young children develop positive active play behaviors.

Healthy Active Living: Tips for Health Managers

This fact sheet helps Head Start health managers provide important information to program staff on the NCH identified health priority, healthy active living. It includes concrete information on the importance of physical activity, a healthy diet, and quality sleep to the overall growth, development, and learning of young children.

Health Services Newsletter: Healthy Active Living (July 2014)

Health managers are in a position to support and enhance the healthy, active living initiatives Head Start programs provide to children and their families. This edition of the newsletter offers strategies to engage staff and parents.

Topic:Nutrition

Keywords:Physical activity

Resource Type:Article

National Centers:Health, Behavioral Health, and Safety

Last Updated: November 4, 2020

What is active living?

Active living is an approach to life that values and includes physical activity in everyday living. You can find ways to be active at work, school, home, and during leisure time.

Active living is not the same as an exercise program. Active living means making physical activity part of every day life whether you are taking the stairs instead of the elevator, participating in a standing or walking meeting, biking to work, yoga at lunch, gardening, taking the kids or dog to the park, walking to the other building at your facility, or swimming laps in the pool.

How much activity is enough?

It is easier than you think to be “physically active”. The Public Health Agency of Canada recommends that we be active at least 2.5 hours (150 minutes) a week to achieve the health benefits. The goal is to complete moderate to vigorous aerobic activity. This goal can be achieved throughout the day by accumulating 10 minute or more periods of activity. Physical activity should be a mixture of endurance, flexibility and strength activities. This mixture helps to strengthen the heart and lungs, keep joints flexible and mobile, and maintain strong bones. Target your muscles and bones at least two days per week.

The following chart is an example of what moderate to vigorous aerobic activity “looks like”:

Time Needed Depends on Effort
Very light Effort	Light Effort	Moderate Effort	Vigorous Effort	Maximum Effort
Strolling Dusting	Light walking Volleyball Easy gardening Stretching	Brisk walking Skating Biking Raking leaves Swimming Dancing Water aerobics	Aerobics Cross-country skiing Jogging Hockey Basketball Fast swimming Fast dancing	Sprinting Racing
How should I feel while exercising? How warm am I? What is my breathing like?
No change from when you are resting	Starting to feel warm	Warmer	Quite warm	Very hot/ perspiring heavily
Normal breathing	Slight increase in breathing rate	Greater increase in breathing rate	More out of breath	Completely out of breath

What are examples of some types of activities?

It is important to have a mixture of activities in your routine.

Endurance (aerobic) exercise helps improve the body's ability to use oxygen.

• Walking
• Corporate or organized events (special activity days, sports teams, etc.)
• Golfing (without a cart)
• Cycling
• Dancing

Flexibility routines help to maintain the body's ability to bend and stretch easily.

• Gardening / Yard work
• Yoga
• Tai chi
• Stretches at your workstation

Strength training helps strengthen muscles as well as improving balance and posture.

• Climbing stairs
• Lifting and carrying toolboxes (or young children)
• Lifting weights
• Resistance training
• Gardening involving digging or shovelling

Exercises that help strengthen your bones include:

• Running
• Walking
• Yoga
• Jumping rope

How do I find time to be active at work?

Many times people feel they don't have time to 'add' activity into their day. The workplace can help. A workplace can encourage employees to take on various activities at all levels regardless of age and ability. For most people, they just need help to get started. “Balance” needs to come from the individual wanting to start or continue with an activity program, and having encouragement from the workplace in order to meet these objectives. Whether you work in a small or large company, there are many areas and strategies that can increase participation in fitness and active living programs.

Some strategies are:

• Develop a physical fitness policy for the workplace.
• Ask staff what types of programs they are interested in.
• Have flexible working hours. Allowing people to arrive at work a little later, or leave a little earlier can help them add activity to their day.
• Job sharing, telecommuting, and on-site day care will also provide some flexibility to schedules.
• Allow individuals to take an extra half hour twice a week at lunch to walk, swim, attend fitness class, etc.
• Encourage people to walk to a co-worker's office or workstation rather than using the telephone or e-mail.
• Allow for and encourage stretch breaks while at the workstation.
• Map a 10 minute walking route inside or outside your workplace. Encourage staff to take a mid-morning or afternoon “active” break.
• Start each workday or shift with a pre-shift stretch program.
• Provide bike racks (in secure location).
• Offer on-site change rooms, fitness facilities, or negotiate discounts to various health clubs in the area.
• Offer a wide range of company programs, whether it is a walk / bike group or an organized exercise activity (can be just 10 minutes long).
• Provide resources and education - newsletters, bulletins, community guides, health fairs, guest speakers, instructors for a new activity or sport, etc.
• Help staff to find a support group or buddy system to encourage each other.

How can a physical activity program help your workplace?

Simply put, a workplace that supports physical activity provides and enhances quality of life for employees, both inside and outside of the workplace. When employees are encouraged to be active, there can be benefits for both the employee and the company, such as:

• Gains in productivity.
• Decreases in absenteeism and turnover.
• More positive and happier employees and workplace culture.
• Lower medical costs and fewer injuries.
• Enhanced corporate image.
• Reduction in stress and increase in relaxation.
• Improved employee health / wellness.

It is important for organizations not only to analyze the cost of running a physical activity program in the short term, but also to see how it will benefit the organization in the long run.

Activity Lesson For Educatorshealthy Active Living Center

How do you get a program started?

Sometimes making small changes can support big results. The employees, management and committees can create ideas or initiate for the workplace. After acknowledging these ideas, a detailed plan of action can be the next step. In this step, you can plan your activities that can be developed for your specific workplace setting. After a program is in place, it should be monitored, evaluated and maintained.

• Encourage employees to get a fitness evaluation and/or health risk appraisal from their doctor before starting any significant exercise program.
• Work with senior management to resolve multiple factors (such as physical work environment, scheduling of work tasks, etc.) that can influence the employee's capacity to be active.
• Help individuals find that one reason they need to get started and help them recognize that reasons to stay active may change over time.
• Encourage people to start with one small activity. Whatever their situation or ability, they can try a variety of activities to improve their health and find out what is right for them.
• Provide the information that people need. Often the act of looking for information is the first step towards getting started.
• Allow participants to choose activities that they like to do.
• Invite potential participants to watch activities or to participate in a trial class to see if they are interested.
• Have a person trained in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) present at moderate to high physical activity sessions.
• Offer a variety of programs. Be sure there is a mixture of endurance, strength and flexibility activities.

Where can I find more information?

More information on active living is available from the following organizations*:

• Healthy Living, Health Canada.
• Physical Activity, Public Health Agency of Canada

(*We have mentioned these organizations as a means of providing a potentially useful referral. You should contact the organization(s) directly for more information about their information and/or services. Please note that mention of these organizations does not represent a recommendation or endorsement by CCOHS of these organizations over others that you may know.)

Activity Lesson For Educatorshealthy Active Living Facilities

[Adapted from: Comprehensive Workplace Health Program Guide, CCOHS]