Elementary Health Education

  • Philosophy

    Health Education prepares students to make healthy, positive decisions within the six areas of wellness: mental, emotional, social, spiritual, environmental and physical. The goal is to help students become health literate – obtain, interpret, communicate and understand basic health information and community services – and to apply these skills to enhance individual, family and community wellness. We support a comprehensive approach to health education that encourages inclusiveness and respect for all our students and conversation at home around family values and beliefs.

  • Guidelines

    Instructional design

    • Teach Health Education 2-3 times per week (or equivalent schedule) for 20-30 minutes each time.
    • Align lesson plans with SPPS scope and sequence per grade level.
    • Use children’s literature to teach Health content and skills.
    • Ensure that students can see themselves reflected in the curriculum.

    Instruction and Classroom Materials

    • Provide a classroom library with:
      • appropriate text level reading on subjects connected to grade-level Health benchmarks
      • culturally relevant texts, including narratives from multiple perspectives.
    • Use children’s literature to support understanding of foundational skills, concepts and content.
    • Ensure students see themselves reflected in the resources, lessons and children’s literature around health related topics.
    • Provide access to relevant experiences outside the classroom and use digital resources to engage students and enhance understanding of concepts.
    • Use Health content as a context for practicing reading, writing, speaking and listening.  
    • Recognize that each grade level’s Health studies provides the foundation for the next level: student success in middle school courses is dependent on learning Health at the elementary level.

  • Variations

    Flipped Classroom:
    Create videos for activity related skills ranging from 5-10 minutes. Students watch at home or in school. Time in the PE classroom then involves direct participation of the sport  or fitness activity with more direct feedback from teacher.

  • Assessment

    • Formative and summative assessments are part of classroom routines.
    • Assessments are aligned with unit goals and language found in the elementary progress reports.

  • Health Scope & Sequences

    (In Revision)

  • key image For Elementary Health Schoology group access, please contact Terri Steen (terri.steen@spps.org)