everyone has heard of this sexuality bill??? yeah??? http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/53675267-82/sex-utah-homosexuality-information.html.csp

i felt so dumb because i hadn't been following, but there is a bill that is on Gov. Herbert's desk to take ALL sexuality education out of the schools!!! ai ya, ai ya.

just wanted to make sure everyone was aware!! scary stuff.

Do you mean what you say??

i had an activity go over REALLY well this week and i'll do my best to explain what i did...

it started off with this video/commercial about the word "gay"

the idea that i proposed to my students was, "if we could ban a word/phrase around our school and get the message to other students to 'knock it off!' what word/phrase would it be?"

so i had to clarify, although it would be great to ban swear words, with the campaign we would be working on, we could not make videos or posters with swear words...so here are some of the words that my students came up with

gay

freak

retard

slut

homo

lesbo

"fag"got

tramp

perverted terms

racist terms

and some other words...

then i had each class vote on two terms that they would ban if they could. kind of surprising to me, ALL my health classes chose as one of the terms, "racists terms". so that was the winner.

the following day, i told them i was turning the project over to their class and asked them to brainstorm about how we should go about this as health classes. they came up with GREAT ideas!!! videos, announcements over the intercom, flyers, brochures, going to classes and writing a message on EVERY whiteboard in the school one morning, raps, and possibly a flash mob. we have not decided what projects we will complete, so i'll keep you updated how it goes!

if you would like more details, leave a comment because that was the activity in a nutshell.

p.s. becca, i also used your "so what" idea and when we decided on the racist terms, i had them throw around a tennis ball with "so what" written on it and had my students tell me why they chose racist terms. great idea!!

So What?

Cougar always talks about how we need to tell the students the so what. I decided to make a so what frisbee!

I throw it to students after certain activities or at the end of the class. It's so effective. 

I had a student today say, "Oh! I get it!" It not only checks for understanding but it allows for connection. They connect what you are teaching them to real life.

"I" Messages Activity

I did this activity yesterday to start teaching the students about "I" messages. I was teaching on communication yesterday and I was talking about listening skills and then I was going to go into "I" messages. I kept going on about the listening skills until a student talked when I was talking. I immediately snapped at the kid. I said, "You are bugging me. You are so annoying. You are so obnoxious. I just can't stand it anymore." The poor kid looked like he was going to pee his pants. I then said I was just kidding, but then lead a discussion on how it made him feel, and how it made others in the class feel. The important thing when doing this is to never say the event that happened. Like I never told the student it's because he was talking when I was yelling at him. In another class I had a student snap back at me when I was yelling. This worked out really well too because I showed the class that when we attack someone, the other person may become defensive. After we had a discussion about how being attacked made people feel, I turned it into an "I" message and said it to the student again. He then said he would have been way more apologetic if I would have said it that way.

It's really shocking for students so make sure you pick a student that can handle it. They normally are the ones talking out any way. It's really effective too especially since I am not a yeller. The students said that it wasn't so surprising that a teacher was yelling, it was surprising that I was yelling. Students laugh afterword but it's a really effective way to get your message across.

Then we finished with a worksheet on "I" messages and I made students share each situation and turn the "You" statement into and "I" statement.

Becca

so i'm in my social unit right now and i have a student that took health last year and had some papers from the teacher before me. she did this "Application to Date My Daughter" and it was really cute! you could do an "Application to Date My Daughter" and an "Application to Date My Son". she had questions like, 'in 50 words or less, describe what "NO!!!!" means to you' and 'in 50 words or less describe what CURFEW means to you.' then at the very bottom she had some funny questions like, 'what bone would you least like to have broken' and 'what do you want to be IF you grow up'. ha ha. i just thought it was a cute idea! i think we'll do it next week when we talk about dating!

half way through!

Can you believe that we are half way through this semester already? Because of the scheduling conflict with my classes, I am teaching my last two classes with my high schoolers. I cannot believe it and I am so sad to leave them. I am very excited to get to experience the Jr. High students too though.

As I prepare for this change, is there any advice any of you would love to give to me about Middle/Jr. High students?

I would love your comments and suggestions. :)

Kaitie

Adele talks about Body Image

Guys.

I just found this video, and unfortunately it won't upload, so go to this website!

It is Adele talking to Anderson Cooper (two of my favorite people!!!) about her weight and the media and how she chooses not to let it have an affect on her. She is awesome. (besides the fact that she smokes and doesn't want to quit.)

Anyway, I think this could be a cool clip to show when you are teaching about Body image and the media!

here is the URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-57376080-10391709/adele-talks-about-her-body-image-and-weight/?tag=contentMain%3BcontentAux%3Ftag%3Dfacebook

I hope teaching is going well for everyone!

Love all of you!

Kaitie

Bullying

I'm working on my conflict resolution lesson plan. What are some activities you all have liked when talking about bullying??

Thanks!

Becca

Lesson idea for teaching about portions

For my nutrition and fitness unit, I decided to have the students tell me what they wanted to learn about/ what they were most worried about when it came to themselves and their nutrition and fitness habits (this taken from what Cougar talked to us about at our meeting)

One of my first lessons was about portions. I first had a volunteer come to the front of the classroom and pour us a "normal" size bowl of cereal. We then measured it out and found out that he was eating 2 servings of cereal per bowl, which he told us he usually ate 2 bowls at least!

I then told them that my "friend" Brian Regan was going to talk to us about portion size vs. serving size and showed the first part of this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBko_3wT44Q

Then I taught the students about the new myplate.gov and explained to them why it is important to eat smaller portions than the average American eats. We then learned about Portion Distortion. I printed out slides from this powerpoint:

http://hp2010.nhlbihin.net/oei_ss/PD1/slide1.htm

I taped them around the classroom. I had the students go on a gallery walk and write down what they found the most shocking about each slide. We then had a discussion on it.

The last activity we did (I told them it was a field trip- which really got their attention) I put a slide up of a grocery store and then told them that they were in charge of creating a romantic Valentines meal. I stopped by Macey's and picked up some of their ads for this week (it luckily was all about Valentine's) and I had the kids "shop" from the ad. They worked with partners to create their meal, and they were all so creative. After they finished I had them present their balanced meals to us. It was a really fun and engaging activity.

Cougar observed me the day that I taught this lesson and he loved it, so it's a solid one.

Kaitie

Don't you just love excuses?

My students long to sit with their friends. Everyday day I am asked, and sometimes have students begging to sit in a different spot. Last Friday was the same thing. I told my student no, and he gave the response, "but Mrs. Myers, I am near sighted! I have to sit in the back next to Dylan!!!" I told him nice try and sarcastically said I would need a doctors note. A few minutes later, both of my students presented me with this lovely piece of paper:

It made me laugh so hard that the class had a free seating chart day, they were all so thrilled!

What things have your students told you or have done to try to weasel their way out of things?

Kaitie

Self-esteem Question

Hi everybody!

I'm planning my lessons for the healthy-self unit and I'm working on the day that I'll be teaching about self-esteem.  I'm having a hard time coming up with effective ways to teach the students because I feel like this is such an important topic and I want to hit a home run with!


Any ideas or activities that you have done related to this???

Thanks!!!

Mental and Emotional Health: Fear and Phobia

Here's a fun lesson plan I got from another health educator.

Sometimes when we are teaching about mental health disorders, it can get REALLY heavy! my hardest day of the year was for sure the day we talked about suicide. Along with talking about mental health disorders, another thing you can talk about is fear and phobia's. This is also a great lesson because it teaches your student about roots. so here is the lesson plan:

1. Give a student a list of all of the roots:

zoo
thanato
mono
toxico
ailuro
pyro
avio
gyne
xeno
algo
agoro
claustro
astra
hemo
acro
nycto

at the same time you give them what the fear's are and have then guess to see which ones they can match up:

Fear of:
1. enclosed spaces
2. night
3. high places
4. open spaces
5. pain
6. blood
7. thunder
8. strangers
9. cats
10. animals
11. death
12. fire
13. flying
14. being alone
15. poison
16. women

2. then you go through and have fun seeing which ones the students got wrong and right. have a discussion about fears and phobia's and the differences.

Phobia's: persistent, excessive and generally unreasonable fears of stimuli that lead one to avoid that stimuli. Common phobias, such as the ones above, that really pose no real threat or danger, may lead others to ridicule those with phobia's.

3. then you can have students tell you if they think they think this is a sign or a symptom of a fear or a phobia.

(note, these are all phobia's, so you'll need to modify them so some are just fears)

signs and symptoms

difficulty swallowing
sweating
excited stomach
shortness of breath
tense feelings
muscle tension/aches
frequent urination
irritability/impatience
insomnia related to anticipation
fast heart rate/palpitations
nausea
diarrhea
twitching or bodily shakes
inability to relax
dry mouth
sleep difficulty
difficulty breathing
difficulty concentrating
blushing

here's a fun recent example of some of these signs!!

4. it's important to finally have a discussion that the National Institute of Mental Health states that 75% of people with specific phobia's are able to conquer their phobias when treated with cognitive behavior therapy. This is the therapy that looks like this...
say you have a fear of snakes
-think about snakes in your mind
-then, open a book on snakes to read about them and look at the pictures making sure you can touch the pages
-then, buy at toy snake and hold it
-then, go to a reptile store and touch a cage with a snake in it
-finally, when you are ready, have the snake handler pick up a snake for you and hold it in your hands

Good Idea!

Hey Everyone!!!

So, I just finished my first unit- Healthy Self. After the students took their test, I had a small writing prompt on the board for them to respond to:

1. What have you enjoyed in our class during this unit?

2. What do you think could have been better in this class during this unit?

3. What other concerns do you have in regards to this class?

The students actually answered these questions very thoughtfully and answered them really well. I liked that it started with a positive, had a somewhat negative, and ended with a personal concern.

It also has helped me see that they did learn something in class!!! As the teacher, I feel like the topics we are covering are pretty easy and that everyone probably already knows about them, but, THEY DON'T and for the most part they really enjoy health and the stuff that we teach them.

Sorry for the long post, but I feel that today was a break through for me!!!

Kaitie

Two awesome books I've used so far for teaching:

 This book is awesome!

My self-esteem lesson came from a lot of this.

It has a lot about relationships as well.

Read it. It's so good.

My mentor teacher has let me borrow her copy of this.

It has the activities divided into the different area it fits with.

It's great for Health.

I've had some awesome activities come from it!

Lesson learned when teaching today: Always tell kids to be appropriate. You may just assume they already will be (I did) but they may not be. So just say it so they always know.

I learned that lesson the hard way today!