Teaching Children About Health: A Multidisciplinary Approach

TEACHING CHILDREN ABOUT HEALTH takes a case study approach and is written especially for the elementary classroom teacher. The goal of this text is to help teachers become more knowledgeable about and comfortable with health topics, to be more reflective in their practice of teaching about health, and better equipped with activities for incorporating health subjects into their curriculum. Each chapter considers health from a physical, social, and emotional perspective, acknowledging the mind-body connection. The authors include topics that are relevant in children's lives using a wellness/preventive health model. In addition, each chapter provides activities that can be integrated into several disciplines found in most elementary-school curricula. This text is meant to provide elementary school classroom teachers with the incentive and knowledge base they will need to include interdisciplinary lessons about the various health content areas in their daily teaching. It recognizes that since most elementary-school programs do not have separate health education experiences for students, and since these are the primary learning years, it is the responsibility of the classroom teacher to initiate learning about health.