You can help your preschoolers build healthy habits for a lifetime. Teaching preschoolers about health and fitness has taken on added importance, as one-third of American adolescents are overweight, as of 2011. Making health and fitness seem like something fun and easy makes preschoolers more excited about staying fit.
Nutrition
Preschoolers tend to gravitate toward processed foods and sugar, but they’re also impressionable enough that they can grow to enjoy new foods. Teach children about which foods are healthy and which aren’t by talking about food groups. Cooking magazines are filled with food pictures, so pass these out to preschoolers and ask them to cut out all the food images they can find. Help children separate the pictures into food groups or use them to create a collage of a healthy day’s menu. Talking about each child’s actual diet and applauding her for all the healthy foods she eats can also encourage her to eat more good foods.
Exercise
The best way to teach preschoolers about the benefits of exercise is to actually get them to exercise. Introduce children to a range of healthy activities so they know how to stay fit. Instituting several movement periods in each school day makes exercise a habit for preschoolers. Each day, do a variety of activities like stretching and yoga, jumping jacks and dancing, as well as outdoor games such as kicking balls around and playing running games like tag. Ask them to describe how they feel afterward to help them connect that moving their bodies makes them feel strong and happy.
Hygiene
Preschoolers are becoming more responsible for their own hygiene, so help them remember how to stay clean. Children this age must learn to care for their teeth, so make tooth-brushing part of the daily routine. Ask parents to send in toothbrushes and toothpaste and demonstrate with your own toothbrush how to brush thoroughly. Washing their hands properly is also important and keeps your students from passing germs, so ask children to help you illustrate signs showing the steps for proper hand-washing and hang the signs around the room.
Mental Health
Ideally, preschoolers will all have high self-esteem and bullying won’t be an issue in your classroom, but many children will start to feel self-conscious or ashamed as they get older. They may experience academic struggles or get picked last in gym. Teach preschoolers about mental health by making books. Ask each child to fill the pages of her book with pictures depicting why she is special, or have her draw a different feeling on each page. Talk about how to handle different feelings and help preschoolers come up with a list of adults who can help when they feel sad or anxious.
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