Worcestershire Pre-school Learning Alliance
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
What is it? A series of educational sessions to help children understand the importance of the human heart and how exercise and food impacts on the way it works. The sessions are funded by the charity Heart Research UK and run in partnership with Worcestershire Pre-school Learning Alliance in 33 pre-schools across the area.
What do the sessions involve? A sports and nutrition coach spends an hour a week with the children over a course of five weeks. The children discuss how a heart beats and moves blood around the body, and then do exercises to see the effect on their heart rates. The sessions involve a number of props, including a heart-shaped cushion, stethoscopes and foetal heart monitors to listen to each other's heart beats. Each weekly session also focuses on a different food group and encourages the children to do activities based on the foods, such as bending like a banana.
What are the benefits? Children learn to associate exercise and movement with healthy eating and learn how the heart reacts to different foods and exercise. The sessions also encourage children to try healthy foods they previously may have avoided.
For more information, contact Alan Gormley at alan@sport-edge.co.uk
