Running head: HAPPY HEART 1

Happy Heart

Siera R Stokes

Westminster Nursing College

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Without our hearts, we wouldn’t even be alive. They are absolutely vital, and can

be deemed as one of our best friends who is always by our side, quite literally. This is one

of the main reasons we chose to teach our students about Heart Health. While interacting

with the children at Promise I learned that they didn’t know the main functions of the

heart. We had a breakdown of our project: researching and deciding on a topic, planning

our lesson, and finally, implementing our lesson plan and teaching the kids.

First, we needed to figure out what would be helpful for our kids to learn. I was

able to observe the students for three weeks at recess and noticed that while some kids are

active, many kids aren’t active at recess. Also, while eating dinner, their food choices

weren’t optimal and they are very picky eaters, as expected because of their age and their

taste buds aren’t mature yet. After having many conversations with different students it

became evident to me that the majority of their parents couldn’t afford for them to play

recreational sports and instead they would go home from school and watch TV, be on

social media, surf the web, or other sedentary activities the remainder of the night. Even

though not being involved in an extracurricular sports team isn’t ideal, we decided that

we would teach them other ways to stay healthy and how to take good care of their

hearts. From our various conversations with students, we were able to gather evidence-

based content from watching the children and learn that these students needed to be

taught more about how their heart health affects their bodies and ways to keep their

hearts healthy. We also knew that these students are in Erikson’s School Age

developmental group ages 6-11 years old, even though our specific group was 9-11 years

old and their basic conflict is Industry vs. Inferiority. Knowing this, we wanted to
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demonstrate to them that they are in charge of maintaining healthy hearts and they were

very capable of being independent and doing it by themselves.

When planning our lesson we took into account the fact that these students had

already had a full day of school and are always rambunctious when we are with them. We

immediately knew that a sit down lesson was out of the question and veered our lesson

towards being hands-on and active. According to the American Heart Association (2014),

Children, teens and adults who are physically active have healthier bodies and

minds than people who aren’t. Regular physical activity keeps your heart healthy

and strong and it helps you build healthy muscles, bones and joints. Physical

activity can also raise your self-esteem, improve your mood, help you sleep better

and give you more energy. Making physical activity a part of your everyday life is

also a good way to help achieve and maintain a healthy body weight. It’s

important to be physically active every day. Physical activity should be as

important to your daily routine as brushing your teeth, bathing and getting enough

sleep.

Our objective was to teach children what activities and foods are healthy versus

unhealthy for your heart.

Outline:

 Get the kids situated and introduce ourselves.

 Tell the kids what we will be doing and teach them what the heart does and teach

them what is healthy for the heart; activities and foods.

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 Teach the kids how to take their HR (radial or carotid) and record their heart rate

on individual post it’s for each student.

 Tell the kids what activities they will be doing and that they are healthy for their

heart.

o 20 jumping jacks

o 10 hops on each leg

o 10 heel raises

o 5-10 push ups

o 10-20 sit ups

o Run to the tree and back

o Optional (if time permits)–jump as high as they can, jog in place, stretch

 Have the kids check their heart rate again and write them down on their post its

and compare with original HR.

 Do a quiz and have each student tell us one healthy thing they can do for their

heart; including activities and foods then have each child write an answer on the

poster board with a marker provided by us. Each student will be rewarded with

fruit snacks if they are willing to participate and answer.

 Close by telling them that their heart is their friend. It will be very good to you

and treat you well if you treat it well.

We felt as though this topic was important, because it affects these students every

single day and will affect them the rest of their lives. We wanted them to know different

ways to keep their heart healthy, no matter their circumstance. Due to the evidence-based
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content we gathered in the three weeks before our lesson, we learned that we needed to

keep things simple, find activities that required no money, while also teaching the

children that this is something they could control themselves. During part of our

preparation I read the section, Health promotion, by Hockenberry and Wilson (2015).

They say:

By the end of middle childhood, children should be able to assume personal

responsibility for self-care in the areas of hygiene, nutrition, exercise, recreation,

sleep, and safety. In general, school age boys and girls view themselves as healthy

and can manage their own care in the areas of seat belt use, exercise, emergency

situations, and dental health. Health education is a primary component of

comprehensive health care, and health education programs should promote

desired health behaviors through guided learning and modeling. An optimum

program helps children learn about their bodies and about the effect of their

behavior on their health (p. 590-591).

This is the precise stage during middle childhood that our students are in and is extremely

applicable to the situation. We also recognized that many of them have a hard time

following instructions or being disciplined. So proving to them that their personal

decisions is what ultimately affects them and they have control over their choices to stay

healthy made them more excited.

During our lesson, we planned on teaching the student to take their pulse twice;

once before the physical activity and once after. We were aware that relying on the

children to take their pulse may cause some inaccuracy, and we wanted to know a healthy
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range to expect in order to know when we would need to help the child retake their HR.

In the article, How to take your child’s pulse, Baffa and Temple state:

A child's hearts normally beat faster than an adult's. A healthy adult heart rate can

range from 60 to 100 beats per minute during rest. Kids' heart rates can be as low

as 60 beats per minute during sleep and as high as 220 beats per minute during

strenuous physical activity. It's normal for athletic kids to have slower resting

heart rates, often in the 40s or 50s.

This was helpful knowledge to have during our lesson we knew that we may need to

assist students to verify their pulse if they were the outliers of this range.

Overall, I feel as though the students will be excited about our lesson. Our goal is

to have students be able to answer questions during our mini quiz in the end and write the

answers down on the poster board. I would like to hope that the children realize how

important the heart is and remember different ways to keep their hearts healthy. I know

there will be energetic students who have a hard time listening, but since we’ve had a few

weeks with these kids I expect that majority of them will be attentive. Children are

always unpredictable is what I’ve learned, so I’m aware that we will have to be flexible

and be willing to adjust our lesson plan in order make our message apparent.
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References

American Heart Association. (2014). Hey kids, run, walk and play every day.

Retrieved October 3, 2016, from

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/HealthyKids/LifesSimple7for

Kids/Hey-Kids-Run-Walk-and-Play-Every-

Day_UCM_466543_Article.jsp#.V_qNeegrK00

Baffa, G., & Temple, J. D. (2015, January). How to take your child's pulse. Retrieved

October 3, 2016, from http://kidshealth.org/en/parents/take-pulse.html#

Hockenberry, M. J., & Wilson, D. (2015). Health promotion. In Wong's nursing care of

infants and children (10th ed., pp. 590-591). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.