4.

Health Education
Candidates know, understand, and use the major concepts in the subject matter of health education to create
opportunities for student development and practice of skills that contribute to good health.
I have been with the Aleutian Region School District as an elementary teacher in Adak, Alaska

for eight years. This most recent school year we have a total of sixteen students and I am responsible for the

eleven that are in grades K-five. It is a rarity that I have more than two students in any specific grade and that

has made most content areas entirely independent learning. Aleutian Region School District does not operate

on a letter grade scale, but instead a continuum defined by learning goals that identify a student’s progress.

This continuous progress curriculum allows students in a multi-grade setting, to still be in the same content area

as a group, but differentiate to a wide range of abilities. The students are exposed to a broad variety of

information, but not held accountable for it with expectations of mastery. The benchmarks and standards are

based on what the school district wants the learner to show versus what they know, meaning skills and

strategies of learning and not necessarily memorization. Allowing students to progress through the levels lets

students feel success at each step, and the ability to demonstrate a skill that is realistic to achieve and then build

upon in another benchmark. The continuous progress curriculum at Adak School teaches students to be risk

takers and apply themselves, but you do not have only two options of pass and fail. Instead you are able modify

curriculum to the student, to help them be successful and meet the learning expectation. If a student remains in

the emerging stage for two years of a benchmark, it is acceptable and only seen as strengthening their

foundation of understanding.

Health education provides me with a unique opportunity to teach a lesson plan to several students across

the spectrum of their learning abilities. The standards and expectations for student learning require that you

start with a foundation and work your way to making the student proficient in a certain content area or at a

specific skill. Taking the time to slowly add layer by layer on a topic ensures a student’s ability not only to be

capable, but to retain this knowledge. (Tomlinson, 1999) A multi-grade classroom also helps foster a

community of teachers. Students who are working towards becoming proficient in a standard can help those

who are just emerging through modeling and explaining concepts in terms that other students can easily

understand.
 The lesson I created was to meet the goals of the Health standard that students maintain and promote

personal health, here is the benchmark:

Benchmark Emerging Developing Proficient

Identifies and shares Lists or names the Lists or names negative Lists or names positive or
feelings in appropriate different feelings you can or inappropriate ways appropriate ways you can
ways. have. you can express your express your feelings.
feelings.
Health as a content area does not get as much recognition as it likely should. I think helping students

identify what it means to be emotionally healthy is very important. This lesson is just the foundation for

students to begin that journey and continue it into their future years at Adak School. Some research has shown

that one of the main complaints about Health education is the difficulty of fitting it into an already overcrowded

curriculum. (Goldberg & Governali, 1990) I can absolutely relate to this, but also see Health as an incredible

opportunity to provide my students with a typical classroom lesson plan that involves all students regardless of

their abilities.

References
Goldberg, R., & Governali, J. (1990). Perceptions of Elementary Level Teachers Toward Health Education.
Wellness Perspectives, 3-14.
Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners. Alexandria:
ACSD.
 Lesson Plan Template: MAT/Certification Elementary
Candidate Name: Molly Lashier Host Teacher Name:
School: Adak School Grade Level: K-2 # of Students: 4
Date & Time of Lesson: Length of Lesson: 30 minutes
Topic of Lesson: Feelings and Content Area: Health
Emotions
Materials: Include all Red and green circles, black crayons, popsicle sticks, glue, How Are You
materials including Peeling? Foods with Moods, whiteboard, hat, slips of paper, poster sized
technology paper, crayons, markers, lined paper, How are you feeling? Visual chart

Standard: S3-L1--Identifies and shares feelings in appropriate ways.

Cultural Standard:
B5—Seek to ground all teaching in a constructive process built on a local cultural
foundation.
D3—Seek to continuously learn about and build upon the cultural knowledge
that students bring with them from their homes and community.
Methodology: Guided Practice, Group Instruction
Learning Theory Constructivist

STAGE ONE STAGE TWO:

Objective(s): Student Assessment:
Students will be able to identify different feelings Students will be able to name or list different feelings
you can have. you can have.

STAGE THREE: Learning Plan

Activities: What will the teacher and children do to address the objectives?
Introduction
Provide each student with a green and red circle and two Popsicle sticks. Students will draw a happy
face on the green circle and sad face on the red circle. Tell students they will be using the signs to show
how they would feel in different situations. Give students examples, and have them hold up the happy or
sad face. A few examples include: Your dog runs away from home, It’s your birthday, You learned a new
trick or skill, You fell down and someone laughed at you, Someone stole your favorite toy, and Your friend
comes over to play.
 Learning Activities Differentiation
Read to students, How Are You Peeling? Foods with Provide extra copies to help students follow along.
Moods by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers.

As a class make a list of emotions on the whiteboard. Visual aid of “How are you feeling?” chart can help
This list should include but is not limited to emotions assist students who may struggle identifying different
such as: happy, angry, sad, surprised, confused, emotions.
excited, shocked, and shy. As each emotion is listed
ask students for an example of what would cause this
emotion for them and facial reaction that shows this
emotion.

The class list of emotions will be put on slips of
paper and students put in groups of two. Each pair
will choose an emotion from a hat. Students will
then be asked to create a poster describing their
emotion. They will draw different times they felt this
emotion or situations where someone might feel this
way.
Help each pair read their emotion if necessary and
discuss possible times they felt this way and
brainstorm how to best display it on their poster.
Students may use magazines to cut out and make a
collage displaying the emotion.

Their emotion is top secret and students must not Place students at fair distances from one another to
write on their poster what feeling they are describing. avoid the spilling of the beans!

Closure
Students will share with the class their posters. They will have the opportunity to describe their
drawings or collage, but being very careful to keep their emotion a secret. Once they have completed their
presentation, students at their desk write down what emotion they believe was being described. They may use
the list on the whiteboard to help them. After all posters are presented students will reveal their emotion.

How is this lesson sensitive to cultural and language issues?

Students are able to define emotions and examples of when they have felt them, based on what is their
cultural and familial norm. There are no right or wrong emotions or examples. Students are provided with
visual aids and able to use language to describe emotions that is comfortable for them.
Attachments: 3 artifacts of student work

Student created “sad” mask Student poster showing his happiness over
eating cereal and flying kites

Student created “happy” mask

Student poster demonstrating sadness of not
being allowed to play at a friend’s house