In this Jigsaw Piece, the children in Years 3 are exploring the concept of making healthier choices…

In Year 3 we began by discussing the importance of exercise and the benificial effects it has on our bodies, our hearts and lungs.  Before participating in star jumps, burpees, boxing moves, dancing and a little jogging on the spot we felt and measured our resting heart rate then compared it with our elevated heart rate after we had exerted ourselves! We found that whilst exercising our heart beats faster to pump the blood around our bodies and that our lungs work harder to take in more oxygen.  In addition we identified that exercising, whilst tiring, actually makes us feel good!

We then explored the suggested statement ‘Children need to be active for at least 1 hour a day’ and recorded/calculated the typical average timings of the regular activities we all participate in throughout the school day every day:

Walk to school –  10 minutes
Walk up and down the stairs at school  throughout the day – 5 minutes in total
Playtime – 15 minutes
Lunchtime – 1 hour
Walking home from school – 10 minutes

Our findings found that we certainly excel the suggested 1 hour of activity from the activities we undertake in a typical school day but as this is only a suggestion we can go on to do more if we so wish.

We then went on to explore the concept of calories, fats and sugars within the food that we eat and how these can affect our health. Firstly, we identified how we can make healthier choices by swapping out certain foods with something considered to be healthier:

Chocolate – Fruit
Icecream – Plain Yogurt
Crisps – Rice Cake
Muffin – Plain Popcorn

We explored a range of food packaging to identify the calorific values (energy) fats and sugars of some food types and noticed that the traffic light coding on packages makes these easier to identify…

We then played the ‘How Much Sugar Game?’ and tried to match a specified amount of sugar with one of the food items presented…it was not easy!

 

Once the amounts were revealed we were amazed to find that there are…

35g of sugar in an energy drink
22g of sugar in a bowl of chocolate icecream
17g of sugar in a flavoured yoghurt
8g of sugar in a plain biscuit

We all agreed that whilst we find lots of food items rather yummy, that we can try to make healthier choices and keep some of those foods which have lots of sugar, fats and calories in as a sometimes treat. Great work Year 3!