Today in this blog post I’m sharing some of my best distance learning staying healthy science activities that can be done at home.
Right now, pretty much all of us are at home, trying to teach online and through distance learning. And I think it’s safe to say that this is new to so many of us. Not all of us, because there are definitely a lot of online/virtual teachers who do this full time. But for a lot of us, it’s totally new, and we are kind of like a fish out of water.
For many of our parents, they may struggle to access digital/online resources. Plus, since everyone is at home right now – our internet has definitely been hit and miss! And on top of that, not all students will sit by a computer/iPad and be able to take part in a lesson and pay attention.
So, today I’m sharing some fun and hands-on activities that we can easily get our students and their families to take part in at home.
1. Make a Healthy Eating Menu
This one is fun and nice and easy to put together too. Get your students to design their own menu – they can draw one out, design it, and then make a menu for healthy meals.
They can go online and print out pictures to include in their menu. They can do research on some of the restaurants that they like to visit with their family and look at these for ideas.
Here are 2 examples of the menus that I had students create. This is easily differentiated for your students, and they can really get creative with it. You can have them design it on paper, on an iPad, on the computer. You can have them go into as much detail or as little as they want.
These can also be repurposed for making recipes and encouraging cooking/baking at home too.
2. A Rainbow Food Hunt
Go on a scavenger hunt! Get your students to find food in their house to show healthy diet that makes a rainbow. This is a lot of fun.
Again, you can turn this into an online quest as well, just get your students to Google different foods – I.E ‘green foods’ ‘red foods’ etc. This is also a great way for students to find out about new foods too.
3. Washing Hands Poster
Let your students get creative and make posters about washing hands. It could be a reminder poster, or it could be how-to poster. It could even be 3 reasons why you should wash your hands.
Here are some posters that my kids have designed.
4. The Pepper and Soap Experiment
This one has been very popular for us. First, get a deep plate and add some water into it. Then, add some pepper.
The child sticks their finger in the water – and the pepper sticks to their finger!
Now, drop some dish soap in – the pepper will disperse to the edges! And the kids think it’s SO fun!
5. Exercise Bingo
I’ve included a free template below for you to download for this too. Send this home and get your children to tick off the types of exercise that they do each week, and get parents to email it back to you on Friday.
Click here or the image below to be redirected to download the file from Dropbox.
Tell them that every ‘bingo’ they get – they’ll get something as a prize. It doesn’t have to be something that costs money. The ‘prize’ could be you writing a letter to them. It could be you doing a 1-1 Skype call to them one morning. Something ‘special’ that will make them want to complete the activity.
Helpful Links
- Podcast about Cooking in Special Education
- Cooking in the Special Education Classroom
- Healthy Eating Sorting Task Cards
- Free Exercise Bingo Worksheet
- Healthy Eating Social Narrative
Rewards
Of course you know your students best and what types of rewards will work for them.
Just be careful promising rewards for when you go back to school. Unfortunately, none of us know when that is going to be..
Those are my top 5 ‘Staying Healthy’ science activities for distance learning. Do you have any more that you could share with others? If so, let us know in the comments down below.
If you found this blog post helpful, please consider sharing it with your friends and colleagues on social media.
You can also check out my recent blog post where I share my tips for how you can use your assistants during this time here.
Thanks,
Nikki
P.S. Have you signed up for a 3 day free trial of our VIP membership yet? If not, click here to do it now and go and get access to a huge range of resources, templates, crafts and more for free.
