Ashton Tate of The F.O.R.M. Curriculum
Having a homeschool PE and health program that is excellent and isn't a placeholder to check a box can be challenging and overwhelming.
Many homeschool parents are already so busy and can find it challenging to know what to teach their kids. And sometimes we feel as if we aren’t “perfect” when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle so that makes us feel like we don't have any authority to teach on the topic.
Your kids don't need some “fitness guru”, they need a parent that is walking it out with them!
You can do this! This article will make it simple for you.
I wanted to give you a simple checklist that will hopefully give you some clarity on how to help your kids build a solid foundation in health. Health and PE can be a subject that can leave a lasting impact on your kids if you do it right!
Simple:
If you Google “how to be healthy”, over 9 billion results pop up. There are endless books, YouTube channels, and studies on the topic of health. This often causes information overload.
Most of the time the more information we give our kids, the less they apply. They need you to keep it simple. They need simple frameworks to break down healthy living.
We break it down into 4 categories: Fitness, nutrition, rest and recovery, and maintenance. We teach them that to live a healthy lifestyle they just need a simple routine in each of these areas.
The goal of a health and PE class should be to help your kids build real habits in each of these 4 areas. That way they are able to practice what they are learning while under your covering.
Engaging:
Your kids need to be engaged with and like the content you are teaching. A 300-page book that is 30 years old just won’t cut it anymore.
We need to break the content in a way that they can comprehend and engage with. They need to have a mix of visual, audio, reading, and application to get the full picture of how to be healthy.
The question to ask here is: Are your kids excited to do health/PE class?
Relevant:
Like I said in the last point, the 300-page (old) book teaching the food pyramid doesn't cut it anymore. While the body hasn't changed, our culture and world have.
We must have health lessons that are relevant to our day and age, as well as up to date with current research and studies. We must combat what the culture and health industry are teaching, so our kids think rightly about health. Then their actions will flow from that!
The curriculum and materials you use must be easy to implement. Homeschool parents are especially busy with all of their other parenting duties in addition to teaching.
We must have resources that are realistic and easy to implement. It is helpful to have resources that are done for you with minimal planning.
Application:
Instead of the progression being only about teaching more and more information, we must make it about application.
Our kids need to practice building healthy habits outside of class and with the covering of a parent. We do many different challenges with kids so they can practice ion their real life what they are learning.
Biblically-Based:
We must teach our kids how to think rightly about health topics. Transformation comes by the renewing of the mind. We want the actions they are taking to apply what they learn to be out of a heart to steward the body God has given them and serve others better.
I hope this checklist is helpful! There is hope when teaching your kids about health!
