11 Hydration Tips for Kids: Prevent Dehydration During The Summer Months

Your body loses water throughout the day when you sweat, breathe, and urinate. Water is absolutely essential for a healthy, functioning body. It helps to keep body temperature in check, transports nutrients and oxygen, carries away waste, and lubricates joints and body tissue.

It is important to replace the water you have lost to prevent yourself from becoming dehydrated.

How Much Water Should Kids Drink?

The recommended daily intake of water for children is:

4 to 8 years old: 4 - 5 cups

9 to 13 years old: 5 to 7 cups

14 to 18 years old: 6 to 8 cups

Children should aim to drink the daily recommended value every day no matter what season it is. even in winter.

During summer months it becomes even more important and likely kids will need to consume more water if

they are exercising in hot climates. 

Encourage drinking water before, during, and after physical activity even if they aren't thirsty, to prevent

dehydration.

11 Tips To Encourage Kids to Stay Hydrated

• Offer water in colorful cups or with silly, curly straws.
• Turn a plain reusable water bottle into a DIY with your kid.
• Add some flavor - freeze citrus slices, strawberries, or watermelon chunks.
• Make homemade infused water - add cucumber slices and even herbs like mint, or basil.
• Encourage eating water-rich fruit and vegetables - tomato, cucumber, carrots, watermelon, cucumber slices, zucchini, zucchini noodles, strawberries, pineapple, oranges, and kiwi.
• Freeze small batches of sliced fruit for an on-the-go refreshing snack.
• Fruit popsicles.
• Avoid sugary drinks like soda/pop or juice.
• Make sure they always pack a water bottle.
• Mark lines on the water bottle - create a goal and encourage your kid to drink a certain amount of water throughout the day.
• Encourage drinking water before, during, and after activities to make up for sweat loss, especially during the summer.
• Be a good example and drink water with them - create a game or little competitions throughout the day to drink water.

3 Tricks to Keep Snacking Healthy and Portable

What is a Healthy Snack?

Cookbook writer Anna Thomas said it best when she stated that, "we all eat, and it would be a sad waste of opportunity to eat badly”¹. We’ve all heard the old saying about spoiling our appetite with a snack. It can be a daunting task to create the correctly portioned and nutritious snack that we desire our children to eat. Some people might think that snacking is even a bad thing for children to do throughout the day.

This isn’t true though!

§  A University of Florida study shows that “healthy snack choices can provide children with some of the vitamins, minerals, proteins, and calories they need for growth, energy, and overall good health. In fact, healthy snacks can satisfy nutrient gaps and provide up to one-quarter of a child's daily energy needs (USDA, “Daily Food Plan,” n.d.). Healthy snacking satisfies hunger between meals, improves concentration, and prevents overeating at mealtime”².

Three Keys to Providing Healthy Snacks

1.     Make sure that you fill a nutrient gap for the day. (Ex: If you’re having pizza for dinner, provide a snack with carrots to fill the vegetable void.)

2.     Space snacks out so that the timing doesn’t get in the way of a main course.

3.     Review and replace what you have available for them to eat. If you have a cookie jar always full, it shouldn’t be a surprise that they’re constantly choosing the unhealthy alternative.

WARNING: Avoid providing food as a way of calming or rewarding children for something. If you do this, they might get into the habit of acting in certain ways to receive a snack, and this could lead to an unhealthy relationship with food.

3 Tricks to Keep Snacking Healthy and Portable

1. Brown Bag It

Never doubt the original way of doing things. These bags can be fun because you can easily customize them with drawings or notes for your kids. They’re also inexpensive and easily portable. And on top of all that, they’re big enough to hold all the healthy snack items your kids enjoy.

2. Make It Fun

One of my favorite snacks growing up was, “Ants on a Log”. All that you needed was celery topped with peanut butter or cream cheese.  My mom would line up raisins to make the “ants”. Alone, I wouldn’t have enjoyed these foods, but when they were all combined to make a fun, creative snack, I was all in. Fun and creative snacks make replacing sugary, high-fat foods much easier. There are all kinds of neat ideas online for creative healthy foods like trail mix or even DIY protein bars. 

3. Reuse It

Tupperware is portable, and most of us use it for leftovers anyway. If you have a little bit of leftovers from the day before that your child liked, you can save money and time by repacking it for their snack. This can be a healthy alternative to throwing a few different junk food items in their backpack.

¹Thomson, J. (2013, January 16). The Most Famous And Greatest Food Quotes Of All Time. Retrieved June 11, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/21/food-quotes-famous-eating_n_2481583.html

²Martinez, J., & Shelnutt, K. (2013, July 1). Raising Healthy Children: The Role of Snacking1. Retrieved June 11, 2015, from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fy1154

The Benefits of Rest: Rest On Purpose For Greater Effectiveness

Rev. Solomon Reyes said it best when he wrote, 

“The lazy make rest an excuse not to work, but the diligent see rest as a means to be more productive. The lazy see rest as the end of work, but the diligent see rest as a necessity to attain greater fruitfulness.” 

In other words, rest on purpose for greater effectiveness.

 

The Benefits of Rest

One of the most prominent and interesting studies on resting comes from Harvard medical professor, Dr. Herbert Benson. He saw the benefits of resting through meditation and decided to do further research on how relaxing can help the body and mind. Through his research, he noticed several beneficial changes taking place, and said,

“The relaxation response is a physical state of deep rest that changes the physical and emotional responses to stress, and is the opposite of the fight or flight response.”

 
When your mind rests, you can return to work with clear thoughts. With a calm mind, you’ll be able to refocus on your tasks and create progress. Rest will also leave you in a state of peace with far less anxiety which can make you much happier and less agitated, sad, or overwhelmed.

Amazingly, Dr. Benson's team also discovered anti-inflammatory responses during rest that reduced stress and relaxed muscles. The body doesn’t have to take in as much oxygen during rest because there is no hyperventilating due to stress, blood pressure is much lower, and muscles relax.

 

Consequences of Not Taking a Breather

Per Dr. Benson, the immediate side effects of not resting include, 

“Irritability, memory loss, drowsiness, trouble concentrating, blurry vision, impaired judgment… and reduced glucose metabolism.” 

It becomes increasingly difficult to do jobs correctly if you try to work straight through and not take breaks.

The long-term problems associated with overworking are even worse, and include, 

“Raised blood pressure, suppressed immune system, increased risk of heart attack and stroke, infertility, and a sped-up aging process. Long-term stress can rewire the brain, leaving you more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.”

6 Ways to Rest Productively 

Author Tony Schwartz recommends active or passive renewal (rest) after every 90 minutes of focused and productive work.

1. Meditation 

Taking some deep breaths while you close your eyes can be a quick and simple recovery method. You will slow your heart rate and clear your mind. Maybe count back from 10 slowly, or let your mind drift somewhere else to reach a state of calmness. For a simple, guided meditation, click here.

2. Naps 

Naps may seem like the ultimate, lazy way to get out of work, but they’re one of the healthiest things that you can do for yourself. When you take a nap, you increase your metabolism, retain more information, and get an extra boost to recharge your battery or make up for lost sleep.

3. Music 

Several studies have shown that listening to music can be beneficial to your overall psychological health. A good tune can change your mood and take your mind away from something that is worrying you.

4. Read 

Excerpts from a text or poem can take you to a positive state of mind. Books and stories let your imagination flow. Non-fiction can be a great way to increase literacy, and get your mind of your daily tasks.

5. Journal 

A journal can be a way to get troubling thoughts out of your mind, and off your chest. You can vent about anything, and clear your worries by getting your concerns out of your head onto paper.

6. Exercise 

Any form of movement that gets your blood pumping will release endorphins and improve mental clarity. Try going for a walk or jog over your lunch break, or take a few minutes to do body-weight exercises between classes.

 

Not taking breaks from the tension that our daily activities bring can lead to some major problems, both now and down the road. To avoid the consequences of stress and fatigue, you’ve got to take a break! Create a relaxation strategy and get the recovery you need to be productive, happy, and healthy.

Cardiovascular Testing in Physical Education by Charles T. Kuntzleman

Testing in Physical Education

There are four main domains of physical education. These four are: acquisition of motor skills, physical fitness, knowledge (strategies and rules of the game; plus benefits of physical activity, how to learn motor skills and mechanical analysis of movement, to name a few) and physical activity-related personal-social skills (such as best effort, sportsmanship, cooperation and others).

Why test?

Many teachers use testing only to see if their students are making satisfactory progress. Student evaluation is just a small part of the equation, however. In fact, testing primarily concerns you and your curriculum, not only your students.

For starters, testing allows the teacher to tailor-make the curriculum. Simply put, if your students do well in the mile run/walk, but perform motor skills poorly, the instructor should increase the emphasis on teaching a variety of fundamental, object control and rhythm skills. Testing also allows the teacher to design a special program for a student not progressing as desired.

Testing also helps an instructor measure curriculum effectiveness. If the emphasis has been on throwing and catching yet the students do poorly on a throwing and catching test, something is wrong. This tells the instructor that the teaching strategies did not work or that the school does not schedule adequate time for physical education class.

Finally, testing gives motivated students incentive to become physically active.

The above reasons are much more educationally sound than testing only for grades. Viewing testing as an evaluation of teaching, learning, the curriculum and school environment is a much healthier and more holistic approach to assessment.

Cardiovascular Testing in Schools

Aerobic fitness refers to the ability of the body to pick up oxygen, transport it through the body and have the body use it. Currently, several cardiorespiratory tests are used to measure the aerobic fitness levels of youth in America's schools. Here is an evaluation of five of the more popular aerobic tests.

Mile Run/Walk

Tests cardiorespiratory fitness levels by having students run (jog or walk if necessary) one mile as fast as possible.

Equipment
A one-mile course, one stopwatch and a score card and pencil for each student.

Pros

• Very simple to give. 
• Distance long enough to determine aerobic power rather than speed. 

Cons

• Could be a bit longer. Students can often "gut" it out, making it a test of motivation rather than fitness. 
• Kids can see where they finished, causing poorly performing students embarrassment. 
• Often hard to motivate students to perform to their ability level. 

600-Yard Run/Walk

Supposedly tests cardiorespiratory fitness levels by having students cover 600 yards as fast as possible. It is one of the weakest cardiovascular tests summarized here.

Equipment
A 600-yard course, one stopwatch and a score card and pencil for each student.

Pros

• Short. 
• Simple to deliver after the course is laid out. 
• Good for young students, Grades 1-3 

Cons

• Tests speed rather than aerobic power. 
• Often difficult to lay out a course which is 600 yards long. 

Pacer (Progressive Aerobic Cardiovascular Run

Students run for as long as possible between two marked lines set at 20 meters apart. They navigate the distance between two marked lines, keeping pace with a series of beeps. Students can miss two beeps before they are stopped. Score is determined by how many laps a student can do.


Equipment

A tape player, a PACER cassette tape, marker cones, lines measured 20 meters apart and a score card and pencil for each student.

Pros

• Easily done indoors. 
• Most like the treadmill test with its progressively building tempo. 

Cons

• Requires more equipment than most other tests. 
• Often difficult for students to learn. 
• Can only test a few students at a time. 

20-Minute Run

Tests cardiorespiratory fitness levels by having students run as far as possible in 20 minutes.


Equipment
A running course, one stopwatch and a score card and pencil for each student.

Pros

• Very simple. 
• Students not compared to others to the same extent as in the mile run/walk and the 600-yard run/walk. 
• Long enough to test aerobic power rather than speed. 

Cons

• The length of the test often scares students. 
• Difficult to determine distance covered. 

Step Test 

Tests cardiorespiratory fitness by having the student take 24 steps per minute for three minutes in an "up, up, down, down" pattern and then count his or her heart rate for one minute. Along with the 600-yard run/walk, it is one of the weakest cardiovascular tests.


Equipment
A bench 12 inches in height, metronome set at 96 beats per minute, a stopwatch, a stethoscope (carotid pulse can also be used).

Pros

• Pulse recovery rather than a performance test. 
• Shorter. 
• Students not visually compared to anyone else (usually). 

Cons

• Depends too heavily on people's pulse rates. Natural differences can change results. 
• Some students cannot keep pace.