Welcome to the Healthy Steps for Healthy Lives® program brought to you by Nestlé and the National Education Association Health Information Network.
The Healthy Steps for Healthy Lives program was developed as a resource for educators to help support your ongoing efforts to teach students about being healthy. Parents, after-school programs, and caregivers can also use the materials in the program.
About The Program
The program is tied to national curriculum standards in all academic content areas for grades K-6. The instructional activities featured in the program are easy to use, and practical to carry out while involving students in the learning process. The activities are grouped by the three Healthy Steps for Healthy Lives themes – THINK Healthy, EAT Healthy and MOVE Healthy. You can use one or all of them in any order that you like.
Use the Healthy Steps for Healthy Lives program to:
- Reinforce skills learned in a nutrition unit taught earlier in the year or in previous years
- Supplement direct instruction and promote concept development about nutrition and physical activity
- Integrate the topic of health into a language arts or math lesson
- Motivate students to learn about being healthy
- Expose students to concepts about health
- Link multiple activities in succession to develop your own unit
The Healthy Steps for Healthy Lives program is available in two kits, one for Grades K-3 and one for Grades 3-6. Each kit contains a Teacher’s Guide, Food Cards, and a MyPlate poster. The kits are also available in printed form. Additional materials are provided online only. Each Teacher’s Guide contains background information and hands-on instructional activities aligned to national academic standards (including National Health Education Standards and Common Core State Standards).
THINK Healthy
The Think Healthy lessons are about understanding what being healthy means and setting meaningful and reachable goals about nutrition and physical activity. When teaching the lessons, you will have an opportunity to use multiple creative strategies to help students build meaning around the concept of being healthy. A common understanding of what being healthy means will provide a solid foundation for students to learn and utilize heath-enhancing behaviors.
EAT Healthy
The Eat Healthy lessons will help you teach your students to build a healthy plate at meal times by choosing foods from the five food groups and incorporating three factors into your daily meals: variety, balance, and moderation. In the lessons a variety of games and cooperative learning activities are utilized to reinforce important nutrition concepts like making half your plate fruits and vegetables.
MOVE Healthy
The Move Healthy lessons are about helping students understand the importance of accumulating at least 60 minutes of physical activity every day. Children gain physical and mental health benefits from daily physical activity. The lessons create powerful and memorable learning experiences to help students remember the difference between sedentary, moderate, and vigorous activity levels, and recognize the types of activities that count toward their 60 minutes every day.
Teacher Planning Resources
The Healthy Steps for Healthy Lives activities are tied to National Curriculum Standards in all academic areas. Download this section to read the Nutrition and Physical Activity Backgrounder and to access National Standards Tie-In Charts for grades K-3.
Tools for Parent Communication
Send the Healthy Family Connections home to parents to help communicate what students are learning about being healthy.
To order free copies of the Healthy Steps for Healthy Lives kit, please email your request to [email protected] and specify Grades K-3 or 3-6.
Additional Teaching Materials
Use the Healthy Steps for Healthy Lives Activity Cards to help you students make healthy choices about being physically active. The activity cards can be used with the MOVE Healthy activities. Smaller student versions of the food and activity cards are also included.
Supplemental Student Activity Sheets
Use the Student Activity Sheets to accompany activities in the Healthy Steps for Healthy Lives for Grades K-3 Kit.