Resources for Every Kid Healthy Week

This year’s Every Kid Healthy™ Week is April 25-29. Are you ready? Every Kid Healthy Week celebrates school health and wellness achievements. Each day of the week spotlights actions schools and families are taking to improve the health and wellness of their kids. Action for Healthy Kids (AFHK) provides plenty of ideas and activities for school and home. Each weekday has a topic and here are some ideas to go with them: Mindful Monday – Social Emotional Health: Children (and adults) build resilience by practicing social-emotional health and mindfulness skills.

• Teach mindful breathing exercises in the classroom
• Get kids moving while they’re mindful with some yoga postures
• Use our Mindful Eating poster to get students and teachers thinking about the food they eat

Tasty Tuesday – Nutrition and Food Access: Build lifelong healthy eating habits by exposing kids to new foods, healthy cooking, and growing their own produce.

• Promote healthy eating messages in the cafeteria with our Eat From the Rainbow floor or wall decal or any of our other beautiful, eye-catching wall decals
• Inspire students with our Eat to Excel line of posters, stickers, banners, and more
• Help families lower their grocery bills with a special webinar or class using our Healthy Shopping on a Budget PowerPoint show
• Get kids gardening at home with AFHK’s Kitchen Scrap Gardening tips

Wellness Wednesday – Physical Activity and Active Play: Get Moving! Physical activity fuels the body and the mind.

• Have fun getting everyone moving more with our Groove to Move theme
• Inspire families to be creative about physical activity with AFHK’s 40 Tips for an Active Family
• Organize a Family Fitness Night

Thoughtful Thursday – Equity Awareness: Create a school culture that celebrates diversity and works progressively towards creating a more equitable learning community.

• Use art to highlight what’s special about your community (including food traditions) with AFHK’s Capture Your Community projects
• Expose students to different ethnic foods using MyPlate Kitchen recipes

Family Friday – Family-School Partnerships: Bring families and schools together to support child health at school and at home.

• Share healthy messages with parents by sending home any of our printable handouts or AFHK’s Healthy Messages for Families
• Help parents and caregivers get our youngest children off to a healthy relationship with food by using our No Battles, Better Eating for Kids Book and PowerPoint show and MyPlate’s Phrases that Help and Hinder

No matter how you celebrate Every Kid Healthy Week, post photos and videos from your events and activities on social media using the hashtags #EveryKidHealthyWeek and #TakeAction4HealthyKids. Hollis Bass, MEd, RD, LD