February is the American Heart Month which ties in nearly with another special celebration - Valentine's Day !

These two events are easily integrated within an elementary Physical Education program and can be a means to provide fun yet educational oppotunities for children. This issues shares some sites and activities to address learning goals pertaining to Heart Health.

We hope these ideas might be of some help. Please continue to let us know what else you would like to see.

Marina Bonello
Elementary Section Editor

Experimenting with webpage building has led me to attempt to develop some online interactive activities for my young pupils.

An interactive Happy Heart activity was developed to reinforce concepts explored during PE class. You can check out this activity here.

NB : When you navigate the mouse on the heart icons, the answers will pop up. Navigate the mouse and cursor around the heart icons to avoid having the answers popping up again and again

(I did say I was experiementing ;-) )

Two great PE teachers share how Happy Heart is warmly invited into their programs to teach about heart health to elementary aged pupils. Joe Gallo and Kim Mason have developed webpages that provide a peak into the Heart adventures they developed with their pupils.

Happy Heart visited Edgewood Elementary in Pennsylvania and joined the PE program there. The pupils of Mr. Gallo utilised Heart Rate monitors to develop an awareness and track thier heart rates. Click here for photos.

Happy Heart also travelled to Arkansas and joined the progam of Ms. Mason !

Click here for photos.

Featured on PE Central is a Happy Heart Booklet which was developed for use with K-2 pupils. You can check it out at this link.

When I conducted this assessment with my young pupils, they were also invited to stick pictures or photos or draw on the rear side of the Heart Puppet, either anything that they are personally doing to maintain their heart health OR to seek pictures or draw or write about things they think can help maintain heart health. This Puppet activitiy was done with all first and second graders -and each and every heart puppet was then affixed to strands of string which were set up across the hall ways in out school block. Others thers were hung along the banisters in the stairwell.

Help Happy Heart Make Healthy Valentine's Day Choices.

Another activity having Kindergarden children help Happy Heart identify habits that are good for his health. You can check this link here.