Week 12 Health and Fitness

At our last meeting we worked on our Health and Fitness badge.   We met on Good Friday, so we started our meeting off, after our opening, talking about what an amazing thing Jesus did for us.  I asked for volunteers to pray to open our meeting and to thank Him for all He did for us.  Three of the girls volunteered and gave the sweetest prayers.  Their hearts are so open and they love Jesus so much.  It is really neat to see.

We got a late start, in order to get everything done we were hopping!  To start our topic off I talked with the girls about nutrition and read Dr. Sears book, Eat Healthy, Feel Great.  We talked about green, yellow and red light foods.  We went over the food pyramid and all the various sections.  We discussed food labels and how to read them to find out what we’re really eating.  I reminded them that looks can be deceiving, especially when it comes to bread, and to read those labels to know just what they are getting.

I then told them what our snack was going to be, Green Smoothies!  I cut up some swiss chard, put it in the blender and added some orange juice, bananas , frozen blueberries and frozen mixed berries (strawberries, raspberries and blackberries).  It was fun watching the girls taste their smoothies.  One of the girls told me she didn’t think she was going to like it.  I told her, "Well, there’s only one way to find out!"  She liked it. 

After drinking their smoothies, we went outside to start on our fitness part of our badge.  I had the girls make an obstacle course using the materials laid out in our backyard.  I broke them into two groups and told the groups to make their own course, which would then be added to the other one.  The guidelines I gave them were they needed to be moving.  They needed to jump, crawl, climb, run, twirl, whatever they wanted, as long as they were moving!  They had a blast making their courses, teaching it to the other group, then taking turns running through the course.

The two groups setting up

Explaining the course
Lining up

They’re off!

After they ran through their course, our time was up.  I gathered the girls together to wrap up our meeting and say goodbye.  We ended our meeting w/ three different girls volunteering to end our meeting in prayer.  It was a sweet way to end our meeting.

To earn the Health and Fitness badge the girls need to:

• Read a book that explains how the different things we eat can affect our health.
• Explain the importance of vitamins and minerals in our diets.
• List five common vitamins our body uses daily.
• Explain how our body benefits from consuming the proper amount of each of these five vitamins.
• List ten "healthy" foods (those rich in vitamins and minerals) that we should have in our diet to keep us healthy and strong.
• List ten common "unhealthy" foods that we should limit in our daily diet.
• In your notebook, keep track of your daily diet every day for one month.  At the end of the month look over your lists.  
• Read a book on the benefits of physical exercise.
• Write an essay explaining how physical exercise can improve your health.
• List ten different exercises that you could do on a regular basis.
• Give an explanation of how each exercise listed above will benefit your body.
• Create an exercise routine from your list of exercises that you can perform at least three times a week.  
• Explain the benefits of stretching before and after you exercise.
• List five different stretches you can do before exercising.
• Perform your exercise routine with stretching beore and after it three times a week for two months.  Keep a record in your notebook.
• Name three recreational activities that provide a good exercise workout.

Whew!  That’s a lot.  You better get busy!