Category: Physical and Health Education

In Health/Career today we reviewed ways to train our brains to stay focused and productive. Here is a link to the video we watched and discussed as a class.

https://youtu.be/322buwrWqhg?si=Ucr5Kp9JfgbUvVFp

This week in class students have been learning about sleep hygiene and the benefits of a good nights sleep.

Without a good nights sleep school can be a real challenge. Research into sleep shows that over time, insufficient sleep impacts how a child feels, behaves and interacts with others and their world. Insufficient sleep can lead to challenges regulating their emotions and bodies, including increased hyperactivity and stress. Moreover, research has shown that an inability to regularly get the recommended sleep can lead to a decrease in one’s overall mental health.

Did you know?

• 1 in 4 children do not get the recommended sleep at night.
• 1 in 3 children have trouble going to sleep or staying asleep
• 1 in 5 children have difficulty staying awake during waking hours

So, how much sleep should our children be getting? Well, it depends on their age. For school aged children the recommended sleep time is 9-11 hours for children aged 5-13 years old and 8-10 hours for adolescents aged 14-17 years of age.

Tips to help your child increase the quality and quantity of their sleep:

Establish a regular bedtime routine…..even on weekends

A child’s internal clock helps them to get sleepy and feel awake at specific times during the day.  If you allow your child to sleep in on the weekends, that will make it more difficult for your child to wake up at the regular time during the school week.  Similarly, if you allow your child to stay up late at night on weekends, they will have a harder time falling asleep at the regular bed time on school nights.

Don’t do Anything Energizing Close to Bed

You want the child to relax, not get energized right before bed. So, wrestling, watching movies, and other high stimulation activities close to bedtime may make falling asleep more difficult.

Screen time 

Research has shown that screen time immediately before bed can result in sleep difficulties. Too much screen use (i.e. television, computer, mobile phone, video gaming device) in children has consistently been shown to delay bedtime and result in a shorter total sleep time. Exposure to bright light from television or computer screens close to bedtime may interfere with the body’s normal sleep-wake cycle by suppressing the production of the hormone melatonin. Using screens near bedtime (1 hour before) is also associated with poor sleep quality and daytime sleepiness.

Daily Physical Exercise 

Regular physical activity has a positive effect on sleep quality, including improving the time spent asleep versus awake in bed, decreasing the number of times children wake up each night, and increasing how rested they feel the next day. So make sure your child’s day includes lots of opportunities for them to be physically active

Healthy Food and Beverages

Drinking caffeinated beverages can negatively affect children and adolescents’ sleep by increasing the time it takes them to fall asleep and decreasing the amount and quality of sleep they do get. Caffeine-containing drinks commonly consumed by children include pop, iced tea, and energy drinks.

Student Sleep Challenge

For the next two weeks student have been asked to keep a sleep log and try to make some minor changes to their sleep routine (ie. no tech an hour before bed or same bedtime/wake-up time each day) to see what impact minor changes may have on their mood, energy levels, focus, daytime sleepiness etc.  Students will be graded on their ability to self-reflect on their sleep routines and identify ways they can individually improve their own sleep hygiene. Ask your child what they think might help improve their sleep hygiene and help them test out some of these tips at home to see if it gives them a better nights sleep.

Today in class as part of our Mind Up Curriculum we learned about the different parts of our brains and how they help us control our emotions and help us learn.

In our lesson today, students learned about their brains, specifically the limbic system which controls their thoughts and emotions. The three parts of the brain they learned about today were:

Prefrontal cortex:  ‘our leader’ right in the front of our brain. It is in charge of making decisions, thinking, learning and problem solving.

Amygdala:  our ‘security guard’ that warns our body of danger and stress to protect us.

Hippocampus: our memory saver or our filling cabinet that stores all of our experiences and everything we learn.

They learned that in a calm and safe state, their amygdala can communicate with the ‘leader’ or prefrontal cortex to make good decisions. They also learned that when they are in a negative emotional state where they feel stressed, anxious, or fearful, the amygdala fires a fight, flight, freeze response to warn them negatively impacting the communication with the ‘leader’ or prefrontal cortex part of our brain, which is responsible for clear decision making.

We examined various ways to calm the amygdala and train the brain to respond reflectively rather than reactively in different situations. We also discussed the importance of developing an awareness of what is going on inside our brains so that we can reason and think clearly to make better decisions.

Diagram of the Brain/Facts:

https://sd41-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/e19647_burnabyschools_ca/EbvCDXxadeVNm-93qOtx99AB90dSAv4AphY8sxJNLy2u-A?e=i8jbWf

Videos From Today’s Lesson:

https://youtu.be/3bKuoH8CkFc

https://youtu.be/D-uSlY6NBno

The strategies we will continue to build in the coming weeks will help students learn self regulation strategies and help them develop the capacity to recognize and take control of their emotions and actions while being mindful and aware of themselves and others.

Today we had a presentation from the Youth Crisis Centre on mental health and self-care.  Our presenter Nick taught us more about what mental health is.  We learned that mental affects the way people think, feel and act and that taking care of our mental health is just as important as having a healthy body.

We learned that life isn’t always easy and that sometimes there are challenges along the way and that by using a variety of self-care tools we can learn ways to overcome these challenges and bounce back.

We learned that we cannot always see the emotional baggage people are carrying and discussed why it is important to be supportive and kind to others. There are many self-care tools we can use to help improve our mindset, eliminate negativity, reduce stress and anxiety, improve mental clarity, and help us cope with and overcome challenges.

We also learned that when dealing with challenges that affect our metal health we should always stop, take a breath, observe with curiosity, proceed with caution and use trial and error to help us figure out which self-care tools are most appropriate for dealing with the  situation. Things won’t always be easy and to develop good mental health it will require daily effort and a variety of tools.

Lastly we learned that sometimes we don’t always have the answers and there are many organizations and people we can go to for help if we cannot solve our problems on our own.

Student Feedback Survey:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfAJNNgwRNpTWeBChopXpJfyn3pabHtLfyNtcz5HtaNuZKalA/viewform

Youth Mental Health Resources:

https://sd41-my.sharepoint.com/:w:/g/personal/e19647_burnabyschools_ca/Efd9qYF5dVpFiQS1abYOn94BAyYj64hxc3aorRbeWZexYA?e=NCqKAb

Have you ever wondered why we have fingerprints? or why we have different blood types? or questioned what kinds of bacteria may be lurking on your tongue? or how the human brain asks itself a question? or how our eyes perceive colour? or why we get goosebumps when we are cold or scared? or why we sometimes get a headache when we quickly eat or drink something cold? or why human skin and eyes come in different colours? or why our stomachs growl when we are hungry?

Students of Division 4 are actively investigating questions about the human body and its many systems and will be sharing some of their finding with you in the coming weeks.

Link to Assignment

This Valentines Day while we were handing out our Valentine Day cards and our teacher Mrs. Smith handed out compliment mats. A compliment mat stayed on our desks, and our classmates went around and wrote compliments for each other. Before we began the activity we discussed as a class what a compliment is and what it is not.  The main lesson we learned is to always be kind and respect one another.

Written By: F.G

Yesterday we had guest speaker come to our school to talk with us about growth mindset.  The main character Ned went on an important mission to find his mindset.  Throughout his mission he taught us to never give up, encourage others, and always our best.  He also helped us understand the power of yet, how to spark courage in others, and how to keep learning and growing.  Throughout the presentation we also got to see a number of really cool yo-yo tricks.  Yo-yo’s  can also be purchased online today and tomorrow through school cash and picked up on Thursday and Friday at lunch.  If you would like to learn some of these tricks from yesterdays presentation please visit: http://www.mindsetmission.com/yoyos

By: L.K.

Last Thursday we had an amazing time watching a World Ringette Championship game at Bill Copeland Arena in Burnaby.  The United States were playing the Czech Republic.  When we left to return to school the United States were clearly defeating the Czech Republic by a long shot.  We all had fun cheering for our favorite teams.  For more information on the championship games visit: https://www.wrc2019.ca/?page_id=298

In case you didn’t know, Ringette is played on ice like hockey with a straight sick and hollow ring.   For more information on the rules of the game visit: https://www.ringette.ca/our-sport/basics-of-ringette/.

Author: F. G. and A. C.