Health Lesson Plans for Preschoolers

Create engaging health lessons that provide valuable learning experiences for your preschool children. Introduce them to important concepts that promote a healthy lifestyle. Incorporate art, spoken language and hands-on activities to create effective and memorable health lessons.

Fitness

Lead a discussion on physical activities that the children participate in and talk about how exercise helps their bodies. Working in pairs, each child traces the outline of his partner onto butcher paper. Have each child add details to his outline, including facial features, hair and clothing. Provide the children with labels for some of the body parts that are positively affected by exercise. Include the heart, arm and leg muscles, bones -- and a smile to represent the positive effect exercise can have on their outlook. Have the children glue the labels to the correct areas of their outlines. Display their completed projects on bulletin boards or walls.

Healthy Teeth

Ask the children why it is important to brush our teeth. Use a hard-boiled egg to demonstrate how enamel is damaged by bacteria and acid. Discuss how the shell protects the egg, similar to the way enamel protects our teeth. Place the egg in a jar and add two cups of vinegar. Ask the children to predict what will happen to the egg. Examine the egg two days later and have the children discuss whether their predictions were correct. Talk about how the vinegar caused the shell to soften and liken the effects to how teeth become damaged if we do not take care of them.

Healthy Eating

Lead a discussion on healthy and unhealthy food choices. Display a picture of the food pyramid. Identify the food groups for the children and discuss how the largest sections on the pyramid represent the foods we should eat the most servings of each day. Have the children give examples of foods that fit each group. Provide the children with outlines of the food pyramid. Have them use magazines and grocery store fliers to cut out two to three foods that belong in each food group. Have them glue the foods to the appropriate sections of their pyramids.

Germs

Talk with the children about what germs are and discuss the negative effects. Demonstrate how germs are spread. Put glitter on your hands and tell the children the glitter represents germs. Shake a child's hand and let the class see how the germs have spread. Have the child shake someone else's hand. You can also have the children touch objects in the room, such as pencils and tabletops, to highlight the many places where germs are present. Following the demonstration, ask the children for ideas about how to get rid of germs. Lead a discussion on proper hand washing and have everyone with glitter on their hands wash it off.