Dear Parents/Guardians, September 12, 2014
Welcome back to a new school year! We have been excited to hear about all the students summer activities. We are looking forward to another great year at Underhill ID School!
Here are some Health Tips to start the School year off well:
Be Active: Run, Dance, Walk, Bike, etc... '60' minutes of activity is recommended for students each and every day. Being Active not only helps our bodies to be healthy but helps our minds to be healthy also. Being Active helps our minds to learn and retain new information. How many minutes are you currently active each day? _____ What activities can you do to increase your activity each day? _________________,_____________,_________________.
It is recommended that 'screen time', which includes computer time, tv time and hand held device time/video games, should be limited to one hour or less a day.
Too much screen time can:
- Make it hard for your child to sleep at night
- Raise your child's risk of attention problems, anxiety, and depression
- Raise your child's risk of gaining too much weight
Drink enough water: Our brains are made up of 77-78% water. Being just 2% dehydrated can make our bodies feel tired and our brains feel sluggish. Drink half your weight in ounces of water each day. So, if you weigh 44 pounds, you should drink 22 ounces of water a day. There are 8 ounces of water in one cup. So, how many cups of water would you need to drink for your weight? _____ Another indicator that you need to drink more water is when your urine is dark yellow in color. The color of urine, when you are well hydrated is light yellow to almost clear in color.
Get enough sleep: Children between the ages of 5-10 years old should be getting between 10-11 hours of sleep each night. Children who sleep well and get enough sleep at night do better in school. They are better able to pay attention and learn. So, if you need to get up at 6:30 in the morning to arrive at school on time, what time do you need to go to bed if you are going to get 10-11 hours of sleep?__________
And last but not least, eat well. This includes lots of fruits and vegetables along with protein, whole grain foods and dairy. Adding protein to your morning snack can give you the energy you need to keep going strong until lunch time. http://www.choosemyplate.gov/food-groups/
This is the time of year we also want to remind you to check your children for head lice. Lice are present in the community at all times. Transmission of lice in school is rare; only 1 out of 10 cases are transmitted at school. The most common times for lice to be transmitted are during summer, winter and spring breaks and whenever children are in the community for extended periods of time together. Once the children are back in school, this is the time when we notice the itching because children are now still enough to take notice of it.
Lice are often not found until the lice are well established. This could take from 6-8 weeks or longer. For this reason CESU school nurses strongly recommend regular home head checks. Regular home checks will catch lice much more quickly than waiting for the itching to occur before we take notice. If you have any questions, please contact me at Underhill ID School, 899-4680 or you can check out my Health Office Blog at http://nursekristenuid.blogspot.com/p/lice.html
We are a peanut/tree nut safe school. The first week of school we sent home the peanut/tree nut safe guidelines for our school. Please be sure to read this. It can also be found here: http://nursekristenuid.blogspot.com/p/peanuttree-nut-safe-guidelines.html
I look forward to a healthy and well school year!!!
Sincerely,
Nurse Kristen
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