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Active Living

Physical activity supports brain health. This leads to improved learning and academic outcomes. Communities, schools, and parents can work together to affect behaviour change. This helps students learn lifelong skills that promote physical activity and active lifestyles.

Resources to support implementation can be found in the sections below.

The 24-hour movement guidelines (all ages) contains guidance for physical activity, sedentary behaviour, and sleep.

Ophea's Daily Physical Activity (DPA) Every Day (Grades 1-8) is designed to support teachers in helping students get physical and health literacy skills. This will help students thrive while leading a healthy, active life.

The Guide to Ride (Grades 4-6) is an educational tool that promotes safe cycling. It ensures that children have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to be safe on roads in our communities.

The RoadSMARTS4kids library of resources offers activities, challenges, downloadable lesson plans, presentations, videos and our RoadSMARTS E-cademy virtual courses, that make learning important road safety concepts, skills and awareness fun and engaging elementary age children. These resources are free, easy to use and cover a variety or age-appropriate road safety teachings. Topics such as cycling, walking, sharing our roads, booster seat safety and preparing to walk places alone for the first time are explored in engaging ways and satisfy Ministry curriculum requirements around health and safety, active living, spatial skills, reading and math.

The Walking School Bus (Grades K-8) is an organized system of walking with school children from home to school and back. Students in the same geographic area walk to school together under the supervision of an adult volunteer. Like a regular school bus, the Walking School Bus follows a planned and safe route with scheduled stops. Parents and other volunteers receive training and support to develop and implement the program and to supervise children walking to school. 

For information on school bus policies, visit your school board's website. 

Active for Life (Grades K-8) offers pre-made teaching units for educators, caregivers, and program leaders. It is a logical series of physical literacy lessons to children.

The School Travel website offers innovative ways in which your school can increase its physical activity goals throughout the day. Visit the Step Challenge page to choose which activity works best at your school. Students (and staff) are invited to track the number of steps they take on the journey to/from school and track their progress either as a class or a school. You may wish to create a shared goal or make it a competition to see who can take the most steps.     

For more ideas on how you can take action to boost sustainable travel at your school, browse the Ideas Lab — a searchable catalogue of inspirational ideas and how-to resources that will help you get started.  

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