Home Improvement Time (April-Sept.30): Beginning in April, five months are designated as the best time of year to undertake home improvement projects. We can look at these months as an analogy to "Body Improvement Time." Have students complete an inventory in which they identify and assess their perceptions of their bodily appearance and physical capabilities. Help them prioritize any critiques they have of themselves and identify a plan (intention is one of the first processes in behavior change, i.e. adopting healthful behavior) for improvement.

International Legacy Month: Discuss with students what it means to leave a legacy. Have students perform a quick-write in class which can be shared with a partner (or an at-home mini-essay), in which they flash-forward 60-75 years from now and reflect on how they would want their children and grandchildren to remember them in terms of their health, fitness, and skill. What few words of wisdom concerning physical activity would they share with their descendants?

Keep America Beautiful Month: Have students list all the landmarks that they think make America beautiful. What kinds of physical activities could be done at the places they identify? What does it mean to keep America beautiful and what kinds of physical activity would be needed to perform our small parts toward this goal? As an activity, you can hold a "trash scavenger hunt" during physical education class. Distribute a list and plastic bag to partners or trios that allude to items commonly discarded/strewn on campus and then time them on how fast they can complete their lists. Examples of items on a list may include: silver items (gum wrappers), plastic items (baggies, drinking straws), items made from trees (empty school milk cartons, paper).

• Counting out exercises in different languages, by two's/three's, odd's/even's, or prime numbers.
• When giving a task in which numbers of repetitions or distance away from a target are announced, provide the number via a math problem. For example, you're going to perform at least 5 x 5 rope jumps.
• For management games or routines, groups of students can assemble in various geometric shapes, such as circles, ovals, squares, triangles.
• Students can calculate heart rates, add results of game/task scores (e.g., bowling, junior decathlon), compute or analyze game sport statistics (e.g., batting average, slugging percentage, QB efficiency rating, volleyball hitting percentage)

National Lawn & Garden Month: Have students keep a log of outdoor/gardening chores they perform (description and duration of activity) over the month of April. Either in class or as homework have them convert their activity logs into calories burned. Discuss how meaningful accrual of physical activity can happen through daily living activities - and not just from exercise or sports. Here's a MET (kilocalories/kilogram*hour) breakdown of lawn and garden activities.
METs Activity

1.5        Watering lawn or garden, standing or walking
2.5        Walking, applying fertilizer or seeding a lawn
             Mowing lawn, riding mower
3.5        Trimming shrubs or trees, power cutter
4.0        Planting seedlings, shrubs
             Raking lawn
             Sacking grass, leaves
4.5        Mowing lawn, walk, power mower
             Planting trees
             Trimming shrubs or trees, manual cutter
             Weeding, cultivating garden
5.0        Clearing land, hauling branches
             Digging, spading, filling garden
             Laying sod
             Gardening, general
             Carrying, loading, or stacking wood
5.5        Mowing lawn, general

Sample Calculation: If I lay sod for one hour and I weigh 150 lbs. (68 kgs.), I would burn: 5.0 METs x 68 kgs x 1 hr = 341 kilocalories.

National Youth Sports Safety Month: Organized T-ball/baseball/softball, basketball, soccer, and football are four of the more popular youth sport offerings. Each has rules and equipment that govern play in ways that lessen injury risk and make the game safer. Can your students identify some of the rules or equipment that are used in a particular sport that help to minimize the risk of injury and make the sport safer? You may want to bring visual aids (e.g., shin guards, mouth guards, helmets) into the discussion about equipment. Examples of rules might include the frequency of games, playing certain high volume positions in games (e.g., pitcher), movements that are not allowed (e.g., head-first slides at lower levels of baseball).