How to Establish Healthy Sleep Habits for Kids

Recharge influences healthy choices. Recharge is all about your energy! fit presents different ways to recharge and get energy: 

• Get enough sleep (9–12 hours).
• Relax, without a screen, throughout the day. 

The amount of sleep recommended by different organizations varies; however for school-age children, most recommend 9–12 hours of sleep each night. This week's topic will introduce students to the sleep zone, an environment conducive to sleep. Paired with a bedtime routine, a sleep zone will help your students recharge each night.

Ask kids to turn and talk to a partner about how they feel when they wake up in the morning. Do they want to keep sleeping? Are they ready for the day? When do they notice they get tired during the day?

Recharging Energy Levels

Ask students to show their energy level by either sitting on the floor (low), standing (in the middle), or standing with their hands in the air (fully recharged) as depicted on the slideshow.
 
Keep a count of the students in each energy level category to compare with Lesson 5 when they repeat the activity.

Importance of Sleep

Explain that getting enough sleep is one of the most important things you can do for your health. Not enough sleep means you are likely to:

• Find it difficult to think and remember things.
• Not have enough energy to move throughout your day.
• Make unhealthy food choices.

Establish Healthy Sleep Habits

Students are to write down the time they go to bed tonight, then write down the time they wake up tomorrow morning on a piece of paper. Bring the paper to school tomorrow.

They will then use the Sleep Calculator printable to discover how many hours they slept. 

Today we examined our sleep habits. Next, we will learn how many hours of sleep our bodies need.