Healthy Habits: Why Do We Do Them?

Five habit pictures stand on the left of this 2nd grade page and five reasons are written on the right, with a dot at each end for the line. On the sheet shown the habits are a child in a sun hat, a child running, a child washing hands at a sink, a child asleep under a moon and a child brushing teeth. The reasons read: it makes us fit, fast and strong; our body and brain rest and get ready for a new day; we do not get burnt on a hot, sunny day; it keeps our smile clean and bright; it gets rid of the germs we picked up when we touched things.

By second grade children know the habits; what they rarely have are the reasons, and a habit with a reason lasts longer. Reading each sentence and finding the picture it explains asks for real reading, since the sentences never name the habit. Nothing says brushing or sleeping; the child has to work it out from smile, rest or burnt. That makes this a good reading exercise as well as a health one.

One sheet, five lines, and no habit sits straight across from its own reason. Read the sentences together first with younger readers. Afterwards ask children to add a sixth habit of their own and write its reason under the page. The base page of the healthy habits family matches each habit to a thing; this face matches it to a why.