RECESS: New Health and Wellness Program – By Allyson Jannotta

Can you point to your scapula? Well, if you are a four year old at Bunche Early Childhood Development Center you would know exactly where to point – your shoulder blade of course!

Bunche students are learning about their bodies through movement and they are getting the tools they need to take care of themselves, to stay focused in school and to breathe correctly.

They are part of the Tulsa Children’s Museum’s incredible new Health and Wellness Outreach Program developed in collaboration with the newly founded non profit organization RECESS (Resource Education for Calming Energizing, Self Awareness and Self Regulation).

The classes meet for 30 minutes once a week and Bunche teachers claim their students are “overly enthusiastic about going,” and if you ever have a chance to sit in on a class, you will understand why.

For half an hour they get a chance to leave their “kid bodies” and become animals or objects as they explore movement. They get energized with music through dance. They learn calming and self regulation through yoga.

The RECESS instructor sets the scene. “Imagine that you are a tree, your legs are the trunk, your arms are branches and your roots are planted into the ground.”

The kids wobble to the floor. “Pick a point on the carpet and look at it. Now get into your pose.” It turns into a lesson about concentration, staying focused. The entire room becomes a forest of four year old little trees.

They learn about anatomy with a skeleton. “Creepy!” the kids yell. But through games they soon learn the importance of our bones. “Bones,” they all stand tall “No Bones,” they all fall to the ground.

Elizabeth Barlow, the founder of RECESS, set up the curriculum at Bunche to cater to the specific problems students were having. “At Bunche we found that several of the students have asthma, so we have a section where we talk about breath. The children learn how to breathe correctly.”

Barlow demonstrates the importance of oxygen by using a candle. She asks her students “What will happen if we put a glass over the flame?” They enthusiastically exclaim “It will explode!”

She covers the glass and the flame goes out. “Just like you, the candle needs oxygen.”

“We also talk to them about making healthy food choices, the importance of drinking water and they learn techniques to calm themselves in times of stress – all tools that they can use throughout their day and continue to use later in life.”

Barlow and Tulsa Children’s Museum’s Outreach Coordinator, Anitra Lavanhar developed the Health and Wellness Outreach program at Bunche, as well as at Grove Elementary where they are partnered with the YMCA’s afterschool program GO (Graduate Oklahoma) Club. Both programs serve over 230 students.

“There is a strong push to add more health and wellness programs and exhibits to community owned children’s museums across the country. So RECESS was a perfect fit,” explains Lavanhar. “In one of our surveys, we also found out that Tulsa parents are very interested in Health and Wellness issues.”

The teachers take the lessons back to their classrooms, as they do the program along with the kids. Bunche teacher, Kim Graham hails the success of this new program “We don’t have a traditional PE teacher and in north Tulsa there are no real dance studios. Most families can’t afford to send their kids. We want to produce well rounded students and our inner city children deserve the same opportunity for success as kids in other areas Tulsa.”

You can learn more about children’s classes with the RECESS program at www.recessforhealth.com. To learn more about TCM’s efforts to get a non profit community owned children’s museum to Tulsa go to www.tulsachildrensmuseum.org