CATCH in the Classroom

The four components of CATCH have been designed and developed to work together as a coordinated school health program that supports the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Coordinated School Health Model. The classroom component, Go For Health, provides lessons and activities for K-5 students on the importance of proper nutrition and exercise. These health-related concepts are reinforced daily throughout the other CATCH components (PE, Eat Smart and Home Team), and throughout the school, creating healthy learning environments that support a lifetime of healthy behaviors.

The Go For Health curriculum series teaches students to identify, practice and adopt healthy eating and physical activity habits. Based on the Social Learning Theory, CATCH targets specific environmental and behavioral factors. The curriculum focuses on changes in specific cognitive and personal attributes such as children’s knowledge about healthful food selections, and the different types of physical activity. In turn, children are taught the skills necessary to make healthful food choices and identify physical activities they can do on a regular basis which reinforce their intention to make actual changes in eating and exercise patterns.

For teachers, the Go For Health materials are easy to use with little preparation time. The curriculum includes:

  • Classroom sessions containing detailed instructions and lesson procedures
  • Lessons that can stand-alone or can supplement existing materials such as language arts, math or other health lessons
  •  Teaching guides that are ready-to-use, with time-saving materials such as reproducible handouts, transparency masters, suggestions for hands-on activities and role-playing lessons for providing positive reinforcement
  • Reference pages in each teaching guide for background information on major topics
  • Take home activities to reinforce class work

CATCH Characters Bring Lessons to Life

A sequential storyline throughout the curricula revolves around a group of cartoon characters, Hearty Heart and Friends. The characters teach students about necessary eating, physical activity and non-tobacco use habits which promote health.

The Go For Health Series also utilizes a variety of educational strategies including:

  • Individual practice
  • Cooperative learning groups
  • Large discussion groups
  • Educational games
  • Media
  • Skill-building activities
  • Goal setting and reinforcement incentives

Classroom lessons blend health topics with performance standards of core academic subjects such as graphing, understanding informational text, quantitative reasoning, and formulating testable hypotheses. All CATCH Go For Health curriculum materials support the U.S. National Health Education Standards and the Canadian Quality
School Health model.