Ideas from previous sem group

Talked to one of the member from Holistic Health group today and some findings.

1. they were allocated only 3 sessions with the kids. so they initiated to participate in every possible program that the school had. their kids (like our's) came from different class so they don't know each other prior to this program. so in participating the school events they did more than just observing the kids. but also the general school environment.

2. info were gathered from little chats - main problem is kids will not reveal as much when filmed. some questions like how did u like the program? what have u learnt? , kids will still respond. --- so i guess if Halcyon didn't object to them using little chats to find out more about the kids, it should be ok if our's is not documented also rite??

3. they did things like health booklet (filled with info, quizzes, jigsaw puzzles and some other games and the kids were to document what they ate each day, and autograph page)

4. she verified kids are motivated by prizes. hence they awarded the kids with prizes after completion of each quiz/jigsaw puzzles. --- we could award them things like our collar pins after completing some activities and at the end of the whole program our saammmiky tee shirt could be given to them. just an idea. OR we could also do something like take a group photo help them frame up and give to each kids. OR like the Holistic Health group, give healthier choice of snacks/sweets.

their prizes were healthy snacks/sweets. --> idea: if it's impossible to get the kids to quit sweets/snacks... teach them to choose a healthier choice. indulge in unhealthy ones less often. giving them these healthier snacks as prizes allows them to taste and decide if they like this and can substitute their current junk.

5. problem was more or less identified by the NUS group via observation than doing survey/focus groups. they observed fat kids being insulted during sports day. noticed 40% of the kids were overweight. none of the TAF students ever graduated from the club. their TAF activities were a total failure. assemble 6.30am and teacher was late for 15mins, 15mins to take attendance. bell rang for morning assembly. no time for TAF activities at all. --- so is it really that important that we must have the kids to say "yes i think this is a problem i'm facing"? was thinking we are already more or less quite safe to identify nutrition as a problem, and probably we can find out if they lead a very sedentary lifestyle. If yes, we could target GENERAL WELL-BEING/HEALTH encompassing proper nutrition, proper meals at the right hour, sufficient exercise every week. (exercise for these kids can be games -- captain's ball, bball, freeze, dog-and-bone etc etc... fun and high exercise level.)

6. what they did

- played games games and more sports games - freeze was very popular. where catcher has to run around tapping the kids. some kids will be appointed as the "Special one" who can unfreeze the other kids. this game was madness... it was running non stop. but well the kids loved it. and it is a form of exercise what...

- competition for hula hoop... who can hula hoop the longest. u'll be surprised at their ability to hula hula non stop... but i was also curious why are they still fat then?

- skipping competition (same as hula - popular among girls)

- captain's ball was popular also (forgot she said among boys or among alll the kids)

- incorporate games with teaching kids how to read nutritional information on the food packs. --- thought this is a good idea we can also do.

- some boring lessons taught, then made the kids form 2 groups and compete. winning group got a prize. --- surprisingly the monkies were willing to sit down and go thru the lesson.

- feedback was gathered from the kids about which aspects of the program they liked most then the group would tweak the activities to suit their "taste". according to my fren, she felt that this is already considered a bottom up approach. from her experience, kids at this age have NO concerns. nothing is worrying to them even though they know what is unhealthy. so we need to not just facilitate their activities but guide them due to their age. the feedback part is already sufficient to acccount for the a bottom up approach cuz their opinions are taken into account to plan activities that best engage this group of kids to help them achieve a goal. --- i thought she sounded reasonable to me. it's just like Jiang Rong's comment... he knows that fast food is junk food, western food (his fav pork chop, fish & chips) is unhealthy and fattening but he just likes the taste of it. probably at this point in life he doesnt feel that being fat is a hindrance to his life so of course it's not a problem to him.

--> should we be moving out to do some outdoor games on tuesday morning? sounds fun and gets the kids moving... as they requested. we could probably play MONKEY! haha... can we already use 2nd half of our 3rd session to start the idea of FUN EXERCISE?

for morning sessions we could probably prepare breakfast for them to eat together in the morning (MUST be HALAL though). or we could pilot test this plan: get the school to have the snacks stall cater HEALTHY breakfast (we could guide on what is healthy) for these 23 kids and they will reach school at 7am to collect and eat together at the canteen before going for morning assembly. we could also gather feedback from the kids about have their acceptance of certain vegetables changed after eating our "designed breakfast".

yep just some ideas. guess we will really need to discuss all these. btw meihuis and me are scheduled to meet dr park for our proj on monday 12-2pm cuz that's the only slot the whole group is free. so we might need to find another time for all to meet before Tues session.