Middle School Program Guide

To meet your needs THE GREAT BODY SHOP is a fully comprehensive health curriculum that meets the needs and standards of school districts everywhere. Our comprehensive approach includes topics that cover all aspects of physical, mental, social, emotional health and safety. This means that we are constantly listening to the individual needs of school districts as well as the mandates and guidelines of state departments of education for content and grade appropriateness.

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Grade MS1

Becoming a Life Long Learner

  • Critical thinking skills
  • Problem solving
  • Barriers to decision-making process
  • Practicing creative thinking
  • Collaboration
  • Cooperation
  • Setting realistic short term and long term goals
  • Working independently
  • Collecting information from a variety of sources
  • Using major tools of technology
  • Communicating a message
  • Practicing verbal & visual presentation skills
  • Exploring a range of skills for life long learners

Grade MS1

Body Systems

  • Naming body systems
  • Identifying major body parts and functions
  • Interrelationships
  • Exploring the consequences of the failure of one body system
  • Health habits and behaviors to increase peak function
  • Influences for long-term health
  • Endocrine system
  • Nervous system
  • Immune system
  • Gastrointestinal system
  • Urinary system
  • Circulatory system
  • Respiratory system
  • Reproductive system
  • Musculo-skeletal system
  • Integumentary system
  • Leading Health Indicators
  • Health risk and protective factors
  • Interdependence of body systems

Grade MS1

Fitness & Nutrition

  • Building understanding of good nutrition, daily exercise and sufficient rest for life-long health
  • Daily diet, exercise and rest needed in adolescence
  • The purpose and benefits of exercise
  • Basic principles of training
  • Guidelines for exercise
  • Personal plans for fitness
  • Diseases/disorders that go with poor levels of fitness and/or nutrition
  • The role of health behaviors in disease and wellness levels
  • Sleep levels and performance
  • ABC’s of good health
  • Eating disorders
  • Dietary Guidelines
  • Food Pyramids and alternatives

Grade MS1

The Cycle of Life

  • Physical and emotional stages, characteristics and developmental needs throughout life
  • The cycle of life: reproduction, the fetus, birth, infancy, early and later childhood, puberty, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, old age, death
  • Changing relationships
  • Changing responsibilities
  • Genes, DNA, heredity
  • Individual differences
  • Developing a realistic body image
  • The concept of family
  • Dating & friendship
  • Peer pressure, risk taking
  • Setting goals
  • Hygiene routines
  • Sexual responsibility
  • Hormones and impact on body systems
  • Social and emotional changes during adolescence
  • Refusal skills
  • Respect for self and others
  • Gender equity

Grade MS1

Social & Emotional Health

  • The relation between physical changes and self-esteem
  • Positive character traits to model: tolerance, honesty, respect, kindness, and restraint
  • Responsible decisions
  • The role of communication and collaboration skills in social and emotional health
  • Identification of feelings
  • Resources for assistance
  • Appropriate expression & management of feelings
  • Friendships and dating
  • Managing positive and negative peer pressure
  • Dealing with disrespect
  • Peer/parent interaction
  • Influence of technology, culture and media
  • Healthy, safe relationships
  • Harassment & bullying

Grade MS1

Disease & Illness Prevention

  • The nature of communicable and non-communicable disease
  • Methods of transmission
  • Effects of lifestyle/hygiene
  • The difference between disease and disorder
  • Chronic conditions
  • Causes and categories of various diseases
  • Reducing risk factors
  • Diseases like HIV, which can be prevented through health behaviors, and diseases like measles, which can be prevented through immunization
  • Catastrophic diseases: cause, prevention and treatment
  • Empathy, safe care, and concern for the ill
  • Community resources
  • Bacteria and viruses
  • Personal responsibility

Grade MS1

Safety, Injury & Violence Prevention

  • Contrast unintentional and intentional injury
  • Recognize actions and behaviors leading to injury
  • Collect and analyze injury prevention information
  • Safety precautions for sports, recreation, cars, buses, bicycles, walking
  • Injury prevention at home, school and community
  • Weather precautions
  • Guns and other weapons
  • Violence risk factors: TV, negative peer pressure, intolerance, gangs
  • Harassment and bullying
  • Sexual and other abuse
  • Behaviors for protection
  • Getting help for emergencies
  • First aid procedures
  • Resources in the community

Grade MS1

Substance Abuse Prevention

  • Define substance abuse and addiction
  • List addictive substances and the possible physical, emotional social and economic effects of each on the individual, the family and the community
  • Inhalants, OTC drugs, tobacco and alcohol
  • Legal vs. illegal drugs
  • Methods of intervention and treatment
  • Drug dependency
  • Statistics on success rates in treating drug abuse
  • Internal protective factors
  • External protective factors
  • The continuum of risk behaviors
  • Asset building for protection
  • The influence of the media

Grade MS1

Consumer, Community & Environmental Health

  • Health care consumer habits and preferences
  • Consumer trends and levels of satisfaction with value received
  • Useful health care products and services
  • Analyzing a variety of influences on health care decisions: families, friends, marketing and advertising, technology, laws and public policy
  • The importance of a healthy environment
  • Possible effects of pollution of air, water, food supply, and sound by pesticides and waste
  • Community and individual responsibility for the health of the environment

Grade MS2

Becoming a Life Long Learner

  • Critical thinking skills
  • Problem solving
  • Barriers to decision-making process
  • Practicing creative thinking
  • Collaboration
  • Cooperation
  • Setting realistic short term and long term goals
  • Working independently
  • Collecting information from a variety of sources
  • Using major tools of technology
  • Communicating a message
  • Practicing verbal & visual presentation skills
  • Exploring a range of skills for life long learners
  • Identifying traits and skills of life-long learners
  • Values that support life-long learners
  • Accessing valid resources
  • Analyzing options
  • Demonstrating effective oral and written communication
  • Refusal skills
  • Discipline
  • Listening skills
  • Conflict resolution
  • Advocacy
  • Decision-making
  • Anger management
  • Conducting controlled experiments
  • Discussing and setting reasonable and attainable goals to acquire traits, skills and values
  • Cultural competency
  • Respect for self & others
  • Personal responsibility
  • Honesty and caring
  • Social justice and restraint
  • Motivation to achieve
  • Work ethic and perseverance
  • Community service

Grade MS2

Body Systems

  • Demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge of body systems
  • Comparing and contrasting the basic structure of cells, tissues and organ systems
  • Body systems interdependence
  • Genome projects
  • Health risks
  • DNA
  • Cellular structure
  • Genes, genetics, hereditary traits
  • Tissue, systems, organs
  • Punnett square
  • Leading causes of death
  • Protective health factors
  • Healthy habits for optimal longevity
  • Relating form to function
  • The effects of heredity and environment
  • Predicting changes in health over long periods of time with varying patterns of behavior and health habits

Grade MS2

Fitness & Nutrition

  • Nutritional needs assessment
  • Healthy meal plans
  • Variety in food preparation
  • Cultural and ethnic choices
  • Working with a budget
  • Unit pricing & food labels
  • Safe food storage and preparation techniques
  • Economical food shopping
  • Formulating and implementing a total fitness plan, including assessing results and making modifications
  • Barriers to establishing and maintaining healthy eating practices and/or fitness goals
  • Influences on food choices and behaviors: peer pressure, cultural and family habits, health problems, advertising, marketing, availability, lack of knowledge about nutrition, lack of effort
  • Caloric values of food
  • Consequences of choices
  • Nutritional supplements
  • Body image
  • Diet analysis

Grade MS2

The Cycle of Life

  • Factors that can and cannot be changed
  • Consequences of health choices at each stage
  • Hormones and hygiene habits
  • Making decisions about sexual activity and drug use
  • Physical, mental and emotional growth
  • Effective strategies for family communication
  • Family support structures
  • Appropriate ways to show affection at different stages of life
  • Consequences of behavior
  • Postponing sexual involvement
  • Responsibility
  • Refusal skills
  • Practicing peer and parent communication skills
  • Influence of media and peers

Grade MS2

Social & Emotional Health

  • The importance of short and long term life goals
  • Interpersonal and intrapersonal skills
  • Ways to enhance personal, family and community health
  • Communication methods
  • Group decision-making
  • The importance of the ability to work cooperatively
  • The need to do timely work
  • Respecting decisions made by others
  • Following rules, procedures and process
  • Assessing one’s strengths and weaknesses
  • Ways to achieve individual and shared goals in a group
  • The importance of having a trusted personal support system
  • Comparing and contrasting healthy and unhealthy relationships
  • The detrimental effects of prejudice
  • Leadership and group skills
  • Achievement and competence

Grade MS2

Disease & Illness Prevention

  • Signs and symptoms of illness
  • The importance of early detection
  • Medical resources
  • The need to follow directions
  • Prescriptions and their proper use
  • Over the counter drugs
  • Comparing and contrasting management techniques for various chronic diseases
  • Goal setting for patients, families
  • Procedures for establishing a support system
  • Research statistics on the history of disease and treatment
  • Predicting the level of disease in the future
  • Scientific discovery and the effort to stamp out disease
  • The importance of hygiene
  • The role of heredity as a risk factor
  • Tooth decay, dental disease & prevention
  • Immunization protection
  • The role of adequate rest in prevention of disease

Grade MS2

Safety, Injury & Violence Prevention

  • Ways to avoid, recognize and respond to negative social influences
  • Strategies to avoid danger
  • Refusal skills vs. engaging in sexual behavior and other dangerous behaviors
  • Recognizing emergencies including fire and weather
  • Locating emergency supplies
  • Developing proficiency in first aid
  • Precautionary measures to deal with blood
  • Identifying possible causes & effects of conflict on the individual, family and community
  • Crime rates and economic loss to the community due to violence
  • Causes of death in the adolescent age range
  • Homicide and suicide and the role of drugs
  • Gangs and other negative pressure hate groups
  • Understanding rules concerning weapons
  • Personal and family emergency plans
  • Communication skills
  • The influence of the media

Grade MS2

Substance Abuse Prevention

  • The difference between helpful and harmful use of prescription and non-prescription drugs
  • How to report or seek assistance in unsafe situations involving drugs or poisonous substances
  • Building assets
  • Taking advantage of community resources
  • Ways to use positive peer pressure to counteract negative effects of culture
  • Setting goals for resisting negative peer pressure to engage in substance abuse
  • Avoiding self destructive behavior
  • The influence of marketing and advertising
  • Reinforcing message that most adolescents do not take drugs
  • Evaluating government policies and initiatives in substance abuse prevention

Grade MS2

Consumer, Community & Environmental Health

  • The reliability of health-related information
  • The role of media in disseminating health information
  • Considering socio-economic effects in health-related issues
  • Health care and productivity
  • Health insurance
  • Availability and accessibility of health care services
  • Health advocacy
  • Actions of Informed consumers
  • Health policies at school
  • Community efforts on environmental and health issues
  • Health promotion at many different levels
  • Relationship between environment, disease and health
  • Local effects of global ecological problems
  • Evaluate local community environment
  • Research laws and ordinances pertaining to environment