21st Century Learning Center Healthy After School Activities

The Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Eat Smart New York program puts “Kids in the Kitchen” as part of the Rapelling21st Century Learning Center’s after school activities. Students in grades 3-5 participate in a cooking class that has a nutrition component embedded in its lessons.  Next spring, Cornell will include grades 1-2 in this activity.

Champlain Valley Family Services conducts an anti-drugs & alcohol program for grades 4-8 once a week, as well as engaging students in many community service activities such as volunteering at the Adirondack Humane Society, working in the Soup Kitchen, visiting seniors, etc.  This character development exercise builds their self-confidence and gives them a feeling of contributing and belonging to a community.

SUNY Plattsburgh nursing students give lessons in nutrition and safety as part of their health education requirement for their RN degrees.  Another group of SUNY Plattsburgh students are conducting a 3-week session on decision-making skills and community service.

Over the winter, the 21st Century After School students will be starting a gardening program which will feature a growing tower.  It has a science component, learning how plants grow. This will be followed by a nutrition unit, which takes the herbs they grow and includes them in recipes that the students will research.

Students engage in one 45-minute physical activity each day, either in the gym or outside (weather permitting), and go swimming three times a week. They will soon begin swimming lessons.  Other fun physical activities include karate lessons, dance and the ever-popular climbing wall.

Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents visit Momot during Red Ribbon Week to re-enforce the anti-drug and alcohol message that all students get from many sources at school.

4-H has started a club at Momot to bring their message of healthy activities into an urban setting. They don’t have any cows (yet!), but 4-H is not limited to barnyard animals. Participants will learn about nutrition and cultures around the world.

Momot Elementary
The American Red Cross conducts a basic first aid class for Momot students, and a program called Masters of Disaster, where they learn how to prepare for, and what to do in case of an emergency situation.  Students will also participate a pets first aid program!
Champlain Valley Family Center’s A Step Ahead program for Momot 4th and 5th graders conducts curriculum-based drug, tobacco and alcohol prevention activities, which also deal with the many social pressures that students will face.  Other activities are designed to promote increased self-esteem, making good decisions in life, cooperating/group activities, values – all the social skills that help make children into healthy, well-adjusted adults.

Adventure-based counseling for grades 1 – 8 is a program designed to develop positive social development, decision-making skills, leadership and healthy group dynamics.  Students participate in group activities, such as rappelling (with expert supervision, of course) to learn how to cooperate with others to achieve a goal and have fun in the process.

Diana Lavery, School Nurse-Teacher, provides nursing care and health education to Momot students.  She conducts a Family Life program in grades 4 and 5, covering topics such as puberty and AIDS/HIV. The School Nurse is part of a team of professionals that includes teachers, counselors, the school psychologist, who work together to ensure that students are healthy and in school, ready to learn.  One goal is to reduce illness-related absences through providing a supportive atmosphere, in-school nursing care and health education.