St. Pat’s Health Fair planned for Tuesday

By Justin Seward - Lethbridge Herald on November 26, 2022.

St. Patrick Fine Arts Elementary School is hosting a Health Promotion Fair in conjunction with nursing students from the University of Lethbridge on Tuesday at the university.

The third and fourth year nursing students will be providing exciting learning opportunities to the students through healthy relationships with food, sleep, friends and self, among other things.

“The booths will facilitate engagement through different activities to ultimately foster the promotion of health within the school and deepen lifelong learning for the students and, if interested, you,” as read in a release.

The booths include Healthy Relationship with Peers, Importance of Sportsmanship, Dos and Don’ts of being a Good Friend, Go Slow and Stop (Nutrition), a Self-Care Booth and Positive Thinking.

“This is driven largely by the student cohort,” said Kathy Jones-Husch, St. Patrick’s principal. “They did some initial surveys with the students, identified areas of interest for the kids as well as areas perhaps of need. And then with this Health Fair, there are a number of booths that they’ve made where they’re going to explore different topics and they’ve also invited a number of partners in from the community.”

Grades 1 – 6 will be participating in the event.

“We want them of course to have a good sense of how to care for your body through nutrition and sleep and exercise,” said Jones-Husch. “But a piece that we recognize perhaps that has been impacted by COVID is a little bit of just greater social awareness – that knowledge of reading body language, that ability to be open to other people’s points of view. I think we run into a number of challenges with the kids because they’re quick to put their own ideas forward and not consider others and so we need to grow those skills in them.”

Students will be in a rotating schedule from 9:15 a.m.-3:30 p.m. and parents are welcome to join.