Teacher Guide: Lesson 12.4
The Weekly Reader Connections feature on Kids' Place Houghton Mifflin Math provides your students with additional information about the topics that appear in the Curriculum Connection feature in their student books.
The article “Be a Safe Sport” tells students about the recommendations by the NYSSF (National Youth Sports Safety Foundation) to exercise to stay healthy, play sports safely, and have fun. Each year, about 20 million kids play sports during and after school. Unfortunately, about 5 million of those kids suffer some kind of injury while playing.
According to the NYSSF, children can do a few things to keep from getting a sports injury: do warm-up stretches before and after playing any sport; do not play when in pain; and use proper sports safety equipment, such as helmets, elbow pads, kneepads, safety glasses, wrist guards, shin guards, and mouth guards.
According to the NYSSF:
- About 20 million children ages 6 to 16 play organized, out-of-school sports.
- Sports activities are the second most frequent cause of injury to adolescents.
- As many as one third of in-line skating injuries could be prevented by the use of safety equipment.
- Overtraining is the most common cause of injury. Overtraining is training harder and longer than a person's body is prepared for.
- Injuries in adolescent girls playing sports occur at a rate of 20 to 22 per 100 participants a year. For boys, the rate is 39 per 100 participants a year.
According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, eye injuries are the leading cause of blindness in children. Sports are the major cause of eye injuries in children, according to the academy.
The Word Wise activity asks students to diagram a person playing sports by labeling the safety equipment that person should be wearing for protection from an injury.
The Data Hunt asks students to read a chart about the activities at Sports Camp and determine the amount of time each activity lasts.
- Running 45 minutes
- Soccer Game 1 hour and 30 minutes
- Lunch 1 hour and 15 minutes
- Registration 30 minutes
- Warm-Up Exercises 1 hour and 15 minutes