The Canton Wellness Department will encourage, educate, and motivate our students to make positive daily decisions and develop healthy lifelong habits.
The Wellness curriculum provides students with the opportunity to develop their physical, mental, and social well being. Learning experiences are dynamic and will promote activity, social and emotional learning, respect, resilience, positive attitudes, sound decision-making skills, and appropriate behaviors that enhance the quality of life to maximize personal potential. Classes are designed to be fun, dynamic, and educational every day.
Grade 6
The grade 6 curriculum is designed to assist and encourage students as they transition from childhood and enter into adolescence. Our social emotional curriculum, inclusive of the newly added Wayfinder program, works to build and develop effective communication skills, self-reflection, stress management, and conflict resolution skills while recognizing healthy and unhealthy relationship behaviors. We study the physical, mental, and social changes students experience during puberty and how to manage new responsibilities and changes that come with this transitional time. Our risk reduction curriculum addresses the substances of nicotine, tobacco, and vaping. Our personal health curriculum examines the impact that everyday health practices have on our wellness and works to discover healthy habits through reflection, goal setting, and advocacy.
Grade 7
The grade 7 curriculum helps students begin to take an active role in determining the adult they hope to become. Our social emotional curriculum, inclusive of the newly added Wayfinder program, includes a comprehensive bullying prevention section that encourages students to appropriately recognize and respond to bullying, along with peer collaboration, managing conflicts successfully, and negotiating for positive outcomes. We work with this grade in identifying stressors and mental health challenges, and coming up with personal strategies to manage stress before, during, and after it occurs. We continue our risk reduction curriculum, examining alcohol and marijuana and their effects while exploring the decision making process and examining influences. Grade 7 students will examine nutrition, focusing on understanding food labels, nutrients, and advertising, providing students with the knowledge to make informed choices. Students will learn about their reproductive health through studying the reproductive system and its functions.
Grade 8
The grade 8 program reinforces the social emotional curriculum from previous years and with the addition of the new Wayfinder program develops advocacy skills and explores the impact decisions have on one’s self, family, and community. Students learn habit forming strategies in their Lifelong Fitness and Healthy Habits unit and explore functional fitness. Students participate in “Break Free from Depression”, a program from Boston Children’s Hospital as part of our mental health curriculum. This curriculum and program helps students identify depression early in themself or a peer and encourages seeking support and treatment, practice coping skills and strategies, and access to resources. The 8th grade curriculum also includes a comprehensive, student centered drug and alcohol unit with a focus on personal and community impact, as well as a unit on human reproduction that teaches students about health enhancing behaviors and decision making skills.