TOOLS FOR CHANGE

Before you begin, take some time to plan how you can best observe the physical activity and eating practices and behaviors of the children in your program. You may not be able to see everything that’s going on in the program, but planning will help you prioritize when to be where. It is important that the person who completes this assessment can observe all or most of the snack and physical activity time during your program. Review the questions and the glossary to make sure you know what information you’ll need to report on. Also, make sure to consider the following questions as you plan your self-assessment:

• When is physical activity offered?  Is it offered at different times or all at once?
• Do kids break out into different groups for physical activity? If so, where in the building do these groups meet?
• When is snack served? Do all the kids eat together or at different times?

If you have a schedule of the program day you may want to use it to plan out your observations. But, do not use your schedule to fill in this tool. What you record should be a measure of what actually happened during the afterschool day.