Middle School

• Students will begin to understand the possible types of benefits one can get from healthy leisure.
• Students will analyze information from the Exploring My Free Time worksheet and identify which benefits they gain from what they do in their leisure.

• What benefits do I get from my leisure activities?
• Which benefits do I need or want more of?

Use these conversation starters as a way for students to start thinking about benefits they get from their activities.

• What would someone learn about you if they saw you engaged in your favorite leisure/free time activity?
• If you were having a bad day, which leisure/free time activity would you want to participate in, and why?
• Would you rather create a piece of art or volunteer at the animal shelter? Why?
• Would you rather hang out with your friends or learn to kayak? Why?

Benefits of Leisure Activities

• What do you think of when you hear the word benefit? What is a benefit? [A benefit is something that produces good or helpful results or effects or that promotes well-being.]
• What benefits do you get from being in school? [learning skills, being with friends]
• What about from riding a bike? [transportation, physical activity, fresh air]
• Does everybody get the same benefit from riding a bike? What about taking a hike in the woods? [maybe, but different people may get different benefits from the same activity]

Refer to the Leisure Time Benefits table and discuss briefly what each benefit means. TimeWise2 and Live Your Why can also be used to support this lesson.

Not everyone gets the same benefit from the same activity. Someone might play a sport to get stronger (physical) whereas others might play to be with their friends (social). What benefits do you think these teens are getting in the picture. Would there be any negative feelings going on? Why and/or why not?

Take a look at provided picture (or choose another picture). Ask students to discuss the benefits each person might be getting from what they are doing.

And/Or:

Divide students into teams of about 5. Toss a beanbag/ball to a team and they will draw the name of an activity “out of a hat” (or something similar). They will have 30 seconds to talk among themselves and identify as many benefits as they can for that activity. Then they will report to the group the benefits they came up with. That team will toss the beanbag/ball to another group, who will also draw an activity out of the hat. And so on.

Possible activities:

Walking the dog

Playing basketball

Bicycling

Watching a movie

Hiking

Martial arts (karate, etc.)

Playing chess

Playing a musical instrument

Dancing 

Doing art work

Texting

Volunteer work

Playing soccer 

Going to a museum

Reading 

Gardening

Summarize:

TimeWise2 activities focus on how to get the most benefits from your leisure time. There are many possible benefits of healthy leisure activities.

The foundation of healthy leisure is characterized by healthy relationships, social interaction, and creative expression.

These are things that are actively engaging, such as engaging in physically and mentally active pursuits, and fostering connections with people and nature.

Activities that require less active engagement are important but not as important as those where your mind and/or body are actively engaged.Encourage developing a leisure lifestyle that gives students a variety of benefits.

• Exploring My Free Time Worksheet
• My Free Time Profile Worksheet

Start by asking students to think about how much time they spend in each activity. What do they spend the most time in? The least time?

Now have students to complete column 5 in the worksheet, thinking about the benefits they get from each specific activity listed in column 1.

Discussion Questions

• Which activities give you the most benefits?
• Were you surprised at what you do and what benefits you get?
• How much time do you spend on social media? Is it too much or too little? What benefits do you get?
• Does every person need all of the benefits listed?
• What benefits don’t you get that you “should” or would like to get?
• How does someone get all of the benefits? [A variety and balance of activities, which will be discussed in another session]
• Does getting a benefit or two from what you do relate to whether or not you like the activity?

Summarize:

Now you have a general idea of how you spend your time, what benefits you get and how you feel when or after you do the activity. You have also thought about whether or not you have enough benefits. For example, maybe there are benefits you are not getting and would like to get. In the next sessions we will discuss getting a variety of benefits and the overall pattern of how we spend our time.

For the next session, ask them to complete the TimeWise Journal (pages 6-10 TW student book) and then complete the TW Journal Analysis on page 12 (TW student book).  Bring the completed Journal to the next session.

Note: the TimeWise journal may not work in your situation. In that case, you may want to do something similar in the following session as a retrospective journal, focusing on a recent weekend and weekday.

Give students these directions for completing the TimeWise Journal:

• Write down what you did during each time slot.
• Why did you do what you did? I had to, I wanted to, I had nothing else to do, I had a purpose, or because of what others might think of me.
• How did you feel? Bored, interested, or some other feeling.