Nicotine Free Week Activities - Nicotine Free Week

What can you do to celebrate Nicotine Free Week? Anything you want!

Use one of our ideas or come up with your own. If possible, hold your event during Nicotine Free Week. If your group can’t do it then, go ahead and hold your activity before or after Nicotine Free Week.

If you want to show off your event, we’ll put a photo of it on the Showcase page. Just send your photo or video to:

Learn To Live, Anne Arundel County Department of Health
1 Harry S. Truman Parkway
Annapolis, MD 21401

Or email digital photos or videos to hdltl@aacounty.org. You must provide a signed copy of the photo release form for each person in the photo. We will try to post all photos we receive, but if a photo is not clear when it is reduced, the Department of Health reserves the right not to use it.

Here are some ideas:

Activities for All Ages

Classroom Presentation
Have students create a PowerPoint about the dangers of tobacco products and electronic smoking devices (ESDs) as a class or a group project and present to younger audiences within the school. Go to the Fast Facts page for up-to-date information.

Create a Graffiti/Pledge Wall
Cover a wall with white paper and have kids write anti-nicotine graffiti on it, or use it as a pledge wall and see how many kids you can get to sign their names as a promise not to use tobacco.

Door Decorating Contest
Have homeroom classrooms (students and teachers) decorate their classroom door with anti-tobacco or electronic smoking device messages.

Got a regular group event?
Make it a nicotine-free activity. Planning a dance? Make it a nicotine-free celebration. On a sports team? Hold a nicotine-free event at a practice or before or after the game.

Have friends for life
Make a friendship bracelet and wear it as a promise that you won’t smoke or vape. Or give it to a friend or family member.

Lights, Camera, Quit!
Write anti-smoking or vaping skits or TV ads and film them with a phone, tablet, digital camera or camcorder. Show them to your group. Send a copy to Learn To Live at the Anne Arundel County Department of Health, 1 Harry S. Truman Parkway, Annapolis, MD 21401, or email hdltl@aacounty.org. Acceptable formats are: avi, swf, wmv, mpeg or mov. We may post your video on the Showcase page.

Question Table
At a designated table display, have pieces of paper for students to write questions about tobacco-use or vaping and answer them throughout the week. Use these during the morning announcements.

School Skit
Have students create a nicotine-free skit or play to showcase to their peers during lunch or classes. Take a video of it and send it to:

Learn To Live, Anne Arundel County Department of Health
1 Harry S. Truman Parkway
Annapolis, MD 21401

Or email hdltl@aacounty.org. Acceptable formats are: .MOV, .MPEG4, .MP4, .AVI, .WMV. We may post the video on the Nicotine Free Week showcase page.

Speak out!
Make daily announcements giving the nasty facts on smoking or vaping. See the Facts.

Tobacco Topic
Focus on one specific tobacco product each day of Nicotine Free Week and educate students on the dangers of each one. (Example/ Monday: Keep your smile, don’t lose your teeth from smokeless tobacco, Tuesday: Vaping- don’t let the flavors trick you, it is not the safer choice, Wednesday: don’t be fooled by cigars/cigarillos, Thursday: Smoking kills; say no to cigarettes, Friday: Don’t get hooked on hookah, learn the truth.) For more information on these products, go to the Fast Facts page.

Tobacco Wheel
Make your own tobacco or vaping wheel by cutting a circle with cardboard and adding a spinner. Type out tobacco or vaping related questions and glue them to the wheel for an interactive game. Check out the Fast Facts page to develop questions.

Supplies are for Anne Arundel County groups only.

Activities for Elementary School Age

A-Z
Challenge your group to make anti-tobacco or nicotine free statements through the alphabet. The first person could say: “A healthy person doesn’t smoke,” the next person could say: “Be smart, don’t smoke,” and so on. See how far they can go.

Chalk Talk
Allow students to be an active part of nicotine free promotion. Chalk the sidewalks around your school with anti-tobacco messages.

Breathless
Give kids straws and tell them to breathe through the straws. Then have them remove the straws and lead them in activities such as jumping jacks or running in place. Have them try breathing through the straws again. Explain that smoking or vaping damages your lungs; therefore, a smoker’s breathing can be like breathing through a straw after physical activity.

Grow Up Smoke-Free
Have your group plant flower seeds in plastic cups or cans. Decorate the planters with labels saying something like “Grow up strong without cigarettes or ESDs” or “Life smells better without tobacco.”

Healthy Hearts
Use the Valentine’s Day holiday to promote a nicotine free lifestyle. Kids can write Valentines for classmates or loved ones asking them to keep their hearts healthy by not smoking or vaping.

Make a Tar Jar or Butt Jar
Experience the “yucky” side of smoking.

The Tar Jar represents the amount of tar (1 quart) that smoking a pack of cigarettes per day for one year puts into a smoker’s lungs. Tar Jar Materials: 1 quart dark molasses, dirty motor oil or cooking oil mixed with dark dirt.
The Butt Jar makes a powerful stench that kids can sniff. Fill jar with cigarette butts and add water. The longer it sits, the worse it smells!

My Top Five
Have students trace their hands and cut them out. Include on each finger a reason why you’re nicotine free. Examples: my family, friends, sports, etc.

Quiz Whiz
Hold a smoking and vaping trivia contest or quiz show. Test your group on what they know about the dangers of tobacco. See the Fast Facts for information to help you write questions.

School Mural
Have students create nicotine free murals and hang them in the hallways.

Supplies are for Anne Arundel County groups only.

Activities for Middle/High School Age

Anti-tobacco marketing videos
Use these counter marketing videos to show your students the reality of smoking and vaping and the dangers of nicotine. Click here to find a list of suggested videos.

Big Bucks
A pack-a-day ($8) smoker will spend $2,920 on cigarettes each year. For that much you could buy eight game consoles or 12 smartphones. Figure out what else you could buy instead of wasting money on cigarettes.

CSI Tobacco
Draw chalk outlines of bodies on the sidewalk and write the cause of death in the outline, such as “I died of lung cancer from smoking” or “Smoking gave me emphysema and I suffocated” or “I got a heart attack from cigarettes.”

Day of the Dead
One day, have all the people in your group wear black and color their faces white to represent death from smoking. You can pin messages on your clothing, such as “I’m one out of three smokers who will die from smoking” or “You lose seven minutes of life each time you smoke” or “Smoking pollutes your body and the environment.”

Expert Testimony
Invite a guest speaker, former smoker or even a cancer patient. For a medical speaker, call Joanne Ebner at Anne Arundel Medical Center, 443-481-5366.

Kahoots
Create an interactive tobacco and vaping education game that students can participate in from their phone or a computer. Go to www.getkahoot.com to get started.

Letter Writing Campaign
Hold a campaign in which students write letters to friends or family members who smoke, or write a letter to a loved-one thanking them for not smoking or vaping.

Seven Minutes Lost
Each time smokers light up, they shorten their lives, on average, by seven minutes. How many minutes of life does a pack-a-day smoker lose each day; in a week; in a year? Have the kids in your group do the frightening math.

Share a Story Not a Smoke
Incorporate an activity in to your language arts or English classes by having students creatively express why they’re nicotine free. Essays, poems and short stories are examples.

Nicotine Free Spirit Day
Ask everyone in your school to wear your school colors on a certain day to show your support for not smoking or vaping.

Supplies are for Anne Arundel County groups only.