It was an exciting week of fun and fitness!
.....Fitness Frankie and Exercise Ernie spent last week in "The Body Shop", aka the Health Office. Our school nurse is wonderful and she took great care of them! She wrote a terrific journal entry for their blog all about the importance of washing your hands and eating breakfast! I had the pleasure of reading it during morning announcements on Monday! You can read it by visiting The Adventures of Fitness Frankie and Friends!
.....Since May 1-7 is National Physical Education and Sport Week and May is National Physical Fitness Month, we kicked off the beginning of the month with a project that I call "Operation Healthy North Park". During this project, students and adults are encouraged be active and make healthy choices and can turn in one "Coop Car" (The theme car for Healthy Highway, which we have adopted!) each day that they are physically active for at least twenty minutes. This is the eleventh year of the project and it has grown to include many of our administrators, district employees outside of my school, and community members! We display the completed "Coop Cars" on a bulletin board in the hallway and it has been fun to hang them up and have everyone notice them! We are off to a great start! A parent told me this week all about their family exercise plan and about how Operation Healthy North Park motivates them to exercise more! You can participate too! Download the information by clicking Operation Healthy North Park!
.....Fitness Frankie and Exercise Ernie have enjoyed spending time in our classrooms, but during May I invite the adults to take them home and create a healthy adventure! They have so many offers for "play dates" that I have to keep a separate calendar just for them! :-)
.....On Wednesday afternoon we participated in Project ACES (All Children Exercising Simultaneously). This is a nationwide project started by Len Saunders. I found some old pictures of the very first year that we participated in Project ACES - 1989! It was fun passing them around to some of our staff who were in attendance and younger staff who were not! During Project ACES the entire school community goes outside to our beautiful field and I lead them all in some dances and other silly and fun activities. We had a blast! It was so amazing to see more than 360 students and adults exercising and smiling! On the way back inside every single fifth grader in one of our classes gave me a high five! Click Project ACES at North Park for pictures of our event!
.....We have also begun fitness testing in our upper elementary classes. Students complete the FitnessGram test which includes the PACER; a test of aerobic fitness. Students challenge themselves to run and do their best while completing laps in the gym to a particular pace. We make a point of telling students that the fitness test is not about BEING the best, it is about DOING your best. It seems that students took this to heart as they congratulated each other with high fives after completing the test, regardless of the number of laps completed! It was so amazing to watch this great sportsmanship unfold. I told them how proud I was of their behavior and they smiled in agreement!
Thanks for reading about the "Best Parts of My Week!"
Visit the North Park PE website if you would like more information about the PE program at North Park!
