All I can say about this week is: WOW! It was terrific!
.....Exercise Ernie spent the weekend with a staff member and her family. He had a terrific time and on Monday I was presented with a book of his weekend adventure! It was complete with pictures and a story which included being part of a Memorial Day Celebration and remembering those who served.....
.....A primary student was exercising to warm-up and said: I'm sweaty! I said: sweaty is good! He agreed!
.....As the end of the month comes near, many students return their completed Fitness Calendars so that they can be included in the list of Fitness Fanatics. One student brought me a stack of Fitness Calendars completed by her entire class!
.....Operation Healthy North Park was coming to a close this week as well. I received many, many "Coop Cars"in the inter-office mail this week. I was thrilled to see that one pile of these cars came from our middle school. I recognized many of the student's names as North Park alumni. I wrote an e-mail to the Health teacher that promoted this project in her class to thank her for supporting the project. She responded by saying that she thought it was a great project and that many of her students remembered participating in the project when they were North Park students. I realized that sometimes it is possible to continue to make an impact long after students leave the building.......
.....Students in the primary grades have been participating in activities called Movement Sentences and Locomotor Go Fish. Both activities require some reading on the part of the students. The students have learned so much this year and I was proud of their work as I watched them read and help each other with words that were challenging. My kindergarten classes surprised me most of all when they read words that I was sure they did not know!
.....As many of you know, our school is a pilot school for a program called Healthy Highway. Wendy Cooper is the creator of this program and we have become colleagues and friends throughout the years. Wendy offered to create a station for our Family Fitness Night and also wanted to spend the day at school with us on Friday. We had such a good time! Baking Bella was in attendance and our students and staff were happy to see her again!
.....Our first ever Family Fitness Night was scheduled for this past Friday - June 1st. This event was made possible by a Fuel Up to Play 60 grant that was obtained as a result of the efforts of our Food Service Director and several others. We had been planning this event for quite some time and I will admit that I was a bit nervous......I wanted everything to go well, of course, but it was also the first event that our new students - from a school that will be closing - were invited to. It is a difficult situation for everyone when a school closes and we wanted to make all of our new families feel welcome. I have to say that it was an amazing evening! I was worried about having enough help, but our PTA, and my friends came through in fine fashion! We played, laughed, learned about nutritious foods and physical activity, and even had a chance to hear our hearts beat! We hosted 137 people and had a terrific time with all of the different events, one of which included a healthy snack made by chefs from the Culinary Institute of America! As I was taking pictures of Exercise Ernie and Fitness Frankie during the event, one of our new moms asked about our bears. She said that she had looked at our website and that the bears were EVERYWHERE! I enjoyed telling hear all about their adventures! I met so many new students and families and I look forward to September when we will begin the new school year with all of our new friends!
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!
