The Best Parts of My Week - 5/30/16--6/3/16

Hi everyone,
    The week began with a beautiful Memorial Day spent with family and friends.......Then it was time to get back to school and BAM.....all of a sudden it was June!  While many of you may already be out of school for the summer, we spend most of June in school and there are many, many end of the year events and this month tends to whiz by!

.....As Operation Healthy North Park came to a close at the end of the month of May it was time to count the "Coop Cars".  I was getting ready to wrap up the project when I received an envelope in the school mail full of "Coop Cars".  One of the things I love about this project is when students participate from outside of our school and the collaboration that makes that possible.  A health teacher at our middle school always promotes this project with her students and this envelope contained "Coop Cars" from middle school health students, many of whom were my former students!  One even contained a note asking me if I remembered her.......of course I do!  It was great to see all of the names and activities that students participated in to stay healthy!  By the way, we collected 3,466 "Coop Cars" which equals at least 69,320 minutes of exercise!

.....I have been teaching for many years and have many events that I have repeated for a number of years but once in awhile I try a new event.  This year our new event was a Bike Rodeo and Safety Clinic.  This was a project that our Fuel Up to Play 60 Student Ambassador group has been planning all year and we held it this week.  Since this was a new event, I was not quite sure how it would be received and how successful it would be.  I must say that the success of this event far exceeded my expectations!  We had a wonderful turnout, fantastic parent, teacher, and administrative volunteers, and a amazing partnership with the Dutchess County Transportation Safety Board!  Our Student Ambassadors were excited and everyone had a great time!  Most important of all, students learned to ride their bicycles safely!  These were some of the comments I received about the event:

          .....When I asked a student if he had a good time he said: "Oh yeah...If I didn't come I          would not have learned how to ride!"

          ......One mom said that this event was an incentive to her child to learn how to ride.

          .....Another parent said that the event helped her child gain confidence in riding.

          .....One family experienced the joy of seeing their child take off his training wheels and           ride successfully without them for the first time!

        Fitness Frankie finally got his helmet!  Just in time for the rodeo!

  .....My principal and I rode our bicycles too and we experienced cheers from our students when we went through the stations.  Some of the stations were challenging but our students were really supportive!  We also had a healthy snack station where students made bicycles out of vegetables!

Veggie Bicycles!

                                    

.....At some point during the week we were outside playing Triangle Ball and enjoying being outdoors.  When I asked students to let nature be (they were interested in bugs and flowers) One kindergarten student said:  "Nature makes me happy!"

.....The object of Triangle Ball is to hit a ball off of a tee and run the bases as many times as possible before the fielders get the ball in a bucket.   I witnessed a third grade student convince another student to slow down so that a classmate could score....he noticed that this student had not had a chance to score yet.  The nicest thing about it was that he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart and did it in a quiet and unassuming way.  If I had not been right there to witness it quietly I would not have even known it had occurred and that was the way this student preferred it to happen!  

.....At the end of the week my primary students began a few lessons in Yoga.  When students arrived to the gym to see the yoga mats out they were so excited!  Many of them said:  "Yay!  Yoga!" and "I Love Yoga!"  When I asked students to think about the benefits of Yoga they had some great responses.  One student said:  "If you are stressed it helps you relax."  Another said:  "It helps you stretch."  A third student said:  "It helps you calm down"
 I think those are all great reasons to love Yoga!

I hope you enjoyed the "Best Parts of My Week"!  Visit my website:  North Park Physical Education to find out more about our Physical Education program.  

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