Hi everyone,
I was reminded this week of the purpose and personal necessity of this blog. There were some extremely sad moments this week and focusing on the positive and happy moments each day helped…..
…..As we continue to work on getting ready for Jump Rope for Heart I have been pointing out the Zoo Crew Characters that the American Heart Association created for this year’s theme. Each animal has a healthy message to share and Rory Mc Fiercely III is the lion in the Zoo Crew. His job is to help spread all of the healthy messages with a loud ROAR. I learned this week that a lion’s roar can be heard from five miles away so his roar is definitely powerful. I have been quite animated with the younger students but have toned it down a bit with the fifth grade students since they consider themselves more grown up at this time of the year. I was ready to move on and one of the fifth grade students said: “Can we roar?” Of course I said yes and while I don’t know if our roars were heard five miles away they were certainly heard down the hall!
…..While I can’t really explain it, we have been having a bit of trouble keeping our Fitness Frankie to Go bears safe and sound this year. Students have been very careful but for some reason the bears have gone missing more than once this year. One student had taken him home before Christmas but just could not locate him despite help from many family members. I kept checking in to encourage the search to continue. I was hoping for the best but feared the worst. On Monday morning this week I was met at the gymnasium by two students who triumphantly held him up to show me he had indeed been found! WHEW!
…..I have been teaching my students some partner tricks to practice while we work on our rope jumping skills. One of our essential questions is “How can I challenge myself?” One of the tricks is called the 2 in 2 side by side. After I demonstrated with a student partner (who did really well!), one student raised her hand and said “Can we do 3?” Of course I said Yes! A little while later they were doing it! Now THAT’s finding a way to challenge yourself!
…..One of my third grade students was able to jump 116 times in a long turning rope turned by an adult! She was excited to come over to tell me and she was a bit tired after that exercise!
…...After school one day this week I hung up this year’s Jump Rope for Heart banner. It was a bittersweet moment. As I get ready to retire I have experienced many important events that I will do for the last time as a teacher at this school. I spent some time looking at the banners on the wall and reminiscing…….I am so proud of the work of my students, staff and my community…… The next day some students noticed the new banner right away and were very excited and proud too!
…..I like to decorate our hallways with Jump Rope for Heart posters in preparation for the event. It is a great way for students to get involved and it also shows me that they understand the message and importance of the event. I announced that I would be accepting posters and by the end of the day I had already gotten six fantastic posters! More and more come in each day! Click here to see more pictures of these posters!
…..I have been teaching the kindergarten students to jump in a long rope that I turn and very often I give a high five to a student after they finished his/her turn. I guess I forgot to give one to one student because she came over to me and said: “High five????” She kept me on my toes!
…..A second grade student decided to use Math to count successful jumps. Each time he jumped using different jumping stations he added the numbers together! He was even going to remember the number and add on to it during the next PE class!
…..Fitness Frankie to Go went to basketball practice with his host student last weekend. I looked at the journal entry which had the most adorable picture of the student at the level of the basket holding Fitness Frankie inside the net. He wrote about the adventure and added “I dunked him!”
…..Fitness Frankie to Go in another second grade went for a walk on a local college campus and then went shopping for fruit! Included in this journal was a fantastic picture of the student in front of the yummy looking fruit with the caption: “Frankie likes apples!”
…..After adding a Hippity Hop station to our class activity this week a kindergarten student came over to me and said with a smile: “Now that was super, super, super fun!”
…..One of the Zoo Crew members is Savannah Bolt. Savannah is a zebra and her message is: “Go Wild for Water”. This was a great connection to our PE Password this week which is Dehydration. She also teaches students that there are eight teaspoons of sugar in one can of soda. I asked students if they would put eight teaspoons of sugar on their cereal and saw the most wonderful look of disgust on the face of one of my students! They got the message that soda is not a healthy choice!
.....At the end of the week we held a Healthy Highway assembly and introduced the next road that we will travel down; Diversity Drive. It was an absolutely wonderful assembly and maybe one of the best that we have had in quite some time. We had a terrific group of teachers work on this assembly and the creativity and teamwork showed. We always talk about the road in terms of Character Education (discussed by the principal), Nutrition Education (discussed by a classroom teacher), and Physical Education/Physical Fitness (discussed by me). There are so many reasons to teach students about diversity in these terms and based on student responses, we really got the message across. When it was my turn to discuss how diversity relates to physical activity I showed students pictures of diverse people participating in games and sports. There were pictures of people of differing abilities, ages, beliefs, and genders. One example I used was a picture of a girl playing football and another of boys dancing. The last picture was of a girl playing quarterback with a caption “Never let someone stop you from doing what you love.” I asked students why I that picture my represent diversity. I was absolutely blown away by one of my fourth graders answer. Among other things, she said that girls should be able to play what they want and not have anyone tell them that they can’t do something just because they are a boy or a girl. Her comments were so right on the mark I was speechless! As I was walking by her at the end of the assembly I gave her a high five and told her how proud I was of her! Next we went into classrooms and students paired up with their buddies in upper grade levels. They completed another activity and had wonderful conversations that showed that they understand the importance of diversity and not labeling people. They said they learned that it is ok to be different, that you should not judge a book by it’s cover, and that you should get to know everyone by talking with them. It was truly a heartwarming afternoon. 
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.
