Native American Unit

We will be wrapping up our Native American Unit next week with the first grade classes. During this unit, students worked on attributes such as agility, co-ordination, balance and speed. The activities and games that were played illustrated how Native Americans got their food. Obstacle courses were set up using hurdles, hoops, cones, and mats to resemble hills, rivers, trees, and rocks. Students carried foam noodles through the course crawling and jumping under/over the obstacles.
Students also worked on throwing for accuracy towards a moving target and were taught to step forward towards their target with their opposite foot of their throwing hand. Students worked together in groups and tried to throw their noodle through a rolling hula hoop. Students practiced important concepts like teamwork and helping others. The unit was very exciting and students had lots of fun participating in the games and activities while learning cross cultural ideas

1st Term Grades and P.E

We have completed our grading for the first term and although hard at times to give the grades we do, we feel it important to grade the children according to what we feel they earned within the context of other children's capabilities at each grade level. We looked at skill levels, attitudes, effort, cooperation with others and class behaviors within each grade. We have talked with the children in general and sometimes specifically about their need to work with others, and/or try to perform always at their personal best, but sometimes words don't seem to convey the personal effort required and that children find it hard to do things which are not easy to do at times.
We talk about grading with the children throughout the year and they are aware that if they talked too much and/or had to sit out a game or fooled around with friends or did not try their hardest or did not play games according to the rules that their grades would be lower because of these issues.
We enjoy all of the children and hope that by trying to convey the value of their need to work hard and that to persevere when things are not always easy, that these life long skills are valuable and important to learn and will help them throughtout their lives and eventually, be much more important to learn than looking just at a grade.
We are always happy to talk with you and you are always invited to sit in on any class to see all of the important learning concepts, skills and sportsmanship issues that we try to incorporate in every class we teach.
Best wishes and hope that you talk with your children about their effort to do their very best at everything they try! It's not just be being the best althlete that is important and graded, its more about a child's effort to do their very best regardless of the task before them.

Fall Theme Stations!

Here are some of our 12 stations, all stressing various body skills, ie jumping, throwing, balance, upper and lower body coordination and strength, group cooperation and just allot of fun and excitement! The children learn to transition as they rotate stations, re-set their stations and work cooperatively to control their excitement.


The Bat Cave



The Witches Broom Ride


Spiders Web

Jumping spiders


Pumpkin bowling



Rattle those bones

New Studies show Fitness improves memory!!

Read the article on the Hippocampus part of the brain. The implications could be that with the fitness testing done at the Baker school using the Pacer test, could we identify children who have learning problems with memory. If so, could fitness training thus increase the size of the hippocampus and thus improve academic skills in the area of cognitive memory skills???? Just thinking our loud!

P.E Chatter!

Well the school year is off to a fun start. The children have been working on cooperative game skills, with the focus on soccer skills ( dribbling, trapping, passing, punting and throw-ins along with some basic soccer rules.) Along with soccer we have played various tag games and movement games with the younger children to help them with cardiovascular development and to learn movement patterns in a large, open space. The tag games also are important in helping children to listen to game rules, play by the rules and follow the rules when they are tagged, which can be hard for some of the children.

Along with the games we have tested all of the children for the cardiovascular endurance capability using the fitness gram. In this test the children run approx. 40ft. according to the pattern of music which prompts them when to run. This test is valuable because it provides us with a child's current physical condition level among their class peers, looks at their motivation and frustration capabilities, and thus giving us a snapshot in observing their ability to work thru being tired. At the end of the year we will again give the test to look at whether children did improve by a % after participating in a varied P.E program over the year.

Their performance is only one small aspect when we consider grading. The other factors are the children's attitude to try everything, their sportsmanship skills in playing games, their sense of fair play and their participation skills of good listening, not arguing, following directions and trying their personal best in all activities presented. Many children have asthma and for those children, it is valuable in observing their ability, attitude and progress in performing this task and over the course of the year.

BMI levels of children are done at the school by the school nurse. We feel this too is an important indicator for you to use as a tool in managing your children's health. The BMI scale can provide you with a picture of where your child is at in this point of time. Realizing that BMI does not account for muscle mass, nor cardiovascular conditioning. Both of those factors, should be considered along with BMI score to give you a more balanced picture of your child.

Please feel to call or inquire about any concerns, questions that you may have and we look forward to working with the children over the year.

We need sneakers!!!!

We have many children who come to physical education class without sneakers due to family budget constraints. Participation in physical education is thus affected and children cannot do their best without the proper foot ware.

If you have used children's sneakers that still have some life to them would you please consider donating them to our school to benefit our children. If you are in the position of purchasing or donating new sneakers that too would be terrific for "our kids".

Thanks so much for your consideration.

Bob and Kevin
Physical Education Staff @ Ezra Baker School

Do YOU Believe in ME!

This video was popular last year but very worth showing again! In Physical Education, we believe in every child's potential to reach healthy goals for a life time practice of good health strategies!

Mom's (Parents) believe in your kids!

The link to the You Tube video "Imagine" is truly inspirational! The power of your believing in your children knows no bounds! With all of the pessimism in today's world, this message can brighten your day!
Enjoy!

Avoid sports injuries!

For a healthy body and mind, "play — free play — is as important as competitive sports."

The new article provides some good reminders on not overdoing physical activity in a single sport!
Check it out!

Welcome Kevin Raudonaitis!!!!!

It is with great joy and enthusiasm that the Ezra Baker Community welcomes Kevin as the new Physical Education teacher replacing Cathie Smith.

Kevin brings a youthful freshness to our physical education program which will professionally enhance and excite all of the children and adults that will be working with him this fall.

I'm sure at some point soon, once he officially starts, that Kevin will post some information about his experience and hopes for this coming year.

The few times that I have met Kevin and talked with him have been a joy. He is dedicated and enjoyable professional who will contribute greatly to our school community.

Again, welcome Kevin and I look forward to creating many terrific classes for our school population.

Bob

Cathie Smith, Physical Educator extraordinaire is retiring!

Cathie Smith, Physical Educator extraordinaire is retiring!

On Wed. June 22, Cathie will teach her last physical education class at the
Ezra H. Baker Elementary School in Dennis, MA. After 25 years of being a Physical Education professional and teacher who cares for all her students, and who has been such a great motivator and wonderful role model, has decided that it’s her time to say goodbye and pass on the torch to spend more time with her family.

To say that Cathie will be missed is such an understatement! She cares about children’s physical and emotional development, and is such a positive motivator who instills within the children that she works with a belief in self that all is possible. For Cathie, it was always about the children having fun while getting fit and developing a life long love for active movement and a healthy life style.

I know you will all join me in saying goodbye and any personal notes can be sent to this blog and will be delivered to her.
We will all miss her, and I will miss her friendship and council!

Happy Retirement Cathie!!!!!! A Community Thanks YOU!
Bob

An Oprah moment that speaks to us all!

As a teacher, I think this message has a special significance when we teach to the subject but forget about the heart and how do we make each child feel that they are special!

"One of Oprah's favorite lessons comes from Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison and the question she asked of all parents: When your child walks in the room, does your face light up?

"When my children used to walk in the room, when they were little, I looked at them to see if they had buckled their trousers or if their hair was combed or if their socks were up," she told Oprah in 2000.

"You think your affection and your deep love is on display because you're caring for them. It's not.

When they see you, they see the critical face. But if you let your face speak what's in your heart...because when they walked in the room, I was glad to see them. It's just as small as that, you see."


Another "Oprah life lesson" reminds me as well to help teach children the "how to" in making changes that will make them better people!

Another Oprah Show lesson came in 1994 when actress Tracey Gold appeared on the show with Rudine—a woman who was battling severe anorexia. Tracey, who had overcome her own eating disorder, encouraged Rudine to take control of her health.

When Tracey told her to "make the little steps to fill your mind so that you can fight back," Rudine looked at her and said, "But how do you do it?"

Rudine lost her battle with anorexia in 1996, but to this day, Oprah says her question is still one of the most powerful things she's ever heard. "When I heard her say, 'But how? How do you do it?'—that was it for me. I realized that we can't just tell people what to do, but we have to offer the how," Oprah says. "That moment with Rudine forever changed the way I approached every show."

Temple of Doom! The Adventure....

Mrs. Smith created this adventure based on the Indiana Jones series and the Kids just love it. As a matter of fact, a former student returned to our school to volunteer and she recalled to Mrs. Smith how great of a memory she had of the Temple of Doom. So here are just some of the 9 adventures that must be accomplished without being stung by a scorpion, or falling into a river of piranha, or not being successful at swinging across the river of alligators or not surviving the Temple of Doom with all of the creatures in there!!! Ask your children about what they felt going thru this challenge!!!!!!

YOU DID IT!!! Jump Rope For Heart Huge Success!

This year fundraising total collected was $ 3640.35, surpassing last years total of approx, $2400.

Of the approx. 425 students at the Ezra Baker School 76 Children or roughly 18% of school voluntarily participated and raised money. All children who brought in any amount of money, regardless of their fundraising amount earned at least 2 prizes as a thank you for their efforts to try to do what they could do in this effort to raise money and awareness. But, all 425 children in the school, participated in their physical education class in the school’s week long Jump Rope For Heart activities involving 12 stations of varied fun activities focusing on a jumping theme.

We had 16 donations made “in memory of” which is very special. This fundraising effort promoted the discussion that we had hoped for among family members and a focus for reaching out to people to do the fundraising. We had one family report to us that it gave their daughter a chance to feel special in her effort to raise money for a loved family member who passed away due to heart problems, very special family time!
Because of YOU...The "Baker School" children and their families, along with this donation to the AHA, our school qualified for a $200 equipment voucher from the AHA, for the purchase of new equipment, which in return, will benefit the children at our School and our community, SO THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Cathie and Bob

Thanks to the kids and families!

It Takes Heart to be a Hero!

When you Jump Rope For Heart, you can help other kids - kids who have special hearts. Some kids have hearts that don't exactly work right. These kids need help from doctors and medicines to get better. And they need your help too! The money you raise will go to the American Heart Association to help pay for new medicines and treatments to be discovered.

Our school is excited to participate in Jump Rope For Heart and you are an important part of this special program. We will have fun and learn about your own heart - how it works and how to protect it! Together, with your classmates, we will increase awareness for heart disease and stroke in our communities and spread the word on steps that we can take to lead healthier and longer lives!

YOU + 1 jump rope = a BIG difference.

We will be adding up our totals this week and we are so pleased with what has come in so far, that with this economy, many families have found this fund raiser to be dear to them and have gone beyond anything we could have expected. What a great effort by a wonderful community!

We will post our totals later in week.
Best wishes with our appreciation.
The Staff!

Exercise and Calories

The Importance of Getting Kids to Be Active
By Vincent Iannelli, M.D., About.com Guide

Check out full article in LINKS section to the left!

Regular exercise is good for kids. It has been shown to help them build strong self-esteem, sleep better, have more energy, decrease anxiety, and decrease depression. And as most people know, along with a healthy diet, regular exercise is the best way to lose weight and prevent childhood obesity.

Since your child likely isn't going to be getting his exercise by running on a treadmill or using an exercise bike, it can be hard to always tell how many calories he is burning while exercising. Fortunately, it doesn't really matter, as long as your child is getting his 60 minutes or more of moderate physical activity each day and maintaining a healthy diet.

If your child is very active and is still gaining weight, you should likely look to his diet as the cause -- not his level of exercise.

Still, it can be helpful to understand how your child can burn more or fewer calories in different physical activities, such as:

•bicycling at 5 mph burns about 174 calories an hour
•jogging at 6 mph burns about 654 calories an hour
•playing recreational basketball burns about 450 calories an hour
•playing recreational volleyball burns about 274 calories an hour
•playing tennis (singles) burns about 450 calories an hour
•playing vigorous, touch football burns about 498 calories an hour
•roller skating at 9 mph burns about 384 calories an hour
•swimming burns about 288 calories an hour
•walking at 2 mph burns about 198 calories an hour

Keep in mind that these are estimates based on a person weighing 150 pounds. A child weighing less will burn fewer calories, even at the same level of activity. Also realize that a child riding his bike for an hour around the neighborhood with his friends is likely not going to keep up a 5 mph average speed, so he will likely burn even fewer calories. You can, however, use the above list to estimate how many calories your child burns and as a guide to which activities burn more calories.

Restoring Playtime For Children

This article in the Cape Cod Times is timely in that, MCAS testing is about to start and its easy to forget that unstructured play time is crucial!
Read the article in the LINKS section.

No time to weight: Experts offer tips on combating childhood obesity

By Susan Bloom. USA Today- 1-26-11

"Children who have one obese parent stand a 50% chance of being obese themselves. This risk rises to 80% if both parents are obese."

Simple changes can make a big difference when it comes to childhood obesity. And nutrition advocates say the way to combat it is one child at a time.
"Sadly, in many areas, access to nutritional foods is not as accessible as it is to fat foods," Dr. Paul Schwartzberg, program director for pediatric residency at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, said in regard to the contributing factors behind this trend. "It's difficult for people to make reasonable choices on food and portions in today's 'supersize' age, and people are often not educated on the concept of calories and how many calories certain foods contain."

Adria Magenheim, a Colts Neck, N.J.-based nutritionist, agrees that the food children consume is a key culprit.
"The amount of processed food, sugar and corn syrup that kids eat today amounts to nothing but empty calories, from a nutritional perspective," she said.
"Combine this with the popularity of sedentary activities such as television and video games," Schwartzberg said, "and we have a concern of epidemic proportion."
Schwartzberg also noted that a genetic component often comes into play, with estimates revealing that children who have one obese parent stand a 50% chance of being obese themselves. This risk rises to 80% if both parents are obese.

Time for a change
Schwartzberg is one of many who are striving to make a difference locally. As the medical director for the Neptune-based Let's Improve Fitness Together (LIFT) program, he regularly works with overweight and obese children and teens to help them establish more sound eating habits and activity levels.
The program teaches kids how to read food labels and calorie counts and promotes fun and easy ways to exercise both outside and indoors. The program also targets parents, who often need to be motivated and positively engaged themselves in order to lead their kids by example.
"The LIFT Program was developed to help instill positive lifestyle habits and to offer guidelines on what people could do on their own," Schwartzberg said.
Schwartzberg is not alone in his concern over childhood obesity trends or in his desire to help combat the issue. In Marlboro, N.J., Virginia McDonald, executive director of Turtle Creek Learning Academy, sees it as her school's obligation to help children and their parents make healthier choices.

"The statistics on childhood obesity require all of us to get our heads out of the sand. As a nation, we owe our kids better," she said.
A significant chunk of Turtle Creek's curriculum is devoted to lessons on physical activity, nutrition and healthy alternatives to the more fried, sugary and processed foods that tempt today's kids at every turn. McDonald regularly involves her 100-plus students, ages 2 through 6, in cooking demonstrations so they can participate in making and eating healthy snacks such as vegetables with hummus or fruit smoothies.

Schwartzberg offered a simple "5-3-2-1-0 Rule" to children and their parents struggling with weight issues: "Five servings of fruits and vegetables, three balanced meals with no snacking in between, a maximum of two hours of (TV or video games), one hour of exercise and zero sugary beverages or sweets per day. Even one little change that you can commit to can have a big impact."

http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/fitness/2011-01-26-tips-childhood-obesity_N.htm?csp=34news&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+usatoday-NewsTopStories+%28News+-+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.

Study: Physical activity can boost student performance

By Nanci Hellmich, USA TODAY

Going to PE class and recess can be a win-win situation for students.

Physical activity improves kids' fitness and lowers their risk of obesity. And now a government review of research shows that kids who take breaks from their class work to be physically active during the school day are often better able to concentrate on their school work and may do better on standardized tests.

EXPERTS: Recess improves student behavior

In many schools, physical education classes and recess have been squeezed out because of increasing educational demands and tough financial times.
"Some short-sighted people thought that cutting back on time spent on physical education to spend more time drilling for tests would improve test scores," says Howell Wechsler, director of the Division of Adolescent and School Health for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"But in fact there are a lot of studies that show that more time for PE and other physical activity help improve academic performance."
He and colleagues reviewed 50 studies that examined the effect of school-based physical activity on academic performance. Half of the findings showed positive associations; half showed no effect, but virtually none of the research showed any negative impact, Wechsler says.
Among the specific findings, released Wednesday:
•Recess can improve students' attention and concentration and ability to stay on task.
•Increased time in PE classes can help children's attention and concentration and achievement test scores.
•Short physical activity breaks of about 5 to 20 minutes in the classroom can improve attention span, classroom behavior and achievement tests scores.
•Participation in sports teams and physical activity clubs, often organized by the school and run outside of the regular day, can improve grade point average, school attachment, educational aspirations and the likelihood of graduation.

The government's physical activity guidelines recommend that children and teens do an hour or more of moderate-intensity to vigorous activity a day. The Institute of Medicine advises that at least 30 minutes, or about half the daily physical activity, be done during the school day.

"Only 17% of high school students are meeting the goal of 60 minutes a day," Wechsler says. "We still have a long way to go."

How can schools get kids to be more active without breaking their budgets?
"Recess and in-class physical activity breaks are not costly, and a number of schools have found ways to adjust their schedules so they can offer more time for physical education," he says. "They also can make arrangements with community-based programs to offer after-school physical activity programs."

Charlene Burgeson, executive director of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, a group of physical education and sports professionals, says, "Sometimes it doesn't take more money as much as more creativity and imagination."

In some communities across the country, parents and volunteers walk and bike with kids to school, she says.
"Recess supervisors can be trained to inspire active play. The physical education teacher can help classroom teachers design active breaks so kids get up and moving and are ready to learn."