Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Think NOW about your fitness condition!

School is soon approaching and will be here before you know it! Now is the time to start thinking about your fitness level!

Here are some things for you to think about now:

Check your BMI level, so that you get an idea where you are now and then during the school year we will have you check yourself again! Remember this is only one tool for you to use and along with other check points, it will give you a picture of your health. Use the links on this blog site to help you!

Next, remember the 5-2-1 program and you should check yourself to see if you are eating 5 fruits/vegetables daily, 2 hrs or less of TV/Computer time and 1 hr. of daily physical activity!

Start looking now for sales on good running sneakers that give your feet good support!

Get physical now so that your body can get ready for running, sweating and conditioning those muscles! Don't wait to start moving in our physical education class because you will find it hard to play many of the games and learn many of the new skills that you will be learning.

So, enjoy the summer and make a comment on this blog site should you need any help or advice, I'll be checking this blog for questions!

Until we meet again, enjoy the summer!

Monday, June 15, 2009

It's time to say good bye.....

Well another school year is coming to an end and its amazing to witness just how much the children have developed their skills, cooperative spirit and sportsmanship. During the summer months, the children should continue to work on their fitness endurance and skills by playing outside with friends and also learn how to play cooperatively with their peers in games. By being respectful of each other they learn sportsmanship and thus important life long skills to get along with people and learn to be fit!
It's been a fun year with your children and we look forward to the summer and to the fall when we get to again work on continuing their fitness and skills progress and development.
Enjoy the web page links and look for new ones in the fall and we would love to hear from you, so leave a comment here and let us know whether this new web page has been helpful or enjoyable to you or other feelings that you have about this new way for us to connect!
Enjoy your family and the summer and see you in the fall!
Cathie and Bob

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Physical Education Chatter!!!!

Another report card sent home for you to review. We hope that you will look at the Physical Education section and review it with your child in terms of how they did this term. During this period we accomplished the following: we completed the 100th day activity which was comprised of 12 fun filled stations, each with their own challenge; numerous games stressing sportsmanship, gamesmanship, throwing and some dancing as well (cha cha slide, macarena, chicken dance, and Mexican hat dance). Mission Impossible was a big week in which 12 different challenges were set up for the kids to accomplish as "secret agents".
Jump Rope for Heart was the main feature of our efforts this month. Children learned about the meaning of helping to raise money for the Heart Fund cause, while having fun and earning some rewards for their efforts. The whole school benefitted by the talk and by the fun week of activities that the children participated in during their physical education time. The children did a commendable job raising an amazing amount of money:

$4174 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Given the nature of this economy, it is heart warming to see that people will do their best and contribute when they can to a cause that is dear to their heart. Thanks to everyone, all of those dollar donations really added up which propelled us up to reach this level of fundraising, our sincere thanks.
We all look forward to the final weeks of school as the children prepare for and participate in all of the special activities approaching! Enjoy every day of their journey through life as it all passes much too quickly!

Best Wishes from the staff!

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

BMI

With the recent passage of this legislation regarding schools being required by 2010 to complete BMI levels for all children, parents may be wondering about this scale and its implications. Follow the link on this page to help you to better understand how this is but a tool in helping families to get help in finding strategies that will help children to develop a healthy nutritional approach combined with an active lifestyle for good health! Body Mass Index scales are a helpful tool in a families efforts to inquire about body weight and thus use the information as a starting point for further discussions with professionals. Let's use all of these tools to make good choices for "our" kids.

NEW! Objective Data to consider! The reason to pay attention to BMI.

What are the health consequences of overweight and obesity for adults?
The BMI ranges are based on the relationship between body weight and disease and death. Overweight and obese individuals are at increased risk for many diseases and health conditions, including the following:
Hypertension
Dyslipidemia (for example, high LDL cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol, or high levels of triglycerides)
Type 2 diabetes
Coronary heart disease
Stroke
Gallbladder disease
Osteoarthritis
Sleep apnea and respiratory problems
Some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon)

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Children hear about and feel our pain.......

The Jump Rope For Heart pamphlets have all been sent home and within the physical education class we have talked about this fundraising effort. During each class we talked about the spirit of fundraising, the nature of heart disease in language that they, hopefully, might understand and discussed the"how to" of doing the fundraising. We emphasized safety in asking only family and close friends and helped them to understand that not all people can give money for many of their own personal reasons. We have highlighted our appreciation of their effort and willingness to try to help in this worthy effort.

As we discussed these issues with each class, the children asked questions and/or shared stories about their families medical experience with heart problems. Some students talked about their own personal heart problem, which makes us, as teachers, feel privileged to have been trusted by these students t0 talk about their personal situation.

But, over the past week we have also been asked about the heartbreaking nature of students thinking about their home life and asking if, "they could keep the money collected because their family needs money for a broken down car, for food or other things." As you can well imagine, the children hear about the economic strains impacting their family and carry those "feelings" and emotions to school. Within the physical education class, there are numerous "teachable moments" to help children learn about their developing self concept and this certainly was worthy of our time and discussion. As we addressed this emotional question, we focused on the type of person that they wanted to become as they grow up in life and that people respect them for their honesty, trustworthyness, and having good character. The fact that their families need money, we explained could be helped in many other ways and that taking money in the name of this charity was not the way to help their family.

We always debate whether we want to do a fundraising activity every year, but its opportunities like this that make us feel that it is a worthy effort, for not only the American Heart Association, but also, a special time for us, as teachers, to help children to explore and develop their own sense of values as they try to understand difficult issues.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Jump Rope For Heart....Coming

The Jump Rope For Heart link provides allot of information about this program that we will commence in March at our school.

Please feel free to contact the P.E staff should you have any questions. Thanks so much for your continued support.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

March Madness !

Well, as March roars in with a winter storm, we look back over what the kids did in the month of Feb. Our big unit on bowling was allot of fun, make sure to ask you child how they did in the competition among their grades. Unfortunately, there can only be one winner per grade but it sure generated allot of excitement and team work in the class effort to knock down as many total pins as possible. We also had a unit on 12 circuit training stations, each different and hopefully fun and challenging for the children.

March madness time is a fun time to pick our favorite college basketball teams (Go B.C.), which hopefully the children will learn to appreciate. They can learn geography as they learn about where the college teams are located and can perform math computations in looking at scores and points won and lost by, along with learning about how brackets work!

During our physical education time this month we are planning to set up a "Mission Impossible" circuit, with each station presenting varying sets of challenges! We also will begin our annual fundraiser with Jump Rope For Heart, which the children learn about the spirit of fundraising and illness in peoples life. Given the state of the economy, we are very conscious of the hardships that exist locally in our school but we feel going through the fundraising process to heighten awareness is an important learning tool for our children. Over the years, many of the children have felt comfortable and shared their own families personal medical stories and we, as staff, feel good about the fact that the children feel comfortable with us to talk about their families situations. Our message to the children is that not all families can give and whatever they can do to ask for donations is an important lesson for them to learn. We always have fun and the children look forward to the activity stations and the potential to earn prizes for raising money.

Again, we hope that you will talk with your child about their days activity in physical education, what they learned and had fun doing and we hope that their time with us will serve as a source of motivation to develop an active and healthy life style!