Wednesday, October 28, 2009

October P.E. Update

The weather is changing and the children are becoming more comfortable in the P.E. Classes. We continue to work on class behavior, peer respect during games and good sportsmanship, as these skills don't always come easily and most often, must be learned during real activity experiences.
This month has focused on finishing our soccer unit and playing games using their imagination and creativity, but all within a game format with rules. The children love to use their imagination and become aliens, blobs, patriots and ghouls!
Our Fall extravaganza includes 12 stations, each station sure to excite the young at heart (and allot of fun for us to create!). The children enjoy a few minutes at each station performing the task at hand and pretend, as an example, that a station might be a rope ride or perhaps a witches broom ride or a rocket ship ride, but regardless, the end result is a broad happy smile across their face! The stations are never long enough!
Make sure to ask your child about the P.E. stations and look forward to our November themes, so stay tuned to find out just where we go from here!
This is such a fun time of year to be outdoors and moving about, so bundle up and enjoy your child , get your mind off of all of the daily stressors and enjoy every minute of this special time in thier lives!

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Let Them Be Little......

This YouTube video has a special message and hope that with all of the daily stressors in life and pressures that we all learn to take time to enjoy our children now!
Hope you enjoy.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

September P.E. Update!

A new school year has begun and the children have high expectation to learn and have fun in our Physical Education classes.

Through September we have focused on sharing their excitement, while integrating P.E. class rules for behavior, sportsmanship, class attitude, and how we can promote mutual respect for one another.

The activities presented to the children have focused on: cooperative games and working together; getting to know classmates; beginning soccer skills such as dribbling, trapping, controlling the dribble; and various tag games, as well as Bandit and Uninterrupted games.

These initial days are critical in having the children learn class rules and playing together in a respectful way. This foundation will serve as an important guideline in helping your child get the most time on learning and participation.

Friday, September 18, 2009

Do You Believe in me?

This You Tube video is inspirational and the message is clear and worth listening to as parents and professionals and for that matter.....anyone who values the concept that we all have something special to offer to the world!

We believe in your children and the Physical Education Program always stresses that the children Do Their Best!!!!! Because we know that with time, that each child will find their own measure of success in which they can feel proud of accomplishing some task. We hope that with our guidance and support that they truly do learn to ....Believe in themselves!

Enjoy!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Obesity discussion! From Kids Source (see link)

The Problem of Obesity
Not all obese infants become obese children, and not all obese children become obese adults. However, the prevalence of obesity increases with age among both males and females (Lohman, 1987), and there is a greater likelihood that obesity beginning even in early childhood will persist through the life span (Epstein, Wing, Koeske, & Valoski, 1987).

Obesity presents numerous problems for the child. In addition to increasing the risk of obesity in adulthood, childhood obesity is the leading cause of pediatric hypertension, is associated with Type II diabetes mellitus, increases the risk of coronary heart disease, increases stress on the weight-bearing joints, lowers self-esteem, and affects relationships with peers. Some authorities feel that social and psychological problems are the most significant consequences of obesity in children.


Causes of Childhood Obesity
As with adult-onset obesity, childhood obesity has multiple causes centering around an imbalance between energy in (calories obtained from food) and energy out (calories expended in the basal metabolic rate and physical activity). Childhood obesity most likely results from an interaction of nutritional, psychological, familial, and physiological factors.

The Family
The risk of becoming obese is greatest among children who have two obese parents (Dietz, 1983). This may be due to powerful genetic factors or to parental modeling of both eating and exercise behaviors, indirectly affecting the child's energy balance. One half of parents of elementary school children never exercise vigorously (Ross & Pate, 1987).

Low-energy Expenditure
The average American child spends several hours each day watching television; time which in previous years might have been devoted to physical pursuits. Obesity is greater among children and adolescents who frequently watch television (Dietz & Gortmaker, 1985), not only because little energy is expended while viewing but also because of concurrent consumption of high-calorie snacks. Only about one-third of elementary children have daily physical education, and fewer than one-fifth have extracurricular physical activity programs at their schools (Ross & Pate, 1987).

Heredity
Since not all children who eat non-nutritious foods, watch several hours of television daily, and are relatively inactive develop obesity, the search continues for alternative causes. Heredity has recently been shown to influence fatness, regional fat distribution, and response to overfeeding (Bouchard et al., 1990). In addition, infants born to overweight mothers have been found to be less active and to gain more weight by age three months when compared with infants of normal weight mothers, suggesting a possible inborn drive to conserve energy (Roberts, Savage, Coward, Chew, & Lucas, 1988).


Treatment of Childhood Obesity


Obesity treatment programs for children and adolescents rarely have weight loss as a goal. Rather, the aim is to slow or halt weight gain so the child will grow into his or her body weight over a period of months to years. Dietz (1983) estimates that for every 20 percent excess of ideal body weight, the child will need one and one-half years of weight maintenance to attain ideal body weight.
Early and appropriate intervention is particularly valuable. There is considerable evidence that childhood eating and exercise habits are more easily modified than adult habits (Wolf, Cohen, Rosenfeld, 1985). Three forms of intervention include:

Physical Activity
Adopting a formal exercise program, or simply becoming more active, is valuable to burn fat, increase energy expenditure, and maintain lost weight. Most studies of children have not shown exercise to be a successful strategy for weight loss unless coupled with another intervention, such as nutrition education or behavior modification (Wolf et al., 1985). However, exercise has additional health benefits. Even when children's body weight and fatness did not change following 50 minutes of aerobic exercise three times per week, blood lipid profiles and blood pressure did improve (Becque, Katch, Rocchini, Marks, & Moorehead, 1988).

Diet Management
Fasting or extreme caloric restriction is not advisable for children. Not only is this approach psychologically stressful, but it may adversely affect growth and the child's perception of "normal" eating. Balanced diets with moderate caloric restriction, especially reduced dietary fat, have been used successfully in treating obesity (Dietz, 1983). Nutrition education may be necessary. Diet management coupled with exercise is an effective treatment for childhood obesity (Wolf et al., 1985).

Behavior Modification
Many behavioral strategies used with adults have been successfully applied to children and adolescents: self-monitoring and recording food intake and physical activity, slowing the rate of eating, limiting the time and place of eating, and using rewards and incentives for desirable behaviors. Particularly effective are behaviorally based treatments that include parents (Epstein et al., 1987). Graves, Meyers, and Clark (1988) used problem-solving exercises in a parent-child behavioral program and found children in the problem-solving group, but not those in the behavioral treatment-only group, significantly reduced percent overweight and maintained reduced weight for six months. Problem-solving training involved identifying possible weight-control problems and, as a group, discussing solutions.

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