My students need scooter boards, balls, stilts and other items for active play in order to complete our "1,000 Minutes" physical activity challenge designed to get children to choose to move.
My students are energetic, inquisitive and enthusiastic. They enjoy learning through hands-on experiences. This year, due to construction issues at our school, I share a classroom with another kindergarten teacher. We team teach a class of forty-seven children. Our students come from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and many are learning English as a second language. The majority of our students speak either Spanish or Punjabi at home.
Our school has a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) focus and our curriculum is hands-on and project based.
Our classroom is an active one where hands-on learning is the norm.
My Project
During this year's parent conferences, I was surprised to learn that the most frequent concern parents had was about our PE program. This year I have quite a few overweight students, and the parents are concerned about their children's health. We only have scheduled PE activities twice a week due to time restraints. This isn't enough time to make a real difference for children who are inactive during the rest of the school day and often at home as well. This project is designed to get children to choose to be active during the school day and at home.
This project will allow me to purchase PE equipment and timers so that children can complete a 1,000 minute "choose to move" challenge during which they attempt to log 1,000 minutes of physical activity by the end of the year.
The emphasis will be on encouraging children to choose to be active. This can occur during recess when items purchased through the project like scooter boards, soccer balls, footballs, basketballs, jump ropes, and stilts can help motivate children to be active. Children can "choose to move" during free time in the classroom using the American Heart Association's exercise iPad app: NFL Play 60 and using items purchased through the project such as wrist ribbons for dancing. Children can also choose to log minutes at home, "choosing to move" by walking, running or cycling instead of less active free-time options. Students will use timers, purchased through the project, to keep track of the minutes they log at school. Parents will be able to "send in" home minutes with children's returned homework packets each week. At the end of the year, those who have completed the 1,000 minute challenge will be recognized during kindergarten graduation.
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