Help me give my students these items to start our Wellness Room as a functional space for physical education and mindfulness practices. These items will serve as the beginning equipment to start our Wellness Room.
I teach elementary physical education to students on Staten Island in grades K-5. I teach approximately 800-900 students. My students are what I love most about my job. They are full of energy and eager to learn. Sometimes I might be having a rough day but my students never cease to make me smile. They are kind, considerate, and team players. I can't truly describe how much happiness they bring me on a daily basis and I am lucky enough that I get to see them learn, grow and become physically literate individuals. They love having fun, being active, and always give me their best effort.
Despite not always having a gymnasium to teach physical education in, they always have the best attitude and make it work no matter what alternative location they have to have class in.
They are the best and I am so lucky to be their teacher.
My Project
I am advocating for my students to get a Wellness Room. In this space students will be able to demonstrate mindfulness practices and also improve their overall physical fitness. Currently my students are learning about goal setting and ways to improve their cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility. Presently, most classes are held in a gymnasium that is about half the size of a standard gymnasium and with two classes combined, totaling approximately 60 students at once. Due to the limited space, students are not getting the recommended minutes of physical education nor are they getting the best workouts possible during their physical education class.
Creating a Wellness Room and secondary space for physical education would hopefully improve Fitness scores on the NYC fitnessgram assessment as well and improve student self confidence, increase enjoyment from physical activity, and improve overall health.
Having a Wellness Room that allows for smaller class sizes would enable students to take part in more mindfulness practices. Through practicing mindfulness, students should experience, decreased stress, exhibit greater pro-social behaviors, improve emotional regulation and academic performance.
These basic materials would help to start our Wellness Room and start improving student's overall health. To start my Wellness Room I am asking for fitness equipment to help students to improve their overall health. This should also help to improve Fitnessgram scores. The resistance bands and weighted bars will help build strength during fitness stations. The nutrition baskets will be used when discussing nutrition and the role that nutrition plays when aiming to live a healthy life style. The "move cubes" will be utilized during various mindfulness activities in the wellness room and allow me to change the directions on the cube as many times as needed to fit the lesson objective.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Ms. DiCapua and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
