Help me give my students equipment for a fun exercise club! This will allow students who need a little extra movement the opportunity to participate in some active and healthy fun during our school day.
Our school is in a very rural part of eastern NC. I teach in a middle school, where all 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students have one enhancement class daily. We operate on an A/B schedule, meaning I see my classes every other day. My students love PE! They will ask often to come to my class even if they're scheduled for another class.
Due to our poor rural area, there are no fitness centers or gyms when my students or families can go to exercise.
Many of my students have parents who work, so when they get home they must stay inside and can't run around and play. To make matters worse, we recently lost 2.5 enhancement teacher positions, putting some of my class sizes at 37, 36, and 35 students per class. Due to other staff reductions over the past ten years, some of my students don't even get PE classes on a regular basis. I'd love to start a club to provide both the time and a variety of fun athletic equipment that will make it easy to encourage kids to become more physically active.
My Project
"Club Exercise" will be a student-driven club that will provide students the opportunity to participate in a variety of healthy and fun activities. Few of our students get the opportunity to go to a gym because we don't have on in our community and most parents can't afford to purchase exercise equipment for their homes. Sadly, for most of our students, there is no place other than school for essential physical activity. Thanks to state budget cuts over the past few years, many kids don't even get regular access to PE classes at school as I am the only PE teacher for around 400 students.
Our students like to be active and for most the choices are limited to participating in physical education class or playing sports.
After school sports aren't even an option for some students as they don't have reliable transportation besides buses to get to and from school. Additionally, many students must care for younger siblings after school while their parents work. Club Exercise will be a great way to squeeze some extra physical activity in the regular school day for students who may not get any other opportunity. This equipment will help to supplement some of the other team sports activities we have for the club, giving students the option to work on various fitness goals in addition to team sports. This will also be a great way for our school athletes to enhance their performance by learning how to properly train and condition since there are no facilities for that in our area.
We not only want our students to have fun but learn healthy habits that they can carry with them into adulthood. I believe that making exercise a fun, social activity will help do just that.
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