Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Fall 2013 Fitness Testing

Students in Grades 3rd through 8th are completing their Fall Fitnessgram fitness testing.  We are testing students on cardiovascular fitness (PACER Test), upper body strength (push-ups), abdominal strength (curl-ups) and flexibility (sit & reach).  We are looking at the overall numbers to see how our school matches up against the national standards.  When we have these results I will be posting them - so stay tuned.  

Classfit Kids

We went to conference last week and came back with some excellent ideas.
Classfit Kids was one of my favorites.  Jay & Pete Driscoll are the creators of Classfit kids and presented to a large group of PE teachers.  The program is a 4 minute workout utilizing a form of interval training called Tabata.  Set to music, this program provides students the opportunity to perform movements for a time period of 20 vigorous seconds, followed by 10 seconds of rest for eight intervals.  

I'm excited to bring this program back to our school and share it with others.  It would be a perfect way for classroom teachers to take a movement break with their students right their in the classroom.    These movement breaks can reenergize students and make them better prepared to learn.



Link to Classfit Kids Website:   http://classfitkids.com/


YouTube Video of a Classfit Workout





Monday, November 11, 2013

Fitness Stations

Our students love the fitness station unit.

In small groups, students travel from one challenge to the next, working on different aspects of fitness for 3 minutes at a time.  We have stations which directly challenge balance, upper and lower body strength/power, core strength, flexibility, agility, speed, coordination, etc.

Some of the students favorite stations include; the traverse climbing wall, the climbing rope, the swinging rope, pogo sticks, slack line, indo board, bongo board and cuckoo cars.  Click on the picture to see more of our kids on action.