Thursday, April 26, 2012

Upcoming activities for students and their families:

*May 6 Family Field Day-We invite all of our MLS families to come out and enjoy an afternoon of fun-filled events, field day style!  Come out and experience Capture the Flag, Catapult, and much more.  This is a free event and the PTO will provide smoothies for everyone!  Email Scott or Andrew for more details.

*May 7-11  Family and Friends to PE Week- Bring your family and friends to let them join in on the experience of PE at MLS.  Our first open house earlier in the year brought us 138 visitors, an all-time record!  Come get a great workout, some awesome fun, and rock to some great music as you earn a day off from your regular workout at the gym!


Friday, April 13, 2012

Summer Camp, Upcoming Events, Student Creations, and more!

The school year is winding down and that means many awesome PE activities are on the horizon.  First, the summer camp dates are out and we have two MLS camps upcoming.  The new name of the camps is Camp 4Real: Real Fun, Real Food, Real Active, Real AWESOME!  Click here for the flyer so you can register! The MLS Camp 4Real dates are June 18-22 and July 30-August 3.  For our campers from last year, the camp will be very similar, but BETTER!  We have increased the camp day by 30 minutes.  This will provide much more time for activity, nutrition discussion and experiments, and character-building activities.  Be sure to look for Camp 4Real dates at other ACPS schools as well such as Brownsville (July16-20) and Hollymead (August 6-10) if you want to make some friends from other parts of the county!

MLS PE will also start our second year of Jogs for Dogs PE service project in cooperation with the CASPCA.  If your 2nd-5th grader is interested, please click here to find an orientation that works for you, as an adult must accompany the animals at all time and must be certified.  The training takes approximately 90 minutes.  Our first visit is planned for May 3, so please email swilliams@k12albemarle.org if you have any questions or to notify me when you complete the training.

Our 5th grade PE service project in cooperation with The Senior Center will continue this month with two activities.  The first is a project open to any 5th grader interested in a special opportunity in which we will take our healthy habits to a senior in our neighborhood!  Our participating students will receive a "kebob package" in which they can take to a senior friend in the neighborhood and make fruit kebobs!  This fun outreach program will be great for spreading healthy habits and building community.  An email will be sent out to 5th grade families in the next few days detailing the project.

In addition to the kebob project, we will be taking a group of 8-10 5th graders to the Senior Center on Monday, April 30 to teach our senior friends some fun brain-building activities and socialization.  A sign-up sheet will be posted in the gym today for interested the graders.  First-time participants have first priority, as many of our past participants really want to go again!

The PE activities do not stop there as we will have Early Bird PE AND Teachers to Warm-up Week April 23-27!  Doors open at 7:30 for early morning activity and classroom teachers are invited to join us for our warm-ups the entire week.  Sunday May 6 will be our first annual Family Field Day where you can bring out the entire family for an afternoon of great exercise and great food, as the Whole Foods truck will make an appearance!  Lastly, May 7-11 is another big week as it will be our second installment of Family and Friends to PE Week.  Please spread the word and come join in the fun of MLS PE!

We want to leave you with some great student creation videos, one from our upper-body strength routines from earlier in the year and one from our recent jump band unit.  Our students love to show their cooperative skills, confidence, and creativity in these confidence-building and extremely active displays!