Family Field Day is a Hit!

On Sunday May 6th we hosted our first MLS Family Field Day. What a turnout! We had nearly 120 students and parents join in on the fun. Groups were divided up by clusters with K-1, 2-3, and 4-5 grades grouped together. Games included capture the flag, birdcage, various tug o war games, rainbow run, catapult and mangos and melons. It was a great time seeing all the parents joining in with their child(ren) and playing. Lots of smiles all around.

                                                        

                                            

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Remember that this week is family and friends to PE week. Come join in (or watch) your child and experience first hand of the fun of PE at MLS.

This week is the last week for sign ups for MLS summer PE camp. Check out camp4real.com to print off the registration form and send it back to Scott Williams.

*in effort to reduce our consumption of paper we will not be sending home registration forms for the camp. Please check the website.

Baseball, Capture the Flag, and other awesome MLS PE games!

   Check out a few of our older kids participating in the baseball unit as well as younger kids playing a version of capture the flag and other fun activities!   (click on pic to enlarge)                     

             

                 

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!

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!

2nd Quarter Update

This quarter was a busy one in PE but also very fun and productive. In December all students participated in our annual Health Fair. It was a great success as the students not only learned about nutrition but also about other healthy concepts such as proper amounts of sleep and how it helps our bodies prevent illness. They also got to experience zumba, judo, and yoga, three great activities that keep bodies active and fit.

In December we also had our school wide sport stacking tournament. The tournament is open to every student who wants to compete in grades 3-5.  We also invite a few primary stackers as well.  A record 138 stackers participated!  The kids had a great time, but more importantly, exhibited great sportsmanship.  We feel it is very important for our students to learn how to act during competitive activities.

Our 5^th graders have been spending one afternoon a month at the Senior Center showing the residents how to sport stack and other brain exercises that challenge cognitive skills. The residents really appreciate the students spending time with them and the students get an opportunity to understand the importance of serving within the community.

The next service project coming up will be Jogs for Dogs. This is a project that allows grades 2-5 the opportunity to take the dogs from the SPCA for walks. Be on the lookout for more information in a few weeks!

On Jan 31, our fifth graders performed an awesome halftime dance at the Western Albemarle basketball game. The dance was open to all 5^th graders and we were ecstatic that eighty percent of the entire grade wanted to participate. They did a great job and we all had a blast preparing for it!

We would like to announce our upcoming plans for the second semester. Be looking for our next installments of both Early Bird PE (we will open the gym at 7:30 am) and Family and Friends to PE coming in the spring.  Jump Rope for Heart is also coming up towards the end of February.

The Enrichment Zone classes continue to be a success for us. We just finished up our “Pre-Zone” session of “Girls just want to have fun”. We are now in full swing with the first sessions of this semesters ezone. Right now students are doing hip hop, sport stacking and basketball. It is not too late to sign up for the second session classes of Marvelous Mondays and Terrific Tuesdays.

Health Fair HUGE Success!

Our 3rd Annual Health and Fitness Fair was held yesterday and it was a blast!  So many people to thank in putting on a great show!  We had over 20 parent volunteers, a TON of help from my 5th grade girls, and great ideas from Health and Fitness Fair teammates Susan Howard-Smith and Betsy Bell.  But all the credit must be given to our presenters, as they were unbelievable.

Judo (3rd-5th): Sensei Gene Shin put on a fantastic show with our 3-5 students in the gym.  The students loved it!  A quick demo was followed by some entertaining warm-ups, then on to the judo, which was fantastic!  Our kids wanted to go back and do a second session!  I know we will have some new members at SSJ Judo in Charlottesville after this great session.  Please visit www.ssjjudo.com for more information.

Zumba: Offered back-to-back with Judo, it made for the most entertaining 30 minutes of the students' day!  Greta Giffen was amazing with great moves and music that had students, teachers, principals, and parent volunteers dancing, sweating, and most importantly, smiling!  I don't know how she presented for 5 hours with only a short break for lunch, but she managed to be just as energetic and enthusiastic with the last group at 2:00 as she was the first one at 8:30 in the morning!  Maybe we all should take more Zumba!

Whole Foods: Kristen Rabourdin and Tara from Whole Foods made some awesome Double Green Smoothies that featured so many healthy and organic or all-natural ingredients, including kale, spinach, bananas, soy milk, and more!  We will be sure to post the recipe as soon as possible, because the kids loved it!  Kristen spoke about the importance of healthy choices, eating WAY more than the recommended five fruits and veggies a day, and staying away from those AWFUL artificial ingredients!  Kristen was very impressed with the knowledge of our great MLS students on how to stay healthy and maintain really strong immune systems.  Other schools/organizations should get Kristen out to their students, as she is a valuable resource to the community.

Yoga:  MLS parent sensations Brooke Donovan (3rd-5th) and Meg Janucik (K-2nd) were awesome in leading our yoga stations!  MLS students were able to experience a calm and relaxing session while improving their flexibility, balance, strength, coordination, and more!  We are very lucky to have such talented parents at MLS who are so willing to volunteer their time to help enrich the lives of our students.  Thanks to these awesome parents who led their yoga stations for an entire session!

Energy In, Energy Out:  Not only did our students get to learn how to balance the food they eat (energy in) with their daily physical activity (energy out), but they also had a healthy snack of veggies and hummus.  Thanks to our cafeteria manager Ms. Tichner and her crew for leading this station.

JUMP! (2nd-5th): Another fantastic station thanks to Barbara Yager and the folks at Community Action on Obesity (CAO) as they provided a grant that enabled us to purchase great equipment that will benefit MLS PE students for years to come.  While rocking out in the library to our activity break videos, students jumped away on our new equipment that included saturn balls, skip-its, and challenged themselves with adjustable lateral bar jumps.  Thanks Barb and CAO!

Total Body Workout: Thanks to Barb and CAO again as another awesome station was provided by grant funds.  MLS PE students worked their entire body by jumping on the mini-rebounders (lower body), balancing our our new balance boards (balance/core), and used exercise balls (core/upper body) and exercise bands (total body).  All students enjoyed the new equipment while rocking out to our favorite MLS PE tunes on the stage!

Hand Washing:  An all-time favorite of the MLS Health and Nutrition Fair as Ms. Howard-Smith broke out the Glo Germ Kit to show our students the effectiveness of their hand washing techniques.

Blue Ridge Poison Control:  There are many unsafe household items that closely resemble foods that we may find in our homes as well, so the Blue Ridge Poison Control is a great place to go to learn about the subject. 

Germ Tag (K-2nd):  An awesome game we play in PE that reinforces the best ways to keep our immune systems healthy so we do not have to go to the doctors and take medicine.  Here is a link to the game if you wish to play it with your class:   http://bit.ly/sFD1kH

The Importance of Sleep:  Last but not least, Dr. Chris Winter was AWESOME and shared many reasons why sleep is important, how much we should try to get, and told us ways we could improve our sleep!  MLS PE students know that sleep is an important part of keeping our immune systems nice and strong, and Dr. Winter was nice enough to share his entire day with us as well as his vast knowledge on the subject.

Hopefully this will help other PE teachers if they wish to start their own Health Fair.  It was a great collaboration between the school nurse, guidance counselor, cafeteria manager, health professionals in our community, and the PE Dept.  Everything was carefully planned to include different fitness disciplines, at least 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise, the healthiest of snacks (no dairy or artificial ingredients), and interesting/informative topics that will help our students be healthy and stay healthy!


  

MLS Fitness and Nutrition Fair Coming December 9! Volunteers Needed!

Ms Howard-Smith's famous glow germ station

YOGA!

With Family and Friends to PE Week coming to a close tomorrow along with our group cups order orde(http://www.speedstacks.com/group_orders/students.php), we turn our attention to our next venture, the Third Annual MLS Health and Nutrition Fair!  Next Friday, December 9, our students will get to experience 150 minutes of enriching and informative health and fitness-based stations!  Ms. Tichner will provide veggies and all-natural hummus, while Whole Foods will show how to make (and share!) healthy green smoothies.  Health professionals will discuss the importance of both poison control and sleep.   Of course,  it wouldn't be a health fair without Ms. Howard-Smith's famous glo-germ hand washing station, a student favorite!  Our fitness stations will include Zumba, Yoga, Judo, and Hip Hop.  And, for the second year in a row, our final station will be some intense and fun exercise with the new PE equipment purchased with the funds received from a generous grant from Community Action on Obesity (CAO)!  Many thanks to Barbara Yager and the crew from CAO for the work they do in making our community a healthier one!

Nutrition Ball

With ten stations going on at once, we could really use some help from our awesome parent volunteers!  We have two sessions, the 3rd-5th grade at 8:30-11:00 and the K-2 from 11:30-2:00.  If you can help,  please email me at swilliams@k12albemarle.org with the times you are available to help.

Thanks as always for your support of MLS PE!