Parents,
It has been very nice to see and feel the thaw from the winter... although it was VERY FUN practicing with my son's (Ryan) U9 soccer team (Worthington United 94) along with Liberty students Caden Johnson, Darius Givens, Nathan Goleb, Will Pope, Kyle Hayes and Carson Ware in the snow on Monday! SPRING SNOW SOCCER We have so many things going on here at Liberty!
As always, please email if you have any questions or FUN stories to share. Mr. Smith BIKING UPDATE (for those that have asked): I hit 127 days (508 miles) of biking today - my goal is 150 for the year. I have realized this week that the heat is OK, snow is OK, arctic tundra is OK, but rain and thunderstorms... well, not so fun.
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On Thursday evening (January 29) from 6:30-8:30 the PTA is sponsoring a Wellness Night here at Liberty. There will be kids/adults fitness classes, kids/adults dance classes, a healthy chef, other wellness representatives, and the BIG climbing wall will be open (climbing for grades 3rd-6th students from 6:30-7:30). Join us for a FUN night of learning ways to stay active and healthy. February will be our annual Heart Month. We will participate in Jump Rope/ Hoops for Heart to: get active, learn how to keep our hearts strong and healthy, and to raise money for the American Heart Association; we'll also see where our cardiovascular endurance level is through the Fitnessgram Pacer assessment, and to HAVE fun moving and learning. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me at [email protected]. Mr. Smith *It's been FUN to see some of you on my bike rides to and home from school. Please wave! I thoroughly enjoy the time. I am on Day 91 (364 milies) for this school year and am closing in on 250 days (and 1000 miles) since I started keeping track last year. Parents, I hope your November is rolling along well! I recently had a chance to enjoy a Sunday late morning with my family. We headed over to one of our favorite sports in Columbus - Highbanks. We hiked down by the river and came across this really cool natural play area. It reminded me of just going into the woods as a child and building forts, climbing trees, exploring, etc. Check it out sometime - and sooner than later the snow will be down for the GREAT sledding hill there. http://www.metroparks.net/NaturalPlayAreas.aspx Walk and Bike to School is MOVING along. I passed Mrs. Antonelli on her 6th day of walking to school this year! INCREDIBLE!!!! I think it's more than 3 miles EACH WAY. It's so cool to see staff, students, and parents participating. Thanks to Regan Versele in continuing to lead the charge in motivating students with cool tokens!! RESPONSIBILITY Mrs. Freer's 6th Grade class was the first to 10 shoes this year. Each time EVERY student in a class wears their active shoes to wellness class, they earn a shoe (and get to design it with some cool colors). The first class to 10 each quarter earns a HEALTHY PRIZE, Mrs. Freer's class chose a Smoothie Celebration at lunch - and created their own recipe. Their smoothies will be blended THIS Friday!! GRIT We have talked a lot about GRIT in the first quarter of the year. We defined GRIT as the 'ability to KEEP GOING even when there is an obstacle in front of you or even when you are tired'. While we talk a lot about GRIT during fitness in class ("get GRITTY"), we have had some good discussions how GRIT relates to EVERYTHING we do and the incredible outcomes when we KEEP GOING. This has provided some nice dinner table talks at our home this quarter as well:) ADVENTURE UNIT The Adventure Unit (climbing, zipping, swinging, ripsticking, etc.) is being set up tomorrow after school. This is a very engaging unit that focuses the students on: challenging themselves in a safe environment (taking RISKS knowing they will be safe if they TRY) and encouraging others to be their best (using words to help others be BRAVE). It's also a great, FUN way to work on balance, core strength, and upper body strength and endurance. Students must wear socks (as well as their active shoes:)) to school during this unit to participate. ARCHERY will be set up again at the end of February 2015. If interested, there will be an archery meet THIS weekend at Thomas Worthington. Click here for more info: http://worthingtonarchery.com/ That's all for now. I hope to see many of you in the gym on Liberty Reading Night! Mr. Smith **As always don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or concerns - [email protected] Parents, I have heard so many great student stories of running through mud, over obstacles, showing GRIT making it through the entire 1 mile!, laughing with friends, and much more at this year's Warrior Wellness Run (Mile of Mayhem) at Granby Elementary. The excitement on their faces was very FUN to see at school this week. Unfortunately this was the first year I missed the event. I am in the midst of putting together a video of the "Mile of Mayhem" I participated in during a wedding weekend in Palmetto Bluff (Bluffton), SC - I told the students I couldn't miss out on the event here in Worthington even while being out of state (think alligators, snakes, water, bikes, etc.). Our fearless fourth grade teachers (see their cool picture with students here) once again braved the elements to become Wellness Warriors! It is so cool to see staff involved in these activities with our students! There is another COOL race coming up at Colonial Hills in Worthington - the Spiral Mile on Thursday, November 6! Pre-registration is encouraged for this run, but walk-up registrations are welcome on race day. Registration will begin at 3:00pm and the first staggered start will begin at 3:30pm. This run is for all Worthington School District Elementary School runners. To preregister, go to http://www.worthington.k12.oh.us/Page/1502. This Saturday, October 4th at Granby there is a very cool event - "Take a Kid Mountain Biking Day" at their AWESOME bike park. This is a place my two sons and I frequent as it's a short ride away from our house-it's FUN. Check it out: Grades K-2; 5-7pm. Let's host an event here at Liberty: I am very interested in once again hosting a BEAT WINTER 1 Mile snow race here at Liberty this year (a canned food or donation was the entry fee to help fill the Worthington Food Pantry which made it a worthwhile event in several ways). I NEED YOUR HELP: If interested in helping to organize the event or if you have creative ideas, please email me at [email protected]. In class we are currently finishing Fitnessgram Assessments in Wellness 4 Life Class - this week has been the muscular endurance assessment (push-ups) and flexibility assessment (sit and reach). We had a discussion in each class about the importance of muscular endurance for the upper body - specifically about the importance of our POSTURE in all we do (very cool to see the students begin to sit up straight during this talk:) and for them to see how well they breathe (like a "breath of fresh air") when we did the experiment of slouching versus standing up straight (with good posture); we also discussed why our hamstring flexibility is important (lowers risk of injury, enhances performance in sport activities, and decreases lower-back pain as we grow older). I encouraged the students to try the "commercial break challenge" - stretching and performing push-ups during the commercial breaks of their favorite tv shows to see how they can get a workout during their favorite 30 minute tv time! Please encourage and JOIN them on the floor!! That's all for now. As always, please don't hesitate to contact me if you have questions (or even if you want to share a cool story)! Mr. Smith Today was the FIRST Walk and Bike to School Day! I saw many happy faces walking into school and several smiling students with bike helmets as well. Thank you to Liberty Mom, Regan Versele, for organizing the event again this year. Many students showed me their cool token they were given for making the trek to Liberty today. I am joining once again this year with daily commutes to school - I am up to 16 days and 64 miles so far... The 2014-15 school year is off to a great start. We have reviewed our Wellness guidelines and targets for the year, participated in our first PACER (measures our heart endurance power! - the numbers will be coming soon of the percentage of students that improved their PACER over the summer), and are now engaged in a Soccer Unit - this is the first time I have scheduled a Soccer Unit in the Fall. We have always scheduled soccer in the Spring and of course, have been rained out on numerous years. The students have been amazing learning the POWER skills of soccer - dribbling, passing, and finishing. We have also set targets to move within our shape/form as a team, to know when to dribble or pass, and to of course, exhibit fair play. I have heard many cool stories of both WATCHING the World Cup this summer and students playing in their own version of the World Cup. We even have 3 noon soccer clubs at school that are led by students!! At the end of the month is the Wellness Run at Granby Elementary. This is an ACTIVE event that is SO MUCH FUN to participate in. Please click below to sign up today! We will have Warrior Run practice during every wellness noon option in the month of September and will then continue on after with our "Adventure Running Club". Adults can participate too - this is a great opportunity to practice together at home for this FUN (and sometimes muddy) run! http://www.planetreg.com/2014warriorrun That is all for now. Get moving, keep moving, enJOY moving! Mr. Smith Liberty Parents,
I wanted to share Wellness News/ Events as we head into the end of the school year. We will have our year-end Pacer this week (beginning tomorrow). Our goal is for 90% of the school to improve in their Cardiovascular Endurance (big term that means heart and lung power). If we reach this goal, we will have Rita’s (Italian) Water Ice on… Five Star Track and Field Day which is on Thursday, May 29th. Our K-2nd graders will have their events in the morning (9-11) and our 3rd-6th graders will have their events in the afternoon (12:30-2:30). If you are interested in volunteering for the day (or a portion of the day), please email Mr. Smith: [email protected]. We have many students that have walked and biked to school this year!! I challenged the students in August to try for 100 days. The reward for ‘100 days of walking/ biking to school’ is gym time 11:45-12:15 on May 27th. Mr. Smith will have a special healthy treat for you as well! Students must bring their “slip” marking their 100 days (you can find the slip on the Wellness Website – first blog post at bottom of page – by copying and printing image OR by finding a slip on the Wellness bulletin board outside the gym doors). I am on day# 138 (and mile 552) today (so will be enjoying the treat too!) – it has been a BLAST through all the seasons. On May 28th our 3rd graders will once again be traveling to the Memorial Golf Tournament for practice and Pro Am Day!!!! We will spend some time before talking about the First Tee program which gets golf out to ALL students in a FUN, informative way. Our K-2s spent three days in the unit working on putting, chipping, and discussing the core value of integrity (doing the right thing – even when no one is watching). Make sure to follow the SEE principle this month to perform at your best! Sleep the right amount every night, Eat power foods, and Exercise (at least) 60 minutes a day. As always, contact me if you have any questions. Mr. Smith [email protected] Parents, It's been very nice outside feeling the warmth of the sun and seeing the snow and ice melt. We will see how long it lasts... Today, we gave students the option to run a mile outside at recess! We have been patiently waiting for the temperatures to cooperate with us. Running a mile today will help the students achieve one of the goals on the Worthington Active Family Challenge (next week is the deadline to turn in). Please see the below link for more information: http://worthingtonschools.schoolwires.net/cms/lib02/OH01001900/Centricity/Domain/20/Active%20Family%20Health%20Challenge%20Feb.%20thru%20March.pdf **Today we are also finishing our heart/ fitness month. The students learned and participated in activities that strengthened their cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, core strength, and flexibility. I found a very cool app that let us put the 'workouts' to music. For those of you that have apple products, the app is called "seconds" and is free. We "create new timer; click circuit training timer; set number of sets to whatever we choose (7 in class); click time and then duration and set to 1 minute; choose music from itunes; click timer again; click rest between intervals to desired time (we chose :25 seconds); click timer again; then click start and AWAY you will go". We have talked about being the 'personal trainer' in the family by teaching the exercises and getting others involved. It's a FUN, worthwhile activity that I have tried at home with my family! Enjoy the weekend. - Mr. Smith http://www.secondsapp.com/ Parents, I hope all is well! I wanted to share updates here at Liberty. There is SO MUCH going on with Wellness inside our doors here at Liberty and ,just as important, OUTSIDE our doors (it has been VERY COOL hearing the stories of students active outdoors during these cold months, finding creative ways to get active inside their houses, and all of the students who participate in sports over the Winter). FITNESS/HEART MONTH RECAP We are ending our Fitness/ Heart Month next week. Mr. Henderson has done a GREAT job (co-teaching with me) cardiovascular health using the PACER assessment, (and teaching under my supervision) muscular endurance, muscular strength, and in his final lesson, core strength. Your child may have a little soreness with their muscles. We talked with them how when we 'work out' our bodies that tiny muscle fibers are torn and our body repairs them BETTER and STRONGER than before (which is why muscle is built). We also talked about the importance of not stopping (unless there is an injury...) but to keep the habit of these exercises going! Please have them share the exercises with you - the exercises are excellent for the body for ALL ages. Consider a workout time at home each night. Our PACER numbers are in! 72.26% of our students improved their cardio endurance at the midpoint of the year (this is encouraging especially with the Polar Vortex we have been through over the last couple months)! Consider that 41.7% of students improved over the summer (when comparing May scores to August scores). We can see that school really makes a difference in their health and wellness!! PTA WELLNESS NIGHT Our PTA did a VERY NICE job hosting Wellness Night in February. Cooking demos of healthy foods, workouts with students AND parents in the gym, students climbing the HIGH wall in front of their parents, GREAT EFFORTS in the qualifying events (rings, tornado cargo net, pullups, climbing rope, and the ripstick) for the Liberty Warrior Challenge, and ending with Erica McCague and Zach Ostheimer getting an opportunity to do the WHOLE course climbing our new treehouse as the final obstacle. Thanks PTA for encouraging our students to be active! LITERACY NIGHT Thursday, February 27th is Literacy Night. Mr. Henderson will be hosting a "Just Dance" station while the parents learn about ways to encourage and help their children to read! Very cool!!! I will miss this night:( - as my son is in the Worthington Hills Elementary 6th Grade Play of "The Wizard of Oz" - wow, how time flies! I am excited to see him and all of his classmates perform. A NEW OSU STUDENT TEACHER WILL JOIN US Logan Schuss will be joining us at Liberty for his student teaching experience. Logan is also a professional lacrosse player (he played for OSU and I am told he was one of their best ever in the program). He will be sharing his teaching skills by leading a lacrosse unit (I am excited to learn from his expertise and add this growing sport to our curriculum) as well as a First Tee golf unit! Through OSU I was able to meet Dr. Li (he supervised Mike Henderson in his experience here). Dr. Li and I are going to work together this summer in designing initiatives for Liberty (for next school year - 14-15). His research is focused on motivating children to live active lifestyles. I am excited to work with him in initiatives that we hope will last a lifetime for our students. BIKE UPDATE I finally reached 100 days of biking to school and can't wait for my Rita's Water Ice in May - I plan to keep going (currently on 104 days and 416 miles) as 30 degrees feels like 90! I am SO IMPRESSED of the number of students who continue to walk to school through this cold winter. I HOPE it will warm-up for our Walk to School Wednesdays - I miss those days VERY much. As always, please share the great stories you have - I LOVE to hear them. Also, feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. Mr. Smith ***Don't forget the S.E.E. principle - Sleep the right amount every night, Eat power foods, and Exercise 60 minutes a day. The picture above is of Olympic Ski Jumpers and one of their power foods - chocolate milk (yes, power foods can taste GOOD)! I LOVED watching the Olympics - Cross Country skiing was my favorite!! What was yours? Read this article that shares research on healthy living and academic scores: Students' Health Habits Tied to School Success Liberty Parents, It has been a little over a month since the last post and we have many new things going on in our Wellness 4 Life classes (the one thing that HAS stayed the same is the cold temperature - our winter continues to be SUBfreezing!!!). NEW: We are currently in the third of four lessons building skill and game sense in Floor Hockey. Our primary grade students are learning the sport of floor hockey through MANY repetitions moving the ball with dribbling, passing, and shooting GAMES (as well as beginning game play). Our intermediate grade students are learning Floor Hockey through sport education (skill, strategy, and all facets of game through small-sided game play). As we enter February, we will be changing gears with a Fitness Unit to celebrate National Heart Month (the American Heart Association sponsors many activities this month). We will be learning and moving in ALL facets of health-related fitness (cardio endurance, muscular strength and endurance, and flexibility) through the month and will be doing a midyear checkin with the Pacer (which measures our heart and lung endurance). Also, during Heart Month we will have our annual Wellness Night sponsored by the PTA is the evening of February 13th. Mr. Mike Henderson (from the Ohio State University) is currently at Liberty as part of his final Teacher Candidate semester with OSU. He is now teaching all classes (under my supervision and direction) through the middle of February. Mike is a Dublin Scioto Graduate and was an avid baseball player growing up. From Mr. Henderson: "Hello everyone! My name is Mike Henderson and I am a teacher candidate, (student teacher), from The Ohio State University. I have been teaching your children Wellness at Worthington Liberty for the last 3 weeks and will continue to for another 3 weeks. We have been learning a lot of skills and strategies in floor hockey, and our students have taught me so much! I am very fortunate to have Mr. Smith, who is such a tremendous mentor and has given me many tips and tricks along the way. We will continue to play floor hockey until the end of our Championship Week, which begins 1/27 and then we will be moving on to heart health and fitness! It has been INCREDIBLE seeing how well the students use teamwork and give feedback to encourage each other. I have seen some amazing skill development in such a short time! They are an absolute joy to teach and I will miss them when my placement shifts from elementary school to middle school." ONGOING: We continue to build overall fitness EACH class and EACH week through our Dynamic Stretching, our Fitness Stations, our in-class talks on the S.E.E. principle (Sleep the right amount each nigh, Eat power foods, Exercise 60 minutes a day), and with our Noon Options with Coach Stephanie (Woodrow). The picture above is a third grade example of the cool S.E.E. posters the students created in Mrs. Dale's class. We are still looking for a time for our Beat Winter Race at Liberty - the temps have been TOO cold! We may look at a noon option to move in the snow (if temps permit) - stay tuned! AWESOME OPPORTUNITY! (I will be attending this event to get ideas for our students and my family) KICKOFF to learn how to fight childhood obesity: Liberty parents have a wonderful opportunity to hear Dr. Ihuoma Eneli, Director of the Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition, of Nationwide Children's Hospital speak during our kickoff for the Active Family Health Challenge. When: Monday, February 3, at 7:00 p.m. Where: The Worthington Parks & Recreation located at 345 East Wilson Bridge Road 43085 Dr. Eneli will speak to parents on the subject of fighting childhood obesity and teaching children a Healthy Lifestyle. Treehouse Update: The treehouse is nearing completion. I had several friends join me over winter break to start the structure and we've used some snow days and weekends to do some more. It's been fun to build and we will unveil it on our Wellness Night! BIKE UPDATE (and lifestyle fitness choices): Several parents have asked, so here goes... Today, I am on the 88th day and 252nd mile (toward my school year goal of 100 days and 400 miles) commuting by BIKE to and home from Liberty. The commute has been a BLAST (even in the Arctic Blast)! I am now becoming an official bike nerd: snowboard helmet and goggles on cold days, Christmas "biking" presents (legwarmer cycling pants, a new chain ring to go faster, a fender, bike cleaner to get the road salt and grime off, an official long sleeve bike jersey, and a bell), many layers, a new pair of road tires (I wish I had my mt bike tires for the snow!), and a really cool new Seagull Messenger Backpack. I have been thinking a lot about fitness through lifestyle choices: walking and biking when I am able (leaving the car at home); walking our dog, Lily, on cold days with my family to get everyone outside and moving; having my children help with driveway snow shoveling; getting a pull-up bar (and big elastic bands to aid in pulling up) and leaving on a door frame to do pull-ups when we walk past the door at home; eating healthier snacks throughout the day - nuts, raisins, etc. and drinking water; eating oatmeal every morning; the list goes on... what I do know is small changes begin to really add up fast and become enjoyable and part of a healthy life. It's also been a saver at the bank with lower cost snacks, 'almost free' tap water, and hopefully, savings in health care as our bodies become stronger to ward off injury and illness. That's all for now. I hope you find ways to ENJOY the cold. My family watched a movie recently, North of the Sun, about 2 Norwegian surfers spending a period of time living and surfing WAY up north. It has reminded us it's a lot colder in other places (and for much longer) and it makes this weather a little easier and in some cases, fun. As always, stay in touch with questions or even just sharing a cool story. I believe you can comment below... Mr. Smith Wellness 4 Life Parents, I hope you have been able to stay warm with the subfreezing temperatures! The students and I have talked about the importance of dressing for the weather (layers, hat, gloves, socks) when getting active in the winter and that winter provides some really cool opportunities to see the world differently (we have talked about how much exercise sledding can be, hiking at our beautiful parks in Central OH, building snow forts, etc.). Today, I finished my 70th day biking to Liberty this school year (my goal is 100). 4th Grader, Caroline Putnam has been helping me change the numbers on my walk/bike to school portion of my bulletin board. I am now up to 280 miles - we have talked about small things adding up quickly. Caroline (who walks to school daily) has been a great motivator. We will have more Walk/ Bike to School Events in the New Year. Thank you Regan Versele for leading the charge as the Parent/ School Leader. We were able to raise enough money on our Liberty Laps Walkathon Day to build a treehouse - THANK YOU! We have secured discounted materials from Lowes and will be building when we receive the materials. I will be finishing the treehouse over winter break. We have decided to postpone our Liberty Ninja Warrior to January and have a ribbon cutting ceremony for the treehouse at the same event (the treehouse will be the ending point for the ninja challenge). The date is currently being finalized. I'd love your help if you are able for this event. Also, in January we will have our Beat Winter race to help stomp out hunger in Worthington. Thank you for parents who have contacted me to help! Today ends our Adventure Unit. The students have been AWESOME (1) challenging themselves in a safe environment and (2) encouraging eachother. The second and third graders have been tracking their activities (as well as 4-6th graders) and we have had a SURVIVOR CHALLENGE for our intermediate (4-6) grades working on collaboration and problem solving. ALL students (including our K and 1st graders) have had an opportunity to learn and show: upper body strength, balance, agility, and self-responsibility and control in the gym. Thank you for your continued support. I LOVE hearing the awesome physical activity stories from the students. We have some ACTIVE families here at Liberty. Mr. Smith [email protected] |
Mr. SmithWellness 4 Life Teacher at Liberty Elementary; Player Development Director with Worthington United Soccer; and dad and husband to an awesome active family. Archives
March 2017
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