It's Spring!

Sadly in Boston, you can't always tell it's spring by looking through the window.  Or, by the date on the calendar.  Or, by the jacket you choose to put on.

If you look at the front hall in the Perkins School, however, you can see signs that spring has sprung.

Click on any photo to make it larger.

 First, there's Mrs. B working in the hallway, assembling the belts for Dragon Tail Tag.  

 

There are so many variations to the game.  It could be two or four teams of one color against the others or every dragon for her- or himself, dashing around snatching as many Velcro'ed tails as possible to win.  The important thing is the running, the dashing, the dodging--fun and exercise outside.

 Baseball is another sign of spring.

 

It gave Ms. Harden's class a more exciting way to learn to make diagrams than flowcharts or electrical systems.

If you still had any doubts, here is a plea posted in our hallway--a poem by Valerie, one of our second grade students.

Thank goodness, the weather has finally cooperated.

Healthy Teeth are Happy Teeth

There are so many different kinds of learning that happen in school: math, reading, how to get along with each other, meeting deadlines.  These are skills that people use their whole lives long.  Learning to be healthy is another skill, one that helps us make our lives longer.  Mrs. B, our wellness coordinator, has been doing an extra special job this year.  She has been making sure that our kids know about everything from fun ways to exercise to good diets.  Now, she is even tackling their teeth!

Mrs. B found someone from Boston University's Dental School to come talk to all the Perkins' students about their choppers.  

 

Ms. Krissie Gibson taught our kids how to keep their teeth healthy and happy.  It all starts with brushing them frequently--and, correctly.  Brush down from the gum, both sides, and don't miss any spots.  Each tooth-brushing session should last for two whole minutes.  

How long is two minutes? If you don't have a clock handy, Ms. Gibson suggests singing the alphabet song to yourself four whole times.  Do it in your head, though, or you will get toothpaste all over the place!

Also there are foods that are tooth healthy, she explained.  High-fiber fruits and vegetables scrub your mouth while you are chewing, for example.  Dairy produces, like cheese, milk, and yoghurt, provide calcium, which helps keep teeth and bones strong.

Ms. Gibson knew that sometimes the best way to teach something is to make a game out of it.  That's why some of the older grades learned about dental heath by playing a quiz game that was like Jeopardy.  She divided other classes, such as, like Ms. Hardin's fourth grade, into two groups to compete against each other in a trivia match.  

 All the third grades did word search activities.  Who did the best on this exercise?

It turned out to be a three-way tie!

The Money's In!

"That's a big check!" one student exclaimed.

"Sure is," another replied.  "Is that even REAL?"

The answer is "no" and "yes."  The check isn't actually real.  What would the bank do with such a big one?  The money that it is giving to the Michael J. Perkins School is quite real.

Why are we getting FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS?  Take a look at last month's post that explains how the kids won it for their physical fitness.

Now all we have to do is wait for spring--or, at least the worse of the winter weather to pass--so the kids can use some of the new sports equipment it bought.  What will they be playing with?  A wealth of games and physical fitness:

*A new badmitton set

*Lacrosse sticks

*New tennis rackets

*12 potato sacks

Hurry up, springtime!

Cool Runnings

When Mrs. B teamed up with the Russell School to form a track team this fall, there was a goal in mind.  The kids would train twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Of course, the most important outcome was that they got exercise.  

Nevertheless, the South Boston Catholic Academy 5K Race was on the calendar as well.  It was scheduled for December 1 and would be the track team's last outing. The race started on Broadway and O Street  in South Boston. Participants, kids and grownups alike, would run all the way to Castle Island and back again.  The goal was that the kids would have trained enough and gotten strong enough to run the 5K. 

For those readers who haven't learned the metric system yet, 5K means five kilometers.  A kilometer is a distance about 5/8s of a mile long.  So how many miles is a 5 kilometer race? You do the math!  Here's the way you set up your calculations, just change the 35 to 5, then start multiplying and dividing for the answer.

The bad news? December 1st was freezing!  It was the first snow of the season.  The good news?  Running is a great way to get warm.

Here are some of our Perkins contestants getting ready to start: Azyeriah, Chelsea, and Andrea.  Ms. MacKinnon, who worked with the team all season, had her number on too.

And they were off!  And running.  Castle Island looked pretty good--pant, pant, pant.  Only the halfway mark, however.  Pant, pant, pant!

 

Here's Chelsea nearing the finish line...

and crossing it, with her time on display.

Ms. MacKinnon ran in the wrap-up position, staying behind our runners to urge them on.

What a great finish to our first season.  Something to think about for next spring!

We Won!

Mrs. B's Wellness Warriors have done it again.  The kids entered a contest sponsored by Boston Moves for Health.  The Perkins School only has five pedometers (a pedometer is a little gizmo that measures the distance a person has walked or ran), but five were enough.  The kids shared them to measure how much they moved in gym class.  Sometimes they were running.  On wet or slippery days, they walked around the schoolyard.  They even measured the push-off steps they used to glide when they were learning to ride bicycles with the Boston Bikes program.

Do you know what?  A little bit of skipping here and jogging there really adds up.  Getting exercise and feeling healthy is prize enough, but the Perkins School managed to come in second place in the contest. 

Here is the chart of how many steps we managed to take in a month.  Finding the total would be a good math problem for our upper classes.  Yes, this is just addition, but those numbers of steps are really large!  Okay kids, those of you who are learning estimation, is our monthly total of steps more or less than a million?

 























One thing we do know is that our average of 832 steps per student got us a prize of $500.  

What is going to happen with that money?  According to Mrs. B, our gym teacher, it might go to buying hockey sticks for the school. Another possibility is that Mrs. B will buy enough pedometers for all the kids to use them.  It's fun to measure your steps and makes you want to take more of them.

Also, says Mrs. B, "our kids really wanted to participate.  They are team players.  They wanted to win for their school."

So keep up the good work, kids.  Maybe you will be able to win again and buy both!

Eating Our Way to Health

Mrs. B, our gym and wellness teacher, is on a roll.  Boston Bikes, track team, pedometers AND another essential part of wellness--nutrition.  After all, it's not just moving your body that makes it healthy; it's what you put in it as well.

Mrs. B signed up for a program offered by University of Massachusetts Extension Nutrition Education Program.  As a result, Ms. Carole, a Nutrition Educator, came to the Perkins.  She spoke to all the kids about the magic in food and the need to eat right.  Protein, grains, vegetables, beans, seeds and nuts, dairy, fruit--these foods that are good for you are called "everyday foods," she told them. Treats are fine too, but in much smaller amounts.

To remind the kids of the foods they should eat most of (and in what proportions or amounts), Ms. Carole gave each student in every grade a picture to color.   

All too often drawings and pictures get thrown away, even when they contain important information.  

Not this time. Mrs. B made sure that every one of those pictures were laminated.  That means it was covered by plastic so it wouldn't bend too easily and would stay clean.  In fact, it became the perfect placemat for lunchtime.  Now the kids have a daily reminder of the foods that will make them healthy--and, keep them that way.

On Your Mark...

As you can see, Mrs. B. is going to town with all her new fitness and wellness features.!  You've already read about Boston Bikes and all the Perkins kids who are now clambering to get on two wheels.  If you look a little harder on this sign, you'll also see another project that's new to our school: Russell Runs with Perkins.


 

Some of our kids have signed up to start learning track and will eventually run with the Russell Elementary nearby.  Here are our first volunteers and the numbers are growing.  These kids are ready to run their hearts out twice a week until the second week in December.

Learning how to use the starting blocks is still a goal for the future. This very first session the kids each ran (with a little walking now and then) their first mile.  That's four times around the track at Moakley Park.  These times will be their baselines, something to race against as they get stronger and faster.

On your mark, get set....GO!












 

Making the Wheels Go Round!

If you remember a previous post, Boston Bikes came to our school for several weeks to teach many of our second through fifth graders how to ride a bike and to review bicycle safety for those who already knew how to pedal.  After much rain, too much rain, the kids finally had a chance to get out there.

Getting enough bikes for a whole class into the schoolyard was a team effort.  Graham and Corey, our bicycle mentors brought them out of a nearby garage.

 Then the kids rolled them into the schoolyard.

The first part of any ride is NOT hopping on the seat and speeding off.  The kids learned out to stretch as we should all do before any type of exercise.  Next, get those helmets on and adjust them to fit correctly.

Then Corey and Graham matched the kids with a perfectly sized bike, one whose seat came up to their hips.  Then it was time to do the ABCs of getting ready to ride that they had learned in the classroom: check the Air in the tires, the Brakes' condition, and the Chain to see if it was strung correctly.

And they're off!  The kids who already knew how to ride could start by making big circles in the schoolyard.

Beginning riders had a different routine in another part of the schoolyard.  No one used training wheels. Graham and Corey knew a better way to learn.  Chanting "Scoot, scoot, glide!" the kids made exactly those motions as they made their way across the yard.  Then back again, all the while improving their sense of balance.  At a certain point, the kids would automatically place their feet on the pedals and go, go, go!

By the end of Boston Bikes' visit, everybody who tried learned to ride a bike.

Hooray!

What is a Pedometer?

What IS a pedometer?

Many of Mrs. B's Wellness Warriors know. (To learn more about Mrs. B's Wellness Warriors, check out this past post.)

Just in case you've never seen or heard of this gadget, a pedometer is a little machine you clip on to measure how far you walk. It counts each step you take by detecting the motion of your hips. They are fun to use and make you want to walk even further.


















If you don't believe it, just ask the members of the Perkins School Walking Club!

They are getting healthier by walking. They are also improving their math skills. Just check out the pedometer calculation and their bar chart!

Rumor has it they are going to do a new pedometer challenge of some sort. We'll let you know when they do.

A Schoolyard is More than Concrete

Some people may see the Perkins schoolyard as a place to cross to get into the building. Others think of it as a basketball court. Still others use it to meet and chat with their friends.

Mrs. B's Wellness Warriors see our schoolyard as all these things and more!























To get the kids to see all the fun physical fitness opportunities in a field of concrete, Mrs. B asked them to draw their own maps of the schoolyard. In those maps, each kid charted some of the sports and games played in it.

If you click on the picture to make it bigger, you can see that different students think of different activities. Some draw a hopscotch court, others a basketball court. Hockey is listed on map, the track labelled on others. No matter, they all add up to running, stretching, jumping. That means physical fitness and fun!

The Birth of Mrs. B's Wellness Warriors

One morning Mrs. Balaconis was walking across the schoolyard. She found two freshly emptied bags of chips. Could these have been somebody's breakfast? Yup. Were chips a healthy way to start a school day, or any other day for that matter?

Mrs. B decided to take this question to the kids of the Perkins School. She created this poster and asked them to vote. You can see their opinions for yourselves. So could Mrs. B. As our gym teacher and wellness coordinator, she had already been working on teaching the kids about health and physical fitness. In this moment, however, Mrs. B's Wellness Warriors were born!

You can follow their healthy adventures right here on the blog.