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.

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!

We're on the Boston Bikes Blog!

Well, it might be old news, but it's new news to us!  We wrote up our experience of our kids learning to roll with Boston Bikes.  They liked the report so much, they reprint the post on their blog.  

 Now even more people know about the great program the city has teaching kids to ride and to ride safety from their first outing.

And even more people know about the PerkinsBlog.  It might have happened in October, but it feels like a holiday present to us.

Mayor Menino's Boston Bikes shared a link.

October 26

Perkins Elementary School featured us on their blog! Check it out to get a quick view of what our Youth Cycling Program is doing in Boston schools!

PerkinsBlog: Making the Wheels Go Round!

www.michaeljperkinsschool.blogspot.com

The students at Perkins School are at the heart of a new adventure in more ways than one.South Boston’s Old Colony Housing Project, which surrounds our school, is going green! Its buildings are 70 years old and ready for a...

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!

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!

Getting Ready to Roll

 "What do you know or like about bikes?" Corey and Graham from Boston Bikes asked Ms. Mansfield's 4th grade class. 

The kids' answers came fast and furious:  "I like going downhill."  "I like the idea of doing tricks." "I know how to do wheelies."  "I like BMX bikes." "I know that you need to follow the rules to be safe."

"I like to ride with my friends," added Corey.  

"And, I love the freedom of using my bike," said Graham, "I can ride all around the city without paying for the T."

Corey and Graham are at the Perkins to help the kids learn to ride bicycles and do it safely.  So before our kids "mount up," they get some important lessons.

First: This is not the way you wear a helmet!  

The helmet should lie flat on your head, not tilted back.  You should be able to see it, if you look straight up.  If you can't, your helmet is too loose.

The straps should make a triangle around your ears.

Once you fasten it, you should be able to open your mouth wide.  If you can't, the helmet is too tight!

Why are helmets important?

The kids know this answer.  "So you don't bust your head," one calls out.

What is a big difference between these two bikes?  That's the next question--and, the answer has nothing to do with color or fenders.  It's their brakes!  The yellow bike has brakes on the pedals and you can stop it by pushing the pedal backwards.  The blue bike's brakes are on its handle bars, one lever for the front tire and one for the back one.  

Is a good idea to stop your bike by just pushing on the brake for the front tire?  NO!  Just think about what might happen.

One of the last lessons the kids learned was they must always know their ABCs--for bikes, that is.  Before you start riding, do the ABC check: 

A = Air.  Your tires should feel hard like a basketball.  Give them a squeeze to make sure.

B = Brakes.  Are they working?  

C = Chain.  Is it strung correctly?
 
If so, you're ready to go!


By the end of the hour, this fourth grade class was ready to roll.  Corey and Graham went on to the next class.  

Meanwhile, all the bikes and helmets were just waiting to be used.....

Great Things Ahead

Yesterday was Columbus Day, so the kids were out for vacation.  Most holidays they may not be thinking of school, but, changes are, this time lots of kids are looking forward to Tuesday.  Yes, they will be learning the usual math, science, reading, and history.  There are also many special events starting up.

As you can see by this sign, Boston Bikes is coming to the Perkins with a fleet of bicycles to teach kids how to ride.

Other kids are going to have their first day of track practice after school.

All the kids are learning about good nutrition with a fun project we'll report on later.

As you can see, the Perkins kids are getting healthy.   

More about all these events later.  And the project that's starting on Tuesday in Ms. Murphy's class...

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.