NP Play continues to make strides and reach new classes. On November 28th, Olivia and Katie visited Mrs. Storie's kindergarten class at New Palestine Elementary school. This was the first classroom outside of Sugar Creek and we are excited about the new opportunities at different elementary schools. I was unable to attend this lesson due to a scheduling conflict, however Katie and Olivia told me the lesson, again, went very well. We were unable to get any feedback from the teachers, as Mrs. Story wasn't there when they presented.
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Following our meeting with Mrs. Kleiman, we presented our first lesson to her first grade class on October, 25th, focusing on the athletic opportunities available to students at the high school. Given that this group was a grade older, we were able to go more in-depth and outline some of the responsibilities that are put upon high school athletes. After presenting our powerpoint, showing the different sports and why you should play them, we allowed the students to be more interactive. Using their iPads, they drew their favorite sports and maybe a new one that we were able to introduce to them. Our second lesson, focusing on eating sugar in moderation, fell on Halloween funny enough. We explained the consequences of too much sugar. We did the same lesson as before but, like the athletic lesson, were able to elaborate more and let the kids be more involved. We, again, received positive feedback from our teacher about our lessons. We have contacted Mrs. Benson, a second grade teacher at SCE, and Mrs. Story a kindergarten teacher at NPE about continuing the project. SCE's PE teacher also expressed interest in working with us at some point to bring a fun, interactive lesson to the students.
NP Play has progressed mightily. Our first lesson for Mrs. Bowman's kindergarten class at Sugar Creek Elementary, introduced high school athletics to our students. We asked them what sports they like to play and also introduced them to a few new ones. The kids were really engaged and seemed to enjoy our lesson. We incorporated their class iPads and tried to keep them interested by asking them to recall things we talked about by drawing it on their screen. Our second lesson with Mrs. Bowman's class was nutrition based. We wanted to keep it as basic as possible, understanding that kindergarteners won't understand the many intricacies of a balanced diet. So we tried to focus on one specific thing that kids can avoid: We asked the students what they thought sugar was. Many said sugary sweets like candy, soda and cookies. We went on to explain not all sugar is bad. We explained how fruits, vegetables and milk all have good sugars that help you grow big and strong. Our next slide points out some of the unhealthy sugars that kids and student athletes should avoid if they want to grow to their full potential. We also detailed some of the serious health problems that can come from eating too much sugar. Finally, we closed our presentation with a demonstration about the amount of sugar in soda. We first told students how much sugar you should consume on a daily basis. We then brought out a can of coke and a measuring cup full of sand. We filled the cup to varying levels and asked each time how much sugar they believed was in a single can of soda. We then revealed the actual amount of sugar in a single can of soda and reminded the students that water, juice and milk are all better drink choices than sugary sports drinks or sodas. Mrs. Bowman contacted us and told us that the Sugar Creek PE teacher is interested in our project and would be willing to help us. We need to meet with her at some point to work out a lesson plan, but it is definitely something we are interested in. On October 18, we met with Mrs. Kleiman, a first grade SCE teacher, about working with her class as well. She was thrilled with the idea and we will be presenting our first lesson next week.
NP Play is an exercise and sports related initiative intended to get elementary school kids active, and to encourage them to participate in organized sports at the high school level. My partners in this are soccer player Olivia Lambdin and basketball and softball player Katie Herron. We all agreed prior to pitch day that we wanted to do something related to sports and something where we could give back to the young student athletes in our community. We first wanted to do an all-sports kids camp. We planned to have multiple student athletes from all of the different sports run drills and games involved with their respective sport. As we began to plan this camp, logistically there were a lot of things we had to worry about. We were unsure of a timeframe or date for our project or exactly how and what we would do at the camp. With an all-day camp, we worried about keeping the attention of the student athletes and we worried about having enough volunteers to make it run smoothly. The biggest problem we faced was the liability concerns regarding potential injury. Because of all of these concerns, we pivoted our focus towards helping individual classrooms and trying to be positive role models for the next generation of Dragons. NP Play is modeled after the NFL's Play 60 campaign that tries to encourage kids to get out and be active. We presented our proposal to CSCSHC Administrators, explaining the lack of exercise in today's youth and the benefits of increased exercise. Mrs. Eastes, the principal of New Palestine Elementary presented us with her opinion on the issue. She said that students in our district get more exercise now than ever. However, she really like the idea of us being mentors and positive role models for the elementary school kids. So, we decided, that we would change our project to more of a leadership and mentoring program where we encourage kids to play sports for the character building benefits, as well as the positive health implications. Below I've attached the first lesson we gave to Mrs. Bowman's kindergarten class. First, we engaged the students by asking them what sports they like to play. Next, we explained some of the benefits to playing high school athletics. We then proceeded to walk the kids through all of the different opportunities they can have at the high school. For some popular sports, like football and soccer we included pictures and examples of student athletes at the high school. We also listed some of the less popular sports after the fact.
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Alex cottermanNPHS Senior, Football Player, Advocate for HS Athletics Archives
December 2018
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