September 2008 - Fayetteville-Manlius Schools

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Physical Education Newsletter Page 4 Dance Dance Revolution is a big hit at the elementary schools! “Exergames try to combat the childhood obesity epidemic by taking one of the suspected causes of decreased physical activity in youth, increased time playing video games, and combing this game time with activity time.” Fitness Assessments are conducted each fall and spring in grades 1—12 DDR? - What’s that? You may have heard your child talking about doing DDR in class. DDR stands for Dance Dance Revolution and is an example of an “exergame,” or an interactive video game. Exergames try to combat the childhood obesity epidemic by taking one of the suspected causes of decreased physical activity in youth, increased time playing video games, and combing this game time with activity time. Physical Education assessments are included with student report cards twice each year, in January and in June. Mr. Kupiec will again this year be experimenting with sending home quarterly progress reports along with students’ report cards. He hopes that this information will be more helpful to parents than three letter grades. DDR uses a special floor controller like the picture at left. The game is played with four arrow panels. The arrows are pressed using the feet as players react to arrows that appear on the screen in front of them. These arrows match the rhythm or beat of a chosen song. The difficulty increases with the player’s increased ability. The result is a great aerobic workout playing video games! Some states, including West Vir- Fitness Assessments - What are they? In grades 1—12, each student is assessed at least twice annually on their fitness levels in 4 categories: cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, muscular endurance, and muscular strength. The results of these assessments, as well as the results from previous years, are sent home at the end of each school year along with a letter on how to interpret the results and examine trends. In class, students are also taught how to interpret their scores and how to modify their activities to continually improve. The concepts of healthy fitness zones and target heart rate are paramount in this instruction. At Enders Road, we currently measure student fitness using the following assessments: Progress Reports ~ Another communication tool! Based on parent feedback, the report format has been modified from last year to provide more appropriate information and to be easier for parents to understand. They will still include all of the specific concept areas and skills assessed in class, rubrics and comments to help parents better understand Mr. Kupiec’s assessment of their child, and a space for ginia and Hawaii, have even purchased DDR systems for each of their school districts. In 2007, F- M purchased two PlayStation 2 consoles and four Dance Dance Revolution Pads for each elementary school to use in their classes. We will use these from time to time in class, but we have also converted a locker room into a “DDR Room” in order to make more use of this great equipment. We hope to use it daily. Sit & Reach: Measures leg/low back flexibility in cm. Sit-ups: Number performed in 1:00. 9:00 Run: Distance (meters) covered in 9:00. Modified Push Up: Moving a bean bag on & off a mat stack for :30) parents to send return comments and questions back to school. Mr. Kupiec hopes these reports will promote positive two-way communication between home and school. If you have questions, please email him at: ekupiec@fmschools.org.
Seeking Gymnastics Spotters! Our annual gymnastics unit will be conducted in late winter 2009. As is tradition, we will be seeking parental assistance as volunteer spotters to help us conduct the unit. In addition to helping the teachers out, this is a wonderful opportunity to see your child “in action” by spotting during their class. For safety reasons, we would be unable to provide the experiences that we do without parental assis- Sneakers Wanted!! Sneakers are required for participation in physical education. We keep a supply of “gently used” sneakers so that students who may have forgotten their own sneakers on physical education days can borrow them to use that day. We need to continually update this inventory of sneakers as they do wear out from frequent use. If you have pairs of sneakers that no tance and support. If we had no additional spotters, students would be forced to wait in long lines at one piece of apparatus where the teacher was spotting. Mary Anne Wilson will again be coordinating the schedule for gymnastics. Although this event is months away and we will not have sign-ups until February, we hope that by giving you the dates well in advance, parents who wish to volunteer will better be able to Footsteps to Fitness Volunteering! This year, Footsteps to Fitness will be conducted from May 4 - 29. Like gymnastics, we hope this advance notice of dates will help those who wish to plan ahead. Footsteps to Fitness is a voluntary, incentive based fitness walking program. At recess, participants walk (or jog) on a marked course on the school grounds. For each completed lap, the student has a box marked off on a card. Foot tokens are awarded for the first mile and then for every 5 miles accumulated. Students also receive paper footprints on the walls in the school for every 10 miles. We will need lap counter volunteers to mark cards. Ideally, we would have a parent volunteer from each classroom each day. The typical commitment is one longer fit your children but still have some good life in them, we will gladly accept donations of all children’s and adult sizes, including half sizes. In the event I receive a large number of sneakers, I will select the 5 or 6 best pairs of each size to keep for use at Enders and then I will take the remaining sneakers to the Rescue Mission. Just because we plan their schedules. We also understand that many parents may be unable to come to assist as spotters. Therefore, we will also continue the open gym program that was started last year. This year, it will be moved to a Saturday event rather than over 4 evenings as it was last year. The date for the open gym will be announced soon. The time schedule for this event will also be posted at a later date. day a week for the 4 weeks. Stay tuned for more details. We also use grade level coordinators. Coordinators are responsible for additional record keeping and placing the 10-mile footprints on the walls. A greater time commitment is necessary than with the lap counter (sometimes daily). We have our coordinators for 2009, but 2010 will be here soon! cannot use them at school does not mean that there are not families who can benefit from new footwear. It is a good idea to have your child keep a couple of extra pairs of socks at school in case they do have to borrow sneakers because they are shared by many students. Thank you for your generosity! Volume 1, Issue 1 Gymnastics Unit 2009 “We would be unable to provide the experiences that we do without parental assistance and support” Page 5 Updates to follow as we get closer! While we use all sizes from children’s 8 to adult 8, the most common sizes students borrow are: Children: 12, 12.5, 13, 13.5 Adult: 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4
Page 1 and 2: Volume 2, Issue 1 September 2008
Page 3: Teacher Tip of the Month (Grades K

September 2008 - Fayetteville-Manlius Schools

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