MANTECA – Music pumped while a couple dozen students at Lincoln Elementary School skipped rope as they ran back and forth across the blacktop at recess.
But this was no ordinary recess.
At a word from one of the excited players from the Kaiser Permanente Educational Theatre group, the students changed gears, doing their best impressions of what jumping rope might look like in a slow-motion scene in an action movie.
All around them, dozens more of their school mates twirled hula hoops, cleared low hurdles and did jumping jacks as they kicked off the Fire Up Your Feet activity challenge, a statewide program to not only stress the importance of exercise to stay healthy, but to show that getting daily exercise can be a fun thing to do.
It didn’t look like the Lincoln Elementary School students needed much convincing.
“Physical activity is one of our goals. We see it as a lifelong learning piece,” said Lincoln Elementary School Principal Steve Anderson, who added it was why his school tries to join in these kinds of programs whenever possible. “In this electronic world we’re in, there is a tendency to sit more. Getting on your feet and doing some kind of movement is extremely beneficial. It has classroom benefits, it has physical benefits.”
The fun at recess was just the start.
The goal of Fire Up Your Feet San Joaquin is to help teach children how to stay healthy by keeping physically active throughout the day. Students will keep the ball rolling by tracking their activity levels using an online tool that also provides tips on how to engage in exercise that revolves around the school day.
As an added incentive, the online tracker will keep tabs on how well each school is doing compared to other schools in this statewide program to ignite an early love of being physically active. In the statewide contest, schools can win up to $5,000. In the competition between schools in San Joaquin County, the top purse is $1,500.
“It gets the whole school involved,” said Katy Downs-Stroh, Program Coordinator with the San Joaquin County Office of Education. The schools taking part in the challenge are among the 12 schools in the county participating in Exercise Across California. Both programs are supported by grants from Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Community Benefit Programs. Fire Up Your Feet is a core piece of Safe Routes to School National Partnership.
Manteca Unified School District’s Lincoln Elementary School was not the only school in the county to launch the Fire Up Your Feet challenge with a kickoff event this week. The Kaiser Educational Theatre group had assemblies scheduled at Dolores Huerta Elementary School in Stockton Unified School District and at Lodi Unified School District’s George Washington Elementary School, too.
For more information on Fire Up Your Feet, please go online to: http://thrivingschools.kaiserpermanente.org/wellness-resources/physical-activity/fire- up-your-feet/.
Read more about Fire Up Your Feet activity challenge in this story in The Record: http://www.recordnet.com/article/20150414/NEWS/150419886/101092/A_NEWS.
The Lodi News-Sentinel caught the Fire Up Your Feet Activity Challenge launch at George Washington Elementary School: http://www.lodinews.com/news/article_bd2e928e-e338-11e4-87fa-9b96256a9109.html.