Fitness Assessments for 3rd, 4th and 5th Grade

I would like to take a moment to help you understand the fitness tests your child will be taking this year. If you have a third grade student, this is the first time the student will be evaluated on their fitness skills as a formal assessment.

Sit ups
Students will be asked to complete as many sit ups as possible in one minute. These are full sit ups, not crunches. You may have been informed that crunches are a better exercise than sit ups. However, if we would like to be able to actually sit up from a lying down position with more ease, a full sit-up is a much more functional and effective exercise to complete. This is why we assess students using a full sit up.

Plank
Students are performing this exercise in a straight arm position with their hands on the ground. The plank is a wonderful exercise to help build core muscles that offer stability in everyday movement.

Continuous Jog
I have had some questions from students wondering why we switched from the mile run to a continuous jog. The continuous jog actually gives us more information about your students overall aerobic endurance versus the mile run. We ultimately want students to work at a sustained moderate intensity for a period of time. When practicing at home, consider a moderate intensity as a pace that allows you to talk a bit while jogging.

Sit and Reach
This is a flexibility assessment focused on the lower back and hamstring muscles. Our goal is for your child to be able to, at a minimum, touch their toes while keeping their legs flat on the ground. Good flexibility in this area of the body will decrease the occurrence of lower back pain and overall injury in that region of the body.

Practicing all of these skills at home will assist your student is maintaining a healthy lifestyle and allow them to be successful this year in Physical Education. Just like reading practice, exercise should be performed daily if we wish to see positive results!

Sportsmanship

Happy Friday everyone! I'm jumping on my soapbox...I absolutely love college sports. The young men and women who manage to juggle their academic schedule with practice schedules and strive to bring excellence to their schools name is something I find very honorable.

I enjoyed seeing all of the students wearing different college colors and supporting the universities that we all hold so dear. However, it is unfortunate that on these days we also hear from students the nasty side of sport. At times, we hear phrases uttered from these sweet little faces that would you kringe.

As we watch our colleges play this weekend, please remember that children are listening to us and watching us for clues on how to behave. If we want our children to have good sportsmanship when they attend their game, we have the responsibility to model that for them when we watch our teams play.

This picture made me smile today, I hope you enjoy it also.

Go Team!

For our families that have been with me for years, I am a familiar face. For our new Webber families, I am Molly Dittrich and I am your child's elementary Physical Education teacher.

I started teaching in Lake Orion in 1999, I have been at Webber for all of those years as well as some travel to Pine Tree and Orion Oaks. My education is in exercise science from Michigan State University (no worries U of M peeps...Mr. Dittrich is a Wolverine fan!). I initially worked in the private sector after college and returned to school for my teaching certificate while living in Iowa...so I also cheer for the Hawkeyes!

As a family, we enjoy a variety of outdoor activities and up north time here in Michigan. Snow skiing and wakeboarding are my current go to activities while up north, but you can also find me taking a lazy paddle in my kayak or reading a book in the hammock.

I have enjoyed getting to know your children this past month and look forward to meeting everyone in person. If you are ever in the building, please come introduce yourself!

Welcome Webber Families to our Physical Education blog. This is all new for 2017-18! I have started this blog to provide how to videos for at home practice of fitness skills, while also highlighting helpful links and tips that your family can use to maintain a healthy lifestyle. At times, I will also include family challenges to keep us moving even on our less motivated days. As we move through the year, check back frequently. I will update this blog on a weekly basis.