Chancellor Livingston Elementary School students recently completed a two-week unit in physical education class that combined running, math skills, music trivia and teamwork.
“It’s going fantastic,” said Kevin Yarnell, physical education teacher. “It’s pretty cool to see the kids so excited to move their bodies for 40 minutes. It’s great to see them active and wanting to be active, fit and healthy for life.”
Students worked in teams of two. They rolled a die, and the number on the die determined how many laps the students ran around the gym and the number of cups they received to build a tower around a hula hoop.
“They love this activity because they get to work with their partners and they love working with the cups,” said Yarnell.
Music is played during class, and when it stops, students earn bonus cups by answering a trivia question about the song.
This is the fourth year that this particular unit was used in physical education class. Yarnell and his co-teacher Erik Thomas plan the class curriculum together.
“We really try to stay current, creative and keep coming up with new ideas for the students,” said Yarnell.
Yarnell and Thomas also will have their fifth grade leadership group sign up to participate during their free period to assist first graders.
“This unit is fantastic because we put one fifth grader per hula hoop team,” said Yarnell. “They really help the first graders thrive. It’s nice to see the fifth graders smile working with the kids and the first graders look up to the fifth graders.”
The fifth graders, who said this was a very competitive unit in their class, enjoyed working with the first graders.
“It’s really fun,” said fifth grader Sophia Pendergast.
Fifth grader Julia Labbadia added, “I like helping the first graders, and they’re going it well.”