Adventure To Fitness - For ALL students

Hello fellow Adventurers!!! I hope that all is going well! Here at HQ, we are celebrating! Why? Because we just passed 5,000 schools today across the nation! We were excited when we reached 20 schools. But this is great! Congratulations to all of our schools, our teachers and kids. Thank you for keeping it moving and getting more people on board with living healthy lifestyles- bodies and minds.

A sweet encouragement during my day is that Mr. Marc and I get to look through all of the fan mail - from the cute little ones with the squiggly attempts of drawing Mr. Clock and then from our great teachers who have offered us generous thanks and insight on how Adventure to Fitness is helping their students. I was just going through some of Mr. Marc's fan mail when I stumbled upon this gem and thought I would share it. If any of you know teachers working with special needs children or if you are such a teacher yourself, this program is also for your students so spread the word. In fact, we have gotten many messages and phone calls from special needs classes saying that they've never found a better fit for their kids. Talk about encouragement for us here at headquarters! (I know using the term "headquarters" may be super cheesy and perhaps reveals my age and need to feel cool with my geeky "in-crowd" language... but I'm gunna let it stick! Plus, if you've seen any of the episodes, the lingo is not new to you!)

Anyway, here is a letter from a teacher in Florida (yeah hometown!) who wanted to let people know one positive effect Adventure to Fitness has had with her autistic class:

Hi Mr. Marc,

  

Unfortunately, it is a common trait of those with autism to have unusual eating and drinking habits. They tend to eat and drink the same thing and much of it is very unhealthy such as: chicken nuggets, hotdogs, juices, sodas, chips, pizza, candies etc. They hardly ever eat any fresh fruit or vegetables although it is offered daily in our cafeteria. This is very typical of children with autism. Every year I do my best to teach them healthier eating and drinking habits. I have always encouraged the children and their parents to send in water bottles daily. The majority of my students rarely drank any water throughout the day, even with me role modeling it and teaching it to them. I had a student (4th grader) that his mother told me in the beginning of the year, that he would never drink water - only juices. The rest of my class would drink water as a last resort, and they would only drink juice throughout the day. Once we started doing Adventure to Fitness and the children were really working up a sweat, they started drinking water from our fountain in the room. They would all line up at the water fountain in the room when you [Mr. Marc] told  them to hydrate. As we continued to do more of your adventures, I encouraged them to bring in their own water bottles for their water breaks - and they did! The one student that never would drink water, is now drinking water, and ALL my other students are bringing in their own bottles and/or drinking more water from our fountain. 

My next mission is to continue to encourage healthier eating habits. I think if I tell them the healthy foods Mr. Marc eats, they will try it :) 

We look forward to the future adventures.

Ms. Brennan

ASD Teacher - NBCT

Neptune Elementary School

Adventure To Fitness - Standardizing Season. Yikes!

Oh the woes of the standardized testing season! I come from a family of educators so I can feel an ounce of your exhaustion/annoyance/boredom/business absolute joy to be in this season in the semester with your kiddos. Whatever state you are in with your particular state's form of the test, you are probably weighed down in language arts and mathematics and have grown very aware of your kids who are falling over in their seats sleepy and unhappy to be practicing and then to be tested. A lot of schools have been pushing to maintain recess and Physical Education and a few have been realizing the importance of maintaining physical activity mandates as well. Smart people! Me and my team here at Headquarters (oh yeah... I went there! If you're currently a user, I'm sure you know that means that I personally know Professor Maddison ;)) did some research. You may have heard these things in passing and thought "Oh my gosh I have no time to worry about that! I have to jam all this info into my day and the kids are riled and struggling!"(Gosh... not to depict you as a yelling crazy person! Just a person with lots on their to-do list. ::smiles:: I feel you.) BUT, physical activity is tremendously helpful for brain activity. Have you ever felt sluggish, took a walk, and then felt better and quick minded?
This is why:

 I would take a student with the right brain in my classes over a student with the left brain because they will be more engaged and absorbent (great word choices, huh?). By the way, that picture was sent to us here at Adventure to Fitness in a PowerPoint that a teacher over in Arizona created to show his teachers the importance of meeting the physical activity mandates for their kids. (shameless plug: we LOVE getting those sorts of emails so that we know our teachers are spreading the word about the program and joining us in the mission!) He had a few other great things about how there is a positive correlation between physical fitness and test scores. This means that as physical fitness increases, test scores increase. This is so important for this crazy testing season all of you are going through right now. Maybe joining Mr. Marc on a 30 minute adventure could even help YOU shake off some of the anxiety or sluggishness of everything. Bring in those sneakers to class! The kids will be amazed and inspired to watch Mr/s. Teacher break it down into Mega Mode! Do it!

For interesting and enlightening research on the topic (because you have endless amounts of time on your hands, right?) check out this article. Put the title in parentheses in a search engine and it should be your first result as a PDF: Effect of Physical Education and Activity Levels on Academic Achievement in Children

Happy Testing and Healthy Kids!!! We wish you the best of luck!

As always, KEEP IT MOVING, my friends!!!

Adventure To Fitness - Who are we, you ask?

Hello fellow social networkers! My name is Amanda and I am a school liaison for Adventure to Fitness (that title sounds so official does it not?) and I love what this company stands for. If you've meandered to this blog, my guess is that you are an educator of some sort- perhaps a TA, a good 'ole teacher, principal, or parent. Whether you are a veteran Adventure to Fitness user or you just stumbled upon us while searching for a way to get your students physically active (mandates, anybody?), WELCOME! I am going to try to make this a place you can come to see what we are all about and how you can stay informed and keep our children active. For starters, here is the Adventure to Fitness mission statement (since all schools are into mission statements, right? ::smiley face::). We are:

Inspiring children to lead healthy lifestyles through imagination, education, and movement.


AND WE ARE DOING JUST THAT!  As of this very second as I type this very word, we have 22,330 teachers utilizing the program across the United States and more people are jumping on board every day (No joke. Every day. Including weekends. Now that's what I call A+ teachers!) 


Something you may have heard about the program (or are desperately seeking as you read this post as the most important factor) is that we are a FREE resource for schools to use!!! Yup. FREE! If you have not read my description, here is a recap of what the Adventure to Fitness resource is:


The Adventure to Fitness Physical Activity Resource provides age appropriate co-curricular programming streamed directly into the general education classrooms using existing technology. With one click, classrooms are propelled into a world of fun, excitement, education, and activity. When children embark on weekly adventures, the classroom walls come alive, and students become totally immersed in their mission; from climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro to venturing deep inside a rumbling volcano in Yellowstone National Park, students of all shapes, sizes, and abilities actively engage from beginning to end.


Check out this video for a quick (and dramatically realistic!!!) overview of what we offer (if it doesn't link, then just copy/paste into a new browser): 
http://adventuretofitness.com/video/full_overview

Weekly adventures (episodes) assist schools in fighting obesity by increasing physical activity from the safety and comfort of the classroom while aligning to state standards in health, reading, writing, social studies, science and math. Corresponding Teacher Guide's and worksheets align to Common Core Standards.

So let's team up- you and me. Let's get the children of this generation back into healthy choices and lifestyles! One person cannot spread this mission alone. So join the growing 22,000 other K-5 teachers in getting all of our elementary students moving at LEAST once a week! Let that be your goal and your guide. If we show our kids consistency, they will incorporate consistent physical activity into their lives as they grow up (articles on that in the future sometime probably).

To create your username, click on over to our adventuretofitness.tv website and fill in the blanks putting your school email as the username (it is used solely for log-in purposes and since this is currently only a school resource, our system only recognizes school domains). Verify your username once you get the validation email (sent immediately) and then "Just Hit Play!!!" as we like to say. It's a 3 minute process. Then you can get your classes up and moving!

If you ever have any questions, are having some technical issues, or need any help give us a call!!! We have great customer support (if I may say so myself. That's not even a biased remark. Other teachers have blogged about our great customer support!). Our number is 407.324.KIDS(5437).


Or send me an email with questions at: blog@adventuretofitness.com

Or better yet, to go with the blogging idea, ask your questions HERE. At this blog! Leave a comment! Gosh I love exclamation points!

That's a good 'ole novel for my first blogger post!! You're probably cross-eyed now. But don't let that keep you from coming back! I project posting here once a week with interesting features we have, articles galore, and awesome facts. I look forward to our growing relationships and bridges between program and people.
Spread the word and as always, KEEP IT MOVING, my friends!!!