MILE MARKERS Feeling Immensity by Carol Goodrow 100 100%'s | Our Journey Begins | Pacing Up the Mountain | Hills | A Special Treat | Sprints | Obesity |Healthy Snack | Intervals | Nature and the Universe | Laps | For the Love of Running | Safety | Running's Natural |Combating Disease | The Future | My Running OUR RUNNING CLASSROOM I run with my class and my class loves to run. My students are second graders and that's about the best age to be a runner, for when you are 7 or 8 years old, your body wants to be in constant motion. Our running program is only on Fridays but it is immense, because it makes our lives so much more interesting. It made sense that we would use our largest bulletin board for our running program. We designed our board as an imaginary land. It's like a giant Log-a-Mile chart or a huge game of Candy Land and it represents places the children would love to run to. The kids aren't logging the miles they have run, but the number of 100%'s they've received on spelling tests. Fridays are our running days. We run, write in running journals, and have spelling tests. If my students get a 100% on a spelling test, they color in a footprint on our bulletin board. When all of the footprints are colored in, our class will have earned one hundred 100%'s and we'll have a fun run to celebrate!!!! I'm creating our spelling program now. The children were pre-tested and then given individualized lists. The kids wondered if there would be one 'winner' in spelling, and if we would be rewarding the child who got the most 100%'s or who was on the highest list. The answer was, "No". This project would be teamwork, just like our running. All the kids were to try their best and in a sense we would all be winning together. OUR JOURNEY BEGINS NEAR ICE CREAM PUDDLE After two weeks of spelling tests, the children quickly climbed the foothills past Ice Cream Puddle and thus they began our make-believe trek. There would be many places to visit and it would take a bit of work, but there'd also be lots of fun along the way. PACING UP THE MOUNTAIN TO COOKIE JAR After they reached Ice Cream Puddle, they spelled their way up to the Cookie Jar. This first climb to the tip top was the hardest. The mountain is huge! They started to understand what was expected of them with our program. "Work diligently on your schoolwork, a little bit at a time, but do it right; with your best effort and your complete attention. Stick with it and keep going. Don't give up. Listen to the teacher's directions and follow them. We practice pacing ourselves. We'll need this for our fun run. All the kids want to finish. As runners go, I'm a slow runner, but for these little kids, I'm a good pacer. Sometimes when I want them to really go easy, I have them run behind me. They know that if they don't learn to pace themselves, they might not finish our mile fun run. But when they're behind me there is to be no fooling around, for I can't watch them. They are to be serious, watch out for the runners around them, and use good running form. This is what is expected of them. DRILLS AT HAT HILLS The Hat Hills come next: easy up, and easy down, take a break, then run again. Sometimes the children do mini-hills when we run. The kids line up by a short but steep hill. They run down quickly, then run up as fast as they can. Next they take ten walking steps away from the hill as they count aloud to 10, then they turn around and take ten steps back while they continue counting to 20. Then they line up and wait for their classmates so they can run the hill again. This is a fun and exciting workout. They can run their fastest but they still work as a team. A SPECIAL TREAT AT ICE CREAM ROAD Soon we'll continue on our journey passing by Ice Cream Road. The kids think they will deserve ice cream and cookies when they get this far. They argue that they've passed Ice Cream Puddle, Cookie Jar, and will soon be at Ice Cream Road. I'm sorry I didn't encourage them to draw Tomato Juice Junction, Banana Bunch, and Broccoli Boulevard for we're supposed to only have healthy food at snack time in my classroom. I bring a sack of apples to school almost every day. If a child forgets his/her snack the child can ask for an apple. Ice cream and cookies don't fit in the healthy snack category, but I think about it and say, "Maybe just once," and then the 'Maybe' turns into 'Probably' and we all know that soon we'll have a rare treat in the classroom. Luckily, I know how to sneak nutrition into cookies and I'll bake them with oatmeal, raisins, and whole wheat flour, then we'll top the ice cream with strawberries. SPRINTS AT SHARK SEA We'll turn the bend and be on our way to to Shark Sea. There's a man-eating shark in this ocean, so it's no place to hang around. We'll sprint right by it. We practice sprinting in a line. It's the old Indian Drill. It's really fun. The kids jog in a line behind me. The last one in line gets to sprint to the front and jog. Then the next person sprints to the front and then jogs, and so on until we all get a turn. This is really fun and we cheer and yell the whole time. The kids learn that little sprints make them faster. BURNING CALORIES AT DRAGON VALLEY We will continue on to Dragon Valley. This part of the run will really heat us up. The children wear their jackets as they walk outside to the field, but they are allowed to tie them or take them off once they've warmed up. They've learned that running helps us stay warm. The coldest day turns mild, when we go running. Running heats our bodies and helps us burn calories at the same time. The children are all slim and trim now, but as they get older their bodies will change and they'll really need to exercise to burn calories. "Running and exercise should be habits for life." They can't imagine growing older and not running. They think they'll always love to run. NUTRITION INVESTIGATIONS AT APPLE ORCHARD Next we'll come up upon Apple Orchard. Weston really wanted to create "Doughnut City", but I reminded him that this was supposed to be a healthy snack classroom and that doughnuts were not healthy, even when topped with strawberries. We already had enough 'goodies', so he came up with Apple Orchard. When the class reaches his Apple Orchard we're going to have a classroom investigation. It will be an "Apple Tasting". They'll taste samples of different types of apples; sweet and sour, then rate them. They'll study the data and find out what our classroom favorite is. Apples go in the fruit category and they help us stay healthy. They have vitamins and are low on fat. They have healthy natural sugar inside of them. Eating healthy helps us stay lean and helps prevent many types of disease. It's best to form good eating habits when children are young and then they'll be more likely to have good eating habits their whole lives. INTERVALS AT RED, WHITE, AND BLUE ALLEY We will loop around and go to Red, White, and Blue Alley. These colors stand for courage, liberty, and loyalty. They are the colors of our country. We will play a running game when we get to this spot. We'll make a little patriotic triangular route on the field. We'll decorate our orange cones, making some red, some white, and some blue. The children will march the red leg of the route, acting courageous, they'll sprint the white leg feeling as free as the birds, and then they'll find a buddy and jog the blue leg with a friend. If I feel creative, we might make little flags to carry with us as we run. It's important that the flag means more to the students, than just something to look at while we say the pledge. OUR IMMENSE WORLD AT FISH TANK Soon we'll be approaching the Fish Tank. When we get here it will be time to slow down and think about our journey. Our world is immense. When we run we can observe it up close. We notice the wildlife around the pond. We wonder about what's in the depths of the sea and then we look up at the sky and think about the birds. We notice the weather as we look at the sky, and then the questions abound. Is the sun out? Is the sun really a star? How far away is it? Are there clouds to be seen? Can the clouds come down to the ground? What color is the sky today? Can we run under a rainbow? Or over one? We look around and look for signs of the season. What do we see, how do we feel, how big is the universe, and how small are we? We've read a book called Henry Builds a Cabin. It's a children's picture book about Henry David Thoreau. The children can go with their families to Walden Pond to see Henry's real cabin someday. Thoreau wasn't a runner, but he loved to hike and he loved nature, too. I tell the children that when we run, our running route can be our own Walden Pond; wherever it is. Walden Pond was where Thoreau walked, read, wrote, and drew. He was inspired by the outdoors. I want the children to be inspired, too. Every time we run, they write and draw in their journals. It's not a chore for them anymore, but it's something they look forward to doing. It's all part of this whole running thing. "Running is immense." It's something that can make children and adults alike reflect about our world and the joy of just being in the vast outdoors. LAPS AT HORSE VALLEY We will soon be trotting up to Horse Valley. Like horses in a corral, we sometimes run laps. The children run at their own pace but they quickly learn to go easy so that they can complete the lap. They all go to Mileage Club at recess time. They don't run with me at Mileage Club, but with their friends or by themselves. They carry a special card when they run and they get a hole punched in it each time they complete a lap. They're only given 15 minutes for laps at recess, so they can't run too many each day. But they run a little and they still have time to play other games. They work for toe-tokens, shoe laces, and trophies while, at the same time, they are taking care of their bodies and hearts. LOVE OF RUNNING AND LEARNING AT HAPPYVILLE Next mile marker ahead is Happyville. Everyone is happy here! The kids are always happy on Fridays. They have worked hard all week and can't wait for running day. Every other day, they ask, "Is it Friday today? Are we running today? Are we having our spelling test today?" They also want to know what kind of running we are going to do on Fridays, but it's usually a surprise. The activities are short but fun. After each activity, they know a little more about being a runner and sometimes a little bit more about their academics. Here's the game we played last week. We called it Rainbow Spelling and it would be a perfect game for Happyville, because it's so much fun. You can play it, too. You need lined paper, lots of clipboards placed about 25 yards from the start line, crayons and kids. 1. Put a sheet of paper on each clipboard. Write a child's name at the very top of each paper. 2. (Teacher holds up signs with directions for each color or calls out the directions). The kids line up at the start and then take a red crayon and run to find their clipboard. They write their name on the first line of the paper and run back to the start. 3. They get an orange crayon and run to the clipboard and write a spelling word on the next line. The game goes on like this, running from the start to the clipboards and back again. Here are the rest of the tasks: Yellow - Write two rhyming words, Green - Write a color word, Blue - Write a sentence, and Purple - Make a smile face. Then grab your clipboard and run back to the start. KIDS' SAFETY AT DOG CITY We've traveled almost 80 miles of 100%'s as we reach Dog City. We love dogs and think about how much fun it would be to go for a romp with a puppy. The children enjoy running relay races. We did a Boxer Short Relay Race and the kids had to put on boxers when it was their turn to run. It was fun and funny. The week before we practiced running relays. It was their first time ever, so they needed to learn what to do. We used kids' batons; rubber dog chew toys. They looked like speckled dog bones and were squeaky when we squeezed them, but they were safe. The kid with the 'baton' had to run around a cone and learn to stay in his/her lane. At the end of the year, we may borrow real batons from the high school and practice passing them. The children will have to be very careful for the real batons are heavy and can hurt if not passed carefully. RUNNING? IT'S NATURAL AT CAT FARM We will head towards the Cat Farm. Running is natural for animals and it's natural for us, too. Just like cats, we often stretch before and after we run. The children don't need to stretch as much as adults, for they are more flexible, but it's a good habit to practice, a habit they'll need when they continue running throughout their lifetimes. THE FINISH LINE AT HEART LAND Finally, we catch a glimpse of a sign that says Heart Land. Along the way, the children have learned to spell, they've practiced their reading and writing, but they've also worked on 'wellness'. The children and I have been kind to our hearts. Running keeps our hearts healthy. We've developed a habit of physical activity that will help us stay fit and lean as we grow older. We've used our legs to help keep our bones strong, and those of us who have added healthy eating to our routine have done the best we could do to prevent Diabetes. We anxiously approach Heart Land for it's here that we'll celebrate our running, and the success of the task of 100, 100's. TOMORROW Tomorrow is the unknown. When my children leave my class, my hope is that physical activity will be a big part of their lives. They won't run with their class anymore, but they will have P.E. and they will also have mileage club in which to participate. Then they move on to middle school as they approach adolescence. Their bodies will be changing and for many it will be more more difficult to carry their weight. Many won't have the natural desire to run anymore while others will remain very active. I'm hoping that our experiences in this primary classroom will discourage inactivity. I want to hear that my kids have all embraced running and or physical fitness as a pastime. As the children grow older some of the very active ones will join teams and begin true competition. Maybe one will become an Olympian. That would be very cool. But no matter how successful they become I want them to remember how they loved running for fun and fitness. In the best of worlds they will remain compassionate and understanding of their friends who are not as skilled as they are. I want them to remember our Run to Spell program, with each child learning at their own pace, and the joy of the teamwork that we built by running noncompetitively together. ABOUT MY RUNNING I started running in 1995 (I think). I was already 46 years old. At first I was running for fitness and then after being encouraged by an article in the first RUNNER'S WORD magazine I ever bought, I entered a 5K road race. How could I not try? This big beautiful magazine, that was full of photos and info about our greatest runners, also encouraged beginning middle-aged women runners, like me, to get started. I was hooked. I began to integrate running with my curriculum so as to share my new found love with my little ones. I lost weight along the way, joined a local running club, and then started trying to get faster and run longer: faster, longer, faster, longer. I overdid it, and started a string of injuries. I didn't have the perfect biomechanics to become the kind of runner I wanted to be, but I loved running with all my heart and it was a habit, so I healed and slowed down and ran for the beauty of the feeling and the love of the outdoors. As I got older and became more health conscious I started running for my health. Osteoporosis, heart disease, Atheroschlerosis, and obesity all run in my family. It's my heredity to contract these diseases and conditions. So far I've staved them all off, except for the Osteoporosis. I was diagnosed with this last year, but NOT in my legs. My doctor says it's unusual but he says it's the running that is keeping my bones strong. His best health advice to me always is, "Keep running!" and I know that I will for I'll never finish wondering about the immensity of our world. Please send your favorite reason to run to carolgoodrow@verizon.net.