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Pat Vos Adapts Run the Seasons Program
Kid Charts and Handmade Seasonal Shoe Tokens
PAT WRITES Letter to KR Hi my name is Pat Vos and I am a volunteer running coach for a group of children at the Ottawa Christian School in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Last fall I started a cross-country team at the school and it has mushroomed to a running club with two coaches and two parent helpers!! We have close to 50% of the students from gr. 3-8 join us twice a week for some running activities. Along with this we have two runs/races that we take the students to and one city event that we really encourage them all to enter. That's just for this fall. Then we start up in the spring again with much the same type of plans along with some added focus on track and field events. In searching for ideas we ran into your site!! I visit it periodically for ideas...and this year we are "Running the Seasons" with our students! We added some different twists from yours but have given your internet address to the students as well. Anyway...a few weeks ago we had a scavenger hunt and I thought I would pass our ideas on to you since we have gained so much help from you....now its time to pass on some help. Thanks so much and keep up the wonderful work with your site.  PAT'S RUNNING THE SEASONS CHARTS Integrating art, nature, writing, and running  Click to see full chart. We made charts for the students to fill in....10 days in fall, 5 in winter, 10 in spring and again 5 in summer. We shifted the seasons a bit because we really won't be running during the official winter and school is closed by the time summer comes around. We really run with them close to 50 times a year but give awards out for each season if they run at least the number of times stated above. We have made maple leaves out of foamy craft material that students get to attach to their shoe laces for running the fall season....most have fulfilled the runs already though our designated winter doesn't start till Oct. 30th. We are hoping to keep them running then till the middle of Nov. at which time the ones who have run at least five times will get a 2 in running gloves to add to their runners' laces. We'll pick this up again then in the spring for the last two seasons. I like the idea of 100 days very much...when school ends I was planning on drawing the students' attention again to your site and enouraging them to keep running over the summer on their own or with their families. SCAVENGER HUNT Fun activity for kids Pat's group also designed a scavenger hunt; a perfect activity for a Running the Seasons program. Pat writes, "For the scavenger hunt we divided the children into groups...an adult leader with the grade 3/4 groups but the 5-8 groups were on their own...about 5 children in each group. They really did enjoy it so I am trying to design another scavenger hunt for them! The best part was seeing some kids that have trouble staying motivated get very excited and run at the head of the pack for once. Another highlight was to see the older students use their leadership skills in positive ways!" SCAVENGER PRINTABLE Print or Adapt for your own use Printable Scavenger Hunt Blank LINKS FOR YOU  Run the Seasons ProgramRun the Seasons Run the SeasonsKids Creative Writing Page: See October Kids' Stories |
Email
rwedit@rodale.com
