5 Quotes by Jennifer Pehmoeller

One year, we purchased pulse rate monitors, because we teach the children early on how to monitor their heart rate. When they are really young, we show them how to put their hand on their chest and feel their heart beat, and experience their hearts beating faster or slower. As they get older, they can use the wristband heart monitor to monitor their pulse while they are exercising. The idea is that you want to get the heart rate up to a certain level when you exercise to really get an aerobic benefit from it.

We look at a number of different fitness factors. We look at their muscular strength, their muscular endurance, their aerobic capacity and their body composition. This year, we are doing the assessment at the end of the year, whereas we are talking about fitness the entire year, and working on it the entire year. We will get an idea at the end of the year how these activities have worked for us.

We have parent volunteer parents who come in to help with the jumping. Some teachers actually jumped with their classes, providing a role model for the kids so that they can see an adult working to be in good health, and how important it is for them to continue with this throughout their lives.

This is especially important nowadays with all the emphasis on obesity in children. We know that children need to learn early on that they need know how to control their bodies and their health, and continue it throughout their lives. We model it for them, and we teach them how to go about that. We talk about it with them at length, about good nutrition, about sleeping, and about getting exercise routinely.

It seems that the kids are doing more at home now, outside of our school. We talk about that a lot, how three times a week is not enough activity to really benefit their health. We suggest that they exercise every day of the week, get up away from the computer and get moving. They can even exercise while they are watching television, or there are Play Station games that include exercise.