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USA News
Southwood Valley Building an Astronaut Core
Building an Astronaut core was an activity the kids really enjoyed. They liked it because of the competitiveness of testing their physical strength and stamina against their peers. I began the activity by describing the importance of astronauts working out their core muscles for their space missions. They understood the fact that the lack of gravity in space will result in muscular atrophy and thus having strong core muscles is imperative for them. We began the Astronaut Core mission with the pilot plank. Even though if it was slightly difficult for them to maintain the pilot plank position for 30 seconds, the kids were proud of the fact that they keep that position and were telling me with satisfaction that they could feel the burn in their ab muscles. They wanted to have a race on who could hold the position the longest. We started the race but after one minute, most of the kids were no longer holding the proper position and were breathing too hard.
South Knoll kids Crew Assembly
Phew! These kids worked so hard to accomplish the Crew Assembly mission this week. They were all really excited to train like an astronaut and use to work with their equipment (gloves) efficiently, but they soon realized how hard the training actually is! All the teams eventually finished the puzzle, but it took a solid 15-20 minutes. Still, the students weren't discouraged and enjoyed the activity very much. For the counselors, it was pretty entertaining to see how the kids would solve challenges caused by the gloves; some of the kids got pretty creative when trying to pick puzzle pieces off the floor!
Kid Fitness Happening Everywhere!
As we prepare for the International Fitness Challenge next January 2011, I thought I would begin to look around the web for interesting images people are using to show off their Kid fitness programs. I am interested in what makes fitness FUN and how we keep it FUN! So I will begin the journey around the www to find what's happening in Kid fitness. As each of the Beta teams are working on the Mission X USA Challenge site BETA Test, if you snap a pic don't forget to post it, I am confident our fit space Explorers can show the world how to do fitness with Super Fun.
Success!
The first mission, Crew Assembly, was awesome and the kids loved it! It took us a few minutes to get the mission in full swing but once we did everyone had a blast and everyone was able to complete the mission. The thing I notced most about the kids was the pure fun they were having, they were ecstatic about training like astronauts! They were more excited about space than ever before. Also very noticeable was the focus and willingness to learn about how the mission applies to space. It's impossible to avoid the challenge that wearing work gloves creates while trying to solve an ABC layered 25 piece puzzle! The mission went great and the kids are chomping at the bit to get their next taste of space on thursday!
First Day: Crew Assembly
The first day of our NASA challenge was a success. It started out a little rough because we had a soccer game and dance club occurring at the same time. It was utter chaos at first, but once the kids began the activity, then the mission began to take shape. Mr.Corey and I emphasized the importance of teamwork in the mission. We also discussed the roles that astronauts take on in space and referring to the similar roles of the crew assembly assignment. The kids were frustrated whenever they had to use the gloves to assemble the puzzle together. We let them give themselves team names. Some of those team names were Moonwalkers, Astronauts, Astronaut Gloves, Martians, and Aliens. Once they were making progress with their puzzles, they saw the benefits of patience and teamwork. I asked several of the kids their opinion about the activity, and the general response was that they had a lot of fun.
