ABS Fit Kids Club
5K Fun Run
June 1st 2016
Wednesday June 1st was the official last day of the ABS Fit Kids Club. To mark this occasion we held the ABS Fit Kids Club 5K Fun Run. Which was each member of the club (plus some friends and family members) running 10 laps along the walking path that surrounds Albert Bridge School.
With music blaring from both the front of the school and behind the school reaching the furthest part of the soccer field set up. Sprinkler station to help combat the heat was on blasting away on the black top behind the school! Balloons were stationed along the way marking the trails for a little reminder to all running to stay on the path it made the atmosphere surrounding ABS ready to RUN!
As each participate filled up their water bottles, or ran inside to get drinks from the water fountain. I handed them each a party noise maker to help encourage/excite them before they took off. Causing the playground at ABS for about 5 minutes to be drowned in a sound that I think could be describe as a chorus of dying geese! But it got them ready to rock and having had experience with noise makers, I knew that a majority of them would be out of working order around lap 5.
At 3:08 pm everyone had lined up side by side as best they could and at 3:09 pm they were off! Many of them started off fast and with great effort. A lot of the older members of the club had their 10 laps done in under 27 minutes. Some of the younger members could have easily come in with their older peers. However the sprinkler station was a great place to be and many of them lingered there for some fairly long breaks. All in all though it didn't really matter since they made up for it in sprinting to make it back to the sprinkler station after they had been pushed along by an adult.
It was a great afternoon with so many different highlights of the day. The ones that stick in my mind are seeing so many kids feel good about themselves when they finished! Proudly displaying their wrists to myself and other members of the club to validate their success in running their first 5K!!! Another was seeing the kids that might have not been in the best physical shape starting out in the club come in strong and showing that they've not only achieved the ability to finish a 5K physically, but mentally. I also loved seeing some of the kids get to share the afternoon running with their parents, or friends. Laughing at getting sprayed by someone "accidentally" at the sprinkler station. Or perhaps taking a quick break in the outdoor classroom. These are just a few of my personal highlights that come to mind.
At 4:30 pm everyone had finished and it was time to have some treats. With some ice cream sandwiches (not the healthiest, but on a hot day kind of called for). Everyone took a seat in the shade and listened while Andrea and I passed out awards.
Now I had original thought I wouldn't do awards for the Fit Kids Club. That the reward was in how you start to physical and mentally feel better as you become more and more physical fit. Than as time went on and we all spent more time outdoors with our members of the ABSFKC I started to feel that I wanted them to have some form of acknowledgement on what a great job they've been doing. So we made up awards for them each individual.
Some of our awards were "The Happy Hiker Award", "The Emmett Award" (given in the name of my dog Emmett who had become a regular in the Fit Kids Club when hiking the trails at Ascutney), "The Glamours Hiker Award" and "The Whistler Award". Of course these are just an example of some of the awards given. On each award was also a reason behind why they had received this award. This was something I especially enjoyed doing for them. It made me laugh at some of the memories that had been made while doing Fit Kids.
Especially with one student who received "The Gentleman Award". He got it because he was so into helping out his fellow classmates and friends on our hikes. He was especially helpful on our last hike to The Falls. As he walked down the trails towards the parking lot he had found himself amongst a majority of the girls (from his class). All of them feeling tired and ready to be in the parking lot right at that moment!! To help them feel a bit better along the way. He would stop, hand them their water bottles, put their water bottles back in his backpack or carry anything additional they didn't want to carry anymore.. He also spent a lot of time talking to them, making them laugh. He would also check on them from time to time.
Well one girls had injured her toe at home over the long weekend and was having a hard time with her shoe rubbing her foot. That when we got to the top of Mile Long Field. She asked if she could take off her shoes and I felt that perhaps it was worth a try. So she took them off and began to walk down.
Shortly after that I had gone a bit a head of this group to check up on someone. Once I had doubled checked on that situation I turned back towards this last group heading down Mile Long Field. When I looked up I had a incredible hard time not to burst out laughing. The sight I saw was this young man coming down the hill with all of his might, huffing and puffing as he carried down the girl without her shoes on. She laid over his shoulder like a bag of beans. The only thing visible of her was her legs and her behind. The young man quickly shouted out "I got her Mrs. Annalise, she was just to tired to walk so I told her I would carry her." I told him that it was extremely gallant of him to carry her down, but for the safety of himself he needed to put her down. He did fairly quickly and we all went on our way to the parking lot.
It was a sight that just has to make you chuckle and so when I came to him I knew what kind of award he should get!
We had many moments like this one this in the ABSFKC. It was a great experience to be out in the woods with all of these kids. The exploring we got to do amongst the different trails on the mountain was great. I've gone up there now on several occasion by myself with Emmett because I know have even better knowledge of what trail leads were and I look forward to being able to share that knowledge in future Fit Kids Club.
So with that I have to say thank you to all the people that helped support the ABS Fit Kids Club! Without the support of the parent/staff volunteers it would have been incredible hard for this to have happened. I'd like to thank Andrea Powell for following me along and supporting me with everything and never, ever asking me "are you sure" as I lead us along the trails! (hahaha). I would also especially like to thank Jenifer Aldrich for her support. Jenifer rearranged her music lesson schedule from the typical Wednesday afternoon slots to another night so that she could be with us when we went up on Mount Ascutney. Often time Jenifer was a great support in bring up the rear and I always had a great peace of mind knowing she was there!!! I would also like to thank several of our faithful parent volunteers like Kaija Percy (Trinity & Tydus mom) who came on many hikes and learned how to do some African Dancing with us. Dana Deschamp (Olivia's mom) who also joined us for many of our hikes!!! Alice and Tim Mello (Maggie's mom) for being a great support and an extra set of eyes and to Ethan Mello!!!! I also need to give a BIG SHOUT OUT to April Sykes who helped make sure I had all Fit Kids Club members and our bus driver John who helped transport a majority of the students up to the mountain on Wednesdays!
I would also love to give a shout out to my 6th Graders who did Fit Kids. These young adults were outstanding in their leadership skills and extremely helpful to myself, Andrea and the younger members of the Fit Kids Club. Overall each of these students showed tremendous skills in problem solving, leadership skills, creative problem solving and were always willing to engage in anything new. With that I'd like to say thank you to Sarah, Caitlyn, Dustin and Joe. I wish you all well in your next journey away from ABS and like to say you are always welcome to come for a hike with the ABS Fit Kids Club.
With that I wish everyone a great summer!! I will be updating this blog from time to time this summer. If anyone has any events that involved fitness or being out in nature feel free to send it along to me and I will put it here!! If anyone has any stories of great trails they've explored along the way and want to write it up, I will be happy to post it here. Just send it to annalise.ennis@wsesu.net
*Also if any of your children who were apart of the club wish to write anything about their experience they are welcome to do so!!!!
Future of Fit Kids Club.. I plan on it having a future and will post more about that as time goes on. Hopefully something will be in the works for the fall of this coming school year.
UP AND COMING EVENTS:
West Windsor 5 & Dime Race (ages 14 & Under are free, adults are $20) information is at the following : http://ascutneyoutdoors.org/new-events/ww5dime
Check out the Woodstock Recreational Center: They have many children camps going on through the summer time and for the first time this year a Flag Football League is being started. Sponsored by the NFL, coached by Woodstock Football players and Coaches. Starting June 29th through August 17th. Practices are Monday's and Wednesday's at Vail Field in Woodstock from 5 to 6:30 pm. Grades 3rd
through 8th. More information at http://www.woodstockrec.com/info/default.aspx
Windsor Recreation Department also has many different summer camps and activities going on. You can check out the online flyer at http://www.windsorvt.org/recreation-department/
Also don't forget that at our own Albert Bridge School will be having a summer school session on Tuesday and Thursdays 8:30-4:30pm through out the month of July. The first part of the day will be towards academic work while the second half of the day will be centered around Fun Stuff!! If you are interested please get in touch with Jenifer Aldrich at (802) 484-3344
