In the Zone Issue 6 / Spring 2022
The Importance of SEL Curriculum and Fundraising for a Title I School TOM ROBERTS Physical Education Teacher, Aquila Elementary School (St. Louis Park, MN)
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quila Elementary is a Title I school (K-5) with middle class families and lower income households that need assistance. We have a large multilingual population and embrace our diversity. I have been using the health. moves. minds. program for three years — the SEL curriculum and activities as well as the fundraiser. The parachute activity is one that we use a lot. We shake the balls on the parachute while talking to students about how to manage the many thoughts that might be juggling in their minds. The Mindful Minute is something I do at the end of my classes to help students calm down, which helps them transition back to the classroom better. Their teachers appreciate that. We have a PE Combo Class (music and physical education), and we collaborate on our curriculums to do PE and music together. Our music teacher also does mindful breathing with her class. When I started using the health. moves. minds. posters and resources a few years ago, it inspired other teachers to make posters for their classroom door and bulletin boards. Some have even made kindness jars. We also have an SEL Team at our school, which includes me, our social worker, and our psychologists. They do a “kindness boomerang” and give it to a student who then gives it to someone else. This reinforces kindness and is a good fit with our health. moves. minds. program.
SHAPE America’s health. moves. minds. program offers lessons and activities that teach kids to thrive physically and emotionally — and includes flexible fundraising options to help you make the biggest impact in your school and community. You can share your success with health. moves. minds. — and bring national attention to your school — by contributing to In the Zone! If interested, email healthmovesminds@shapeamerica.org.
A culture of kindness has spread throughout Aquila Elementary School.
Our classroom teachers are using the calming activities and are also helping to create a culture of kindness, which is now spreading throughout the school, not just in the gym. On our playground we have a Buddy Bench where a student can sit if they don’t have someone to play with. We teach our students to show empathy and ask that student on the Buddy Bench to play or join their activity.
Fundraising Benefits While the health. moves. minds. curriculum is very important to our school, so is the fundraising. I have a $700 budget for my department. I found that even if I choose the “Pay it Forward” fundraising option — where 25% of the funds raised support a charity of our choice — we still receive 25%, which is more than the 4% that I usually received from other fundraisers we have participated in. Our first year with health. moves. minds., we supported the Muscular Dystrophy (MD) Association because we had a student with MD. That fundraiser brought awareness and greater understanding to our students. Last year and this year we are supporting Special Olympics because we feel their mission aligns with the mission of health. moves. minds. Creating a culture of (continued on page 4)
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fundraising focus School Success Stories
Forest Park Elementary O’FALLON, MO
Total Raised: $6,345
JEFF LADD | Physical Education Teacher
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Students loved getting the chance to duct tape physical education teacher Jeff Ladd to the gym wall.
Conway Elementary ST. LOUIS, MO
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Total Raised: $5,958
e started health. moves. minds. in 2019-2020 … and then COVID-19 hit. We have continued to use the lessons and resources because we feel that socialemotional wellness is so important. Because more of our elementary students are affected by social-emotional challenges rather than being affected by heart disease, we felt it was more relevant that we focus on social-emotional wellness. This year we also wanted to make an impact for our charity and our school. We wanted to hit home what it was about and why we were doing it. Our charity, Family Forward, steps in to help families that are struggling and that need tools to handle certain situations. The organization offers
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hysical education teacher Kyle Salvo has been using health. moves. minds. in our school district for a few years and he talked to me about how it has helped students at his school learn how to manage their emotions and also help give more back to his school. This was my first year using the program and I can see where the lessons and activities will continue to help students in my class and in other classrooms. My students looked forward to the fundraising fun because they have done fundraising before. We chose our PTO as our charity, which gave students a concrete idea of what fundraising can
do — helping their school and seeing the benefit of that every day. Since my students enjoy incentives, we had individual, class, and school-wide incentives. The top vote for the schoolwide incentive was for me to dye my hair. Other incentives included having lunch with me, duct taping me, and pizza. The highlight of our event was that our top student fundraiser earned the right to “name the gym,” and she chose to name it after her grandfather, who had battled mental health issues. While our students were very excited about the fundraising, this year the additional mental health awareness really taught them how to handle stressful times they encounter.
NEIL THERIAULT | Physical Education Teacher
programs that help parents and children understand appropriate responses, lifestyle, and positive advice. We tell our students that parents need good social-emotional wellness too. We think this is a good way to provide an awareness of why we are raising money — not just to support an important charity and help fund PE equipment for our school, but to also learn about socialemotional wellness. We want our students to understand that their kind acts can help someone in a difficult situation. For example, if they see another student struggling or in a certain state of mind, they can show empathy by thinking about how they feel and what is an appropriate response they can use to make that student feel better.
Physical educator Neil Theriault used the health. moves. minds. fundraiser to teach students about social-emotional wellness.
Learn more and register at healthmovesminds.org
state spotlights I n this issue, we’re shining a spotlight on Catie Embry of Natcher Elementary School in Bowling Green, KY, and Krista Winn of Hamilton Elementary School in Port Angeles, WA. They are both doing great work with health. moves. minds.!
How health. moves. minds. Helps Us Krista Winn (Washington) We were one of the pilot schools for the health. moves. minds. program — and SEL and kindness have now become an integral part of our day. I use health. moves. minds. as our main resource to teach SEL. Our district focuses on a character trait each month and this year, kindness was the trait for February. That worked great because we incorporated it into our health. moves. mind. event and what we were doing for Random Acts of Kindness that month.
Why I Recruit health. moves. minds. Team Champions Catie Embry (Kentucky)
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It all started with Angela Stark recruiting me to do a health. moves. minds. fundraiser in Kentucky. From the beginning, I saw the magnitude of success of the event. Through participating in our health. moves. minds. fundraiser and using the SEL resources, I saw an incredible culture change in our school.
The fundraising has been important as well for our school. In the past we have supported a charity, although this year we really needed the larger fundraising giveback option for our school. I only have a $100 budget for my PE needs — and this year we received more than $500 from our fundraiser to help us purchase new equipment. We are a 60% free and reduced lunch school, and this funding is important, as is teaching students how to take care of the mind and body. They really enjoy learning about keeping their heart healthy, being physically active, and what the heart feels like when you’re kind to others or they are being kind to you. My favorite response from a student was, “My heart gets goosebumps!”
The goal I set for our school that year was to raise $4,000. It was a lofty goal, but we ended up raising almost $8,000! As a result, we got to hang up a rock wall — and my students got to have ownership in that goal. It was incredible how easy the event was to do compared to other fundraisers I had done previously.
It is important to me to share how to get started in health. moves. minds. so other PE teachers can reap benefits from the hard work they do in their school fundraiser, plus how they can still support a charity if they want — but all in one event.
Team Champions from the health. moves. minds. Top Champion Schools for 2020-2021 receive their awards at #SHAPENOLA from Gopher representative Jonathan Faloon (far left). Tyler Eichas (second from left) from Plank Road South Elementary (NY) raised $12,238.21, Kyle Salvo (third from left) from Twin Chimneys Elementary (MO) raised $11,242, and Kristi Bieri (far right) from Odessa Upper Elementary (MO) raised $6,517.87.
Learn more and register at healthmovesminds.org
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The Importance of SEL Curriculum and Fundraising for a Title I School (continued from page 1) awareness, empathy and kindness is a positive win-win for our school community. When it’s time to start the fundraiser, I collaborate with the media specialist in the school media center to help get students familiar with everything they need to help their parents register them for the program, including talking about why we are doing the fundraising event. We think incorporating the health. moves. minds. annual theme is important to get the students excited. We purchase wristbands with health. moves. minds. printed on them, which students can receive for raising $5. Whenever a student turns in their $5, I put the wristband on them, then I place my wristband over theirs and say, “Kindness Powers Activate.” This is fun for the students, and they feel proud to be part of giving and spreading kindness.
Culture of Kindness Our climate of kindness doesn’t just happen during the health. moves. minds. fundraiser. During Random Acts of Kindness Week, we give students a challenge to aspire to complete during the school week, spreading kindness in the classroom and at home. And throughout the year, students put sticky notes on the POWered by Kindness wall to represent an act of kindness they did at school, at home, in the store, or anywhere. It is filling up!
Aquila Elementary's “POWered by Kindness” wall is getting filled with sticky notes representing students’ acts of kindness.
We are happy to see what health. moves. minds. has done for our school — through both the SEL activities and the fundraising, which helped us raise needed funds for our PE department to keep our students healthy. The best compliment of this program was hearing from parents during parent-teacher conferences that they are so pleased with how the emphasis on kindness (including the posters and general atmosphere) has made the school feel safe by promoting inclusion, kindness and empathy.
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Learn more and register at healthmovesminds.org