In the Zone - Winter 2023: The health. moves. minds. newsletter

In the Zone

Issue 8 / Winter 2023

From Mindful Minutes to Superhero Stations

SHAYLEY LOVE

In addition to teaching grades K-5, I am also the high school coach for volleyball and track — so I get to work on a lot of skills with students in our community. Before every match at the high school, the girls take a Mindful Minute so they can self-regulate (although when coaching I call it a Visualization Minute so it sounds less elementary to them).

During volleyball, I ask everyone on the team to focus on positive things — not the errors — such as making every serve, making every pass, and having strong defense. If we are down in a match, we take a Visualization Minute. With my track team, it helps even our most gifted track athletes refocus when they need it. Students on both high school teams were unsure at first, but now they want to do a Visualization Minute and even remind me if I forget.

With my kindergartners, we practice the Mindful Minute during lockdown drills to help them understand how to stay calm when they may encounter a stressful situation in the future. I incorporate the health. moves. minds.® curriculum as a supplement to my current curriculum and use the lessons throughout the year — and the Mindful Minute is used throughout the school.

Support for School and Community

For the past two years, we have held a health. moves. minds. Fundraiser in February. This has been a blessing for our building because we needed funds to buy larger equipment and supplies for new activities. The fundraiser giveback and a grant we received that year helped us purchase new basketball backboards and equipment, which hadn’t been

The health. moves. minds.® Fundraiser brings together the lessons, activities, and community-building ideas that help students live their best life.

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.

replaced since possibly the 1970s. Last year, we got a Frisbee golf set which the students really enjoy.

During our first year of health. moves. minds. we didn’t support a charity because I wanted to see what the fundraiser was about and how we would do with it. We did so well with what we raised and received back that we decided to support a charity the next year — and we chose our local fire department. We had a huge fire in our area, and many of our volunteer firefighters don’t always have new equipment or things they need to do their job.

The next year we supported a new Little League in our community, helping to purchase catching gear for the team. Our students were so proud to help in their community both years. Whenever people in the community come up to students in town and thank them, it makes them feel really special. Getting recognized for doing something good goes beyond what they are doing in PE.

Incentives and Celebrations

When implementing the fundraiser, I allow my students to donate online or by cash or check. We have additional classroom jars and a couple of classroom challenges. The winning classroom that raises the most through online and cash/check donations get a pizza party. The winning classroom that raises the most through classroom jar donations gets a root beer float party.

We also let the top individual fundraiser in the school spend a whole day as the PE teacher in my class. I help them plan and

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Physical Education Teacher, Saratoga Elementary School (Saratoga, WY)

In 2022, Saratoga Elementary supported a new Little League in the community through their health. moves. minds. Fundraiser.

fundraising focus School Success Stories

Brookview Elementary School

FOSTER, WV COZETTA MILLER | Physical Education Teacher

Total Raised: $2,556

We are a Title I school, and throughout last year I taught the health. moves. minds.® lessons and activities to my classes, starting with the Mindful Minute and the Emoji Rating Scale. I used them throughout the school, including in our faculty meetings. I also gave the classroom teachers the mini-posters so they could use them and share them with parents. The school PTO also got involved by posting photos of students who got “caught” being kind.

During our health. moves. minds. Fundraiser timeframe, we brainstormed about what our goal would be and what our funds would be used for. We decided we would raise money for our playground to improve the quality of physical activity that students experience at recess.

We also decided to support a charity. I gave the students three charities to choose from and they chose B. A. R. C. (Boone Animal Rescue Coalition) to help the health and shelter of animals in our community.

I have a very supportive principal with regards to physical education. We had done fundraisers before, but it was a new

South Side Elementary School

BRISTOL, CT

Total Raised: $1,280

Iam the executive director for CTAHPERD (Connecticut AHPERD) and after attending a health. moves. minds.® webinar, I knew that this was the year I needed to jump into action and register as a Team Champion for a health. moves. minds. Fundraiser at our school.

I was impressed by the ease of the online registration, which was user friendly and contained abundant resources to help me get started. I dedicated the first three weeks of the school year to embedding the health. moves. minds. lessons into my classes.

Our fundraiser event — a “Family Fun Night/Warrior Walk” — took place at the end of September. Prior to the event, we collected monetary donations to purchase white luminary lunch bags. In a few short weeks, we raised $1,280 by collecting donations for the luminary bags. Families were encouraged to decorate the bags by focusing on the theme of “Amplify Kindness,” and the luminaries were used to line the perimeter of the field at our event.

On the evening of September 30, families gathered together and walked laps around the school field to celebrate

thing to support a charity that students could choose to help and that was local. They felt their vote mattered on what charity they chose. For me it was also very important that we got more back to our school for PE equipment. This fundraising program is really good because it is really easy, we can make it our own, and we can allow the students to support a charity they want — all while helping our school more than other fundraisers I have ever done in my 35 years of teaching.

LISA GALSKE | Physical Education Teacher

a healthy life. The connections made with our families while building a kinder community were so gratifying for me to witness and validated the importance of the health. moves. minds. program. Our school received a GOPHER gift card to purchase equipment — and

we shared the funds to support the Captain Connor Albert Foundation, a charity established in the name of a former student who passed away from cancer.

It was a win-win for all involved! As an executive director and educator, I challenge you to become a Team Champion!

Brookview Elementary students got their photo taken for the school PTO’s website if they were “caught” being kind to others.

South Side Elementary raised donations by selling luminary bags, which participants decorated before the school’s fundraising event.

state spotlights

It’s easy to integrate the health. moves. minds.® program into your existing curriculum, whether you teach K-12 or at the college/ university level. In this issue, we’re shining a spotlight on Juli Martin of Kentucky and Kaisee Lovercamp of Missouri. They are both doing great work with health. moves. minds.!

Juli Martin Highlands Middle School Fort Thomas, KY

Despite being a little apprehensive about doing a health. moves. minds. Fundraiser because it was my first year at Highlands Middle School, I was inspired by the passion of the people I’ve met through Kentucky

SHAPE and at conferences — so I decided to just get things rolling!

We had a Walk to School health. moves. minds. Fundraiser event for two weeks before spring break last year to connect SEL with physical activity. One week was focused on kindness and the second centered around gratitude. Each day we had different student challenges to help the children believe in themselves and pinpoint their strengths. We also created movement challenges, including challenges for teachers to get in more steps.

The whole school embraced the activities and had fun. Our broadcasting students videotaped interviews, and the journalism students wrote stories for the yearbook. The student council planned the Walk to School event, created posters, and recruited volunteers to staff the route.

In our PE classes, we talked about how exercise benefits mental health, and the journalism students distributed posters about how physical activity positively impacts brain health. A teacher told me that it felt so good to get up and move in the classroom.

The health. moves. minds. Fundraiser was easy to do, and we are so pleased with how generously our community supported the endeavor and the funds it provided for our school to get new scooters.

Kaisee Lovercamp Lafayette County C-1 High School Higginsville, MO

We implemented the health. moves. minds. Fundraiser in my high school during a week-long event where we began each day with SEL lessons in homeroom/seminar classes that focused on topics like cell phone usage, mindful breathing, and self-care.

Then at the end of the week (when we already had an early release day planned) we had a four-hour period of physical activity and SEL. We had mindful breathing with the parachute station, a yoga station, a Just Dance station, and a kindness station, where students could write a letter to anybody in the building. This was new to the kids and although hesitant initially, they ended up really enjoying it.

We have a Character Strong program in our building already, but the health. moves. minds. lessons were new and different, plus they involved movement and fit their grade level. Teachers and students enjoyed getting up and moving. My students really liked Mindful Parachute — even in high school they like to be a kid again — and I took it further and talked about mindful breathing. My favorite lesson was Analyzing Cell Phone Usage, which allowed them to understand how much time they are spending on their phones when they could make better choices on how to spend their time.

I loved that our top two fundraisers were students who were not top athletes or heavily involved in PE. They were very proud to receive the recognition. The funds we received allowed us to get new PE equipment for team building to bring together all groups of students (athletes, band kids, etc.). Having them work together as a team — not in their typical groups — can make a big impact at this age.

From Mindful Minutes to Superhero Stations

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decide what they want to do — including what music and activities they will use. We also do the T-shirt incentive and have previously done rubber bracelets and egg roulette to make it fun for the kids.

Last year, we used the Powered by Kindness superhero theme because I thought the kids would have so much fun with it. The bulletin board changed as the year went along with the different lessons and activities, as well as during our fundraiser period.

As a celebration we went to the high school and the NHS and Student Council students helped me set up stations. Both groups of students had a great time going through the activities! The younger kids look up to the high schoolers because they think of them as their superheroes.

Bonus Benefits

I have always shared the health. moves. minds. information with my colleagues, including lessons learned from the fundraiser and activities. I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from classroom teachers because often the lessons were helping students in their classrooms also. I appreciate the communication with classroom teachers because together we can help the students have a more positive day and manage

GOPHER IN THE ZONE

their challenges. This year, our school’s music teacher is also very excited about helping with the Amplify Kindness theme and making it fun for the students.

Teachers, parents, students, and I all appreciate the chance to get more new PE equipment than we have through other fundraisers in the past. If another teacher asked me if they should do a health. moves. minds. Fundraiser, I would tell them yes, because you just add in some of the simple lessons with your physical activities and it can make such a change. It’s not more work — it’s a bonus — and you can still support any charity you may have supported through other fundraisers in the past and get more back for your school. I have met many new teachers through health. moves. minds. and have gained so much for myself and my students.

Saratoga Elementary students enjoy a health. moves. minds. celebration at the local high school.