My friend Kristin and I are kicking off the Gold Medal Mile at our elementary school on Monday.  She dubbed us the Gold Medal Moms.  Basically, students can walk laps around the school yard during recess and earn prizes and incentives based on how many miles they complete each month. Our goal for this year is to walk around the world.. about 24,000 miles!

Kids need to be active during school hours.  Studies show after recess or other structured active time, they perform better in class and there are less behavior problems.

• Our elementary school does not get enough PE time!  I believe they only have PE for three weeks, then 6 or 9 weeks they are “off”.

• Fewer than 7 out of 100 junior high schools provide any kind of physical activity.
• Kids 2 and older should get 30 minutes or more of activity each day.

In regular, unstructured play, kids tend to get all three elements of exercise!  If they aren’t getting enough play-time, are they getting these three components of exercise?

• Endurance:  Walking, running, tag, chasing each other, biking, team sports.
• Strength:  Crossing the monkey bars, throwing balls, handstand contest, wrestling, climbing.
• Flexibility: Bending over to tie shoes, reaching, cartwheels, doing the splits.

For home-schoolers that want to do something similar to the Gold Medal Mile, we tried it last summer at home, and my kids LOVED it.

On Monday, I did this series of exercises.  Ten reps of each item. Flip-flopper always wants to exercise with me if she sees me doing it.  I’m still sore! And its Thursday! She is not.  She can do a better push up than I’ve ever been able to do. She can do more sit ups, and of course is way more flexible.  And she’s only 7!  These were the exercises.

• Squat (wide leg)
• Push up
• 45 degree lunge
• Superman
• Prisoner squat
• hip-up
• lunge walk
• alternating leg v-sit
• lateral squat
• push-up centerfold
• reverse lunge
• side stabilzation 

Dave Grotto, R.D., was kind enough to answer one my readers questions from our Quaker Weekend.  He has posted an answer here. http://asktheguytitian.blogspot.com/2008/11/potassium-calcium-and-magnesium.html.  If you have dietician related questions, you can ask him.  Great blog idea Dave!