Bread Of Life PE Day

What a fun day we had this Friday!!! It was our very first BOL PE Day. BOL is our home school group here in the Woodlands TX. We have a wonderful group of families. These are individuals rooted in their faith and devoted to each other and their children. We feel incredibly blessed to be a part of this outstanding group.

Each school year we, as a family and as a home school support community contemplate how we can make the next school year be better. Just like every school district we sit and plan what to add. This year J and I decided to try to provide all the kiddos with a physical activity. As the idea developed for us we realized that if would be tons of fun to share our ideas with our community.

(Me thanking the kiddos for giving their all and thanking the other parents for helping make the day possible.)

First we polled the families and discovered that there was in fact a huge interest. We then picked a few moms to organize those ideas. We are so blessed to have a new member of our group that was a physical education teacher way back before children. We even found out that we could participate in the presidential physical fitness challenge, like so many of our public and private school peers. All we needed was someone to organize the deal. In the home school world there is an unwritten rule. "If you suggest an idea, you are in charge of making it happen!" So I had the idea and that meant I had to do the work. (Not by myself, everyone always helps.) My job was just to put all of our thoughts and ideas into usable fun days at the park. J took a vacation day to help my get our first one all together. As always J was a huge support.

Thanks babe!

We had to cancel two PE days in September. The first one was scheduled for the day of Ike and the second one was two weeks later. Many of the parks were closed due to debris and then so many of us were without power still or doing laundry to catch up for the weeks of no power. Today we crammed the first two planned days into one. We set up stations and divided the kiddos into age groups. This is where all the organization was needed. We had to introduce the Physical Fitness Challenge to the kiddos and get their base lines. We will then give them their goals so that they can receive an award at the end of the school year.

Bear preparing to run his 1/2 mile.

He did great as did all the kiddos. By all I mean all 70 plus kiddos ranging in age from 1 year all the way up to 18. Now the babies just played but we even had the toddlers taking a small jog. The activities were things like curl ups, shuttle runs, stretching, arm hangs and endurance run. We actually made them run 1/2 mile because instead of a 1/4 mile because we were running on an unmarked soccer field. We also added in some standard PE things like jump rope games, 4-square, juggling and ran out of time before we pulled out the parachute.

Here Pooker and Goobers watch with a worried look as a friend pulls himself up
to begin his flex arm hang.

Sugar wasn't worried.

As always she handled each challenge with a smile. She really is quit the athlete. All of the kiddos did so good. We were missing quit a few friends, our projected number is over 110 kiddos. Next time we will have a better idea of what is coming so the amount doesn't bother me. Today they groups walked from station to station to be counted or timed. We wiped the little ones out by just having them move from group to group.

The train that went from the arm hang station to the curl up station, notice
Princess at the back!

The K and 1st Graders had to be the most challenging group. They want to do everything but have a very hard time listening. Princess was in this group. I helped move this group from station to station at one point while the two moms in charge of the age group tacked down a few run aways. It was so crazy and yet a blast to see all of those personalities. I was just glad that Princess was not one of the run aways.

Princess really did have a blast today. She told me that she loves PE and wants to go all the time. That is a job well done. J and I have noticed that we have been so busy with the big kid activities that the younger ones were not getting the same amount of attention. Today allowed us to focus on each one. J walked around and took pictures after we were organized and I looked for situations that needed some direction.

Pickle listens to directions.

Today Pickle got to see his new friends again. He is coming out of his own little world and finding that he really does have a ton of cool friends. He is enrolled in Sacramental prep classes with most of these kiddos at church. Because we all home school we got to put them together in one class room and they are having a blast. I feel a little bad for the teacher, another home school mom, but she loves it and they love her.

Pickle waits to take his turn with the jump rope.

Moogie having her friend count her curl ups.

I must confess that I did have a little fear today. Moggie swims beautifully and enjoys all of her outdoor activities. She rides bikes, skates, runs, and as I said swims. She loves to be out and about all the time. When I looked over at her before she ran the 1/2 mile my heart leaped. I was overcome with the emotion that if we had discovered his heart condition and fixed it years ago, would this be the type of activity that might have caused her to collapse. Well thank God that was in the past. She took off and didn't stop. She is so amazing and so strong. I still can't believe her medical past. We are blessed.

Moogie waiting to run.

Pooker, Goobers and a friend smile for dad before the arm hang.

Sugar and Bear both help a friend of Princess.

As the older groups finished they would then go and help the younger groups. The older groups didn't take nearly the amount of time that the younger ones did. The good news is that by the time they are in high school they stop running away and hiding in the playground tunnels.

Bagel followed mom around the entire time!

It was a long day. Bagel struggled with sharing mom and dad with the other kiddos. She didn't want to be with her group and spent the day at my side. Later she told me that she would have stayed if I was helping with her group. Maybe next time when we do soccer I can work with the toddlers. I only hope that next time runs more on auto pilot. We are doing soccer and we will not have to mover around nearly as much!

The trooper of the day award goes to Jumba.

His other shoe is in my hand. This little man was wonderful. He went with us all day, never complained and smiled at all he saw. Here is asking for the camera. Maybe next time he will be the camera man!

To sum it up we had a blast. Thanks to all the moms and dads that worked so hard to make it such a special day!

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