Wellness Day

Have you ever had an entire school involve a Wellness Day? This includes lots of exercises, eating healthy food, and educating about the healthy food. The students had been taught the food group a week before the big activity day: The Second Annual Wellness Day.

The first thing in the morning, there were two different groups: K-2 and 3-5. My students were involved in a first group, so did Ryan. Even though Dylan is in second group, his combo class (2-3) grade join the second group. Both groups have same activities, but different routines. I saw very little of Dylan through out the day.

Ryan and my students started out Jog-A-Thon for an hour! He indeed ran for an hour. Lots of kids were sweating. While the kids were running around laps, the San Diego News - Channel 6 showed up. I did not expect to be on the news. I was promoting the kids, " Hurry Up, Go!' I wished I said it more positively to other deaf and hard of hearing students. Oh well, at least, the new reporters did not know what I was saying. Then, the principal of the school was explaining the news about the reason of using a Wellness Day.

After the first group finished running for an hour, all of them get a free Fruit popsicle. It certainly helped to cool themselves off. At the same time, it is a rewarding treat. I eventually caught some of my other son, Dylan throughout the day. I did see him getting a healthy lunch pack. In the pack, it includes: peanut butter jelly, rasins, honey crackers, and a pint of milk.

Once we all had our same-time picnic lunch, we started 12 minutes routines. During the routines, there were awesome activities, even Yoga! I wished I joined the Yoga activities, but it was for the older kids. Dylan was one of them. I bet he will have to teach me how. There were fruit smoothies. The superdiedent, who was my former boss, was there to demonstrate the smoothies. He did a good job making us a cup of delicous fruit smoothies.

As I have mentioned there were health education: UV Ray (they used clear bead bracklets to demonstrate what is our current UV Ray), Therapy Dog (Ryan announced that the dog looked like from "Hotel for the Dogs--Groan!" and educating about sugar. I loved that idea. One of the finest student teachers demonstrated students on how much each drink has sugar. It shocked many of us. Wtihout a doubt, I sure will use them in the near future.

A day after the Wellness Day, I asked my four and seven years old students to demonstrate the food group with the plastic food on the floor. They mostly did get the right food group. I sure felt so good that I had taught my students about the Food Group a week before the Wellness Day.