Avonlea -
On Tuesday, March 10th, the elementary students and teachers from Rouleau and Avonlea schools braved the frigid temperatures to participate in a day of fun and fitness, organized by the Avonlea School Community Council.
One hundred and thirty-four students between grades kindergarten and grade six assembled in the gymnasium for the first guest speaker of the day, hockey player, Jordan Eberle. Jordan competed in the World Junior Championship in Ottawa and was selected in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft by the Edmonton Oilers. He was introduced to the students by his cousin, Breanna Aikens, a grade 5 student of Avonlea School. The students were very interested in his experiences and what he had to say on working hard and eating right, and had lots of questions ranging from how many goals he has scored to if he knew any good jokes. There was a long line up for autographs to end the session, and he left 10 autographed pucks, which were drawn for at the end of the day.
Everyone was split up in four groups and given name tags and after a quick snack each group went to a different station with a different activity.
One group was divided into four smaller groups for the Nintendo Wii game playing, where kids could go fishing or race a cow around the track. It was nice to see everyone having so much fun and taking turns so well, which is not the easiest thing to accomplish when ages range from 5-12 and everyone was so excited.
At the gym another group was playing cooperative games like relays where they had to run with newspapers without holding them with their hands, and passing balls back and forth with their chins. There was lots of laughing as big kids and little kids had to work with each other to get the races won.
In the resource center, another group watched a video on bullying, and then got their blood pumping with an aerobics video for kids. It was a good way to burn off some pent up energy, and get the blood pumping.
The fourth group was put to work designing their tye dyed T shirts. Each group was given a specific color of either orange, blue, green, or yellow, and were told to write their names on the front and design a logo for the Wii Fit Day. When that was done, the shirts were flipped over so everyone could autograph their group member's shirt. It was a lot of writing for some of the younger ones with long names, as by the end of the session, they would have wrote their names about thirty five times!
For lunch, everyone broke up into different grades and enjoyed subway sandwiches, and then either watched videos or ran around in the gym, as the high wind chills and cold temperatures kept everyone from playing outside.
After lunch, Grade 6 student Marissa Getzlaf, introduced the second guest speaker of the day, her cousin and Saskatchewan Roughrider, Chris Getzlaf. He stressed to the kids how important proper nutrition was and also setting goals for yourself and working hard to reach them, as he sid to become a football player for the CFL. After a question and answer period with the kids, he was surrounded by everyone to get autographs.
Between sessions in the afternoon, everyone took a quick break for some fresh veggies and dip, and then congregated in the gym for the conference wrap up. A video entitled, "Heroes in the Hallway" was played, and then students were asked what they thought the significance on the name WiiFit was for the day besides the game itself. They definitely got the message, with answers about staying healthy and being fit, to one little boy wrapping it up perfectly by saying "We should all fit together".
