2016 Education

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2016 EDUCATION MAGAZINE LINCOLN DAILY March 1, 2016 Page 17
Go Foods, “You can always go
to these if you’re hungry.”
Slow Foods, “These can put
on extra calories, but are not
necessarily bad for you.”
Whoa foods, “Everything is fine
in moderation but I should really
think about if I’ve already had
this, this week maybe I better
not have another candy bar,
whoa, lay off.”
Finally, Fricke offered the
philosophy behind the program,
“The encouragement is to eat
more Go Foods than Slow Foods
and more Slow Foods than
Whoa Foods.” Makes perfect
healthy sense.
Lastly, the active lifestyle for
the students kicks into high
gear during their daily Physical
Education classes.
Brent Grisham, the PE teacher
at MPGS, explained the
new method in this fashion,
“Basically it’s kind of a shift
in the PE philosophy from
old, where kids would come
in and be sitting on their spots
and waiting to do stretches and
stuff of that nature. To now,
when they get dressed for PE
they immediately come into the
gym and start walking. Instead
of the downtime of maybe
5-10 minutes of waiting until
everybody was situated, they
are already moving. The idea
behind that is not have any time
at the beginning of class where
they are not physically active.
Then we go right into our
regular running or whatever we
do after that.”
Grisham added that there are
three CATCH programs geared
towards the different age groups:
Kindergarten, first and second
grades; third, fourth and fifth
grades; sixth, seventh and eighth
grades. “There are all kinds of
games and activities within each
CATCH program that are age
specific with the games based on
movement.”
The old elimination games are
really being ‘eliminated’ this day
in age, as Grisham explained,
and the kids seem to be having
more fun than ever. “Instead of
sitting out when you get out, you
do exercises like jumping jacks
on the side and then go back into
the game. They are fun games
with unique names so the kids,
especially the younger kids,
really latch onto the names. The
good part about it is, they kind
of forget how active they really
are.
Traditionally when you tell
kids to take off and run, that’s
boring. But when you get a
game where they are active
constantly they forget how much
they are actually doing. By the
time class is over they’re hot
and sweaty and they’ve spent
a good 20-25 minutes of being
physically active and enjoying it
at the same time.”
Now after all the physical
activity and healthy eating, it’s
time to hit the iPads again for
more learning at Mount Pulaski
Grade School.
The GO, SLOW and WHOA
food posters that the
students see everyday in the
school’s cafeteria.