Lesson 12: Bullying
Last Tuesday, we talked about a topic that was both timely and important: Bullying. The girls were aware of the recent news events, concerning the tragic consequences bullying can have on young people. We discussed the types of bullying and to make sure the girls were paying attention, we played a relay game. Now that the girls were warmed up, we proceeded to the workout with the girls running laps and answering questions about bullying. We did a cool down stretch, while the girls discussed bullying situations they witnessed in school and their feelings about the situation. All the girls agreed that you want to find someone to talk to, if you are being bullied and if it continues-tell an adult. We wrapped up with our healthy Tuesday snack:apples and a Girls on the Run cheer.
Lesson 13: Standing Up for Myself
Warmer weather and sunshine greeted us on Friday afternoon for our lesson on Standing Up for Myself. Many of the girls remembered the key phrases to say to stand up for yourself. We reviewed the phrases with a game. After that all of the girls were familiar with the phrases and ready to move on with the warm-up game. Several girls shared personal examples of recent situations in their lives, where they need to use the key phrases to stand up for themselves, with friends and or family members. The workout was done in the big field, so the girls could work on their endurance and pacing. There was some moaning and groaning about running laps around the big field, but you guessed it: everyone did it! Running or walking; all of the girls made it around the big field and reviewed the key phrases.
A big GOTR cheer and thank you to Marissa's mother for bringing cupcakes and drinks in honor of Marissa's birthday. The girls really enjoyed the goodies, it was a nice treat! Another big GOTR cheer for Erins' sister, Meghan, for assisting me, while Coach Connie and Coach Jenn attended a race.
Change in date for Practice 5K
Have you looked at the calendar? We are getting closer and closer to the Celebration Race on May 23. As you know, before the big race, we have a Practice 5K to give the girls a feeling for the conditions on race day. The Practice 5K was scheduled for this Friday, April 30, however, due to scheduling conflicts, the Practice 5K will be held on Friday, May 7th.
We could use some volunteers to make the Practice 5k a great experience for the girls. Please let me know if you can volunteer or if you know of any friends or family that would like to volunteer. It's not hard, we need enthusiastic folks to hand out water, put up balloons and cheer for the girls. The secret is; you will have a lot fun while you are doing it.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Gossiping Is No Good!
This Friday's lesson was all about gossiping. The last few lessons we have been talking about different types of communication and working together. Coach Jenn began the discussion by asking the girls if there was any type of communication that was hurtful. Eventually, the girls said gossiping hurts everyone involved. When we tell stories about other people, or gossip, it hurts the person we're talking about, it hurts the people we tell the stories to by making them feel uncomfortable and it hurts the person telling the story.
To help the girls understand how telling stories can get out of hand, and really hurts those involved, Coach Jenn had the girls stand in a close circle, with their shoulders touching. Coach Jenn gave one girl a ball of yarn and asked her to hold the end of the yarn and throw the ball to another girl. The next girl held the string of yarn and threw the ball to another girl. After the ball of yarn was thrown from girl to girl, a shape began to form. Coach Jenn asked what the shape looked like and the girls said a spider web. And a web is exactly what stories can begin to look like when we gossip about others.
Coach Tanya then got the girls ready for their warm up by splitting them into two teams and spacing them out around the black top. In this modified version of "telephone," Coach Tanya drew a shape on the starting girl's back. The girl then ran to the next girl and drew the shape on her back. Then she ran to the next girl and drew the shape and so on. After the last girl received the shape, she had to write down what the shape was, to see if the final shape was actually the shape Coach Tanya originally drew. And you know what? For one of the teams, it wasn't. Coach Tanya and the girls discussed how this is just another example of how a story can start out one way and when it goes from person to person, it turns into something completely different. Just like gossip.
While Coach Jenn and Coach Tanya were doing the lesson with the girls, Coach Connie was busy hiding lots of goodies around the playground. Why? For the SCAVENGER HUNT!
That's right! The girls' favorite activity finally arrived: the GOTR Scavenger Hunt! The girls had to find lots of things: something blue, the GOTR snack for the day, something smooth, etc. They had to run, they had to jump rope, they had to do a cheer. But best of all, they had to find their GOTR t-shirts, which are a bright pink this season. Now we're all powerful in pink this season!
After all the girls finished their hunts, we did our cheer and went on our way. What a great way to start our weekend!
To help the girls understand how telling stories can get out of hand, and really hurts those involved, Coach Jenn had the girls stand in a close circle, with their shoulders touching. Coach Jenn gave one girl a ball of yarn and asked her to hold the end of the yarn and throw the ball to another girl. The next girl held the string of yarn and threw the ball to another girl. After the ball of yarn was thrown from girl to girl, a shape began to form. Coach Jenn asked what the shape looked like and the girls said a spider web. And a web is exactly what stories can begin to look like when we gossip about others.
Coach Tanya then got the girls ready for their warm up by splitting them into two teams and spacing them out around the black top. In this modified version of "telephone," Coach Tanya drew a shape on the starting girl's back. The girl then ran to the next girl and drew the shape on her back. Then she ran to the next girl and drew the shape and so on. After the last girl received the shape, she had to write down what the shape was, to see if the final shape was actually the shape Coach Tanya originally drew. And you know what? For one of the teams, it wasn't. Coach Tanya and the girls discussed how this is just another example of how a story can start out one way and when it goes from person to person, it turns into something completely different. Just like gossip.
While Coach Jenn and Coach Tanya were doing the lesson with the girls, Coach Connie was busy hiding lots of goodies around the playground. Why? For the SCAVENGER HUNT!
That's right! The girls' favorite activity finally arrived: the GOTR Scavenger Hunt! The girls had to find lots of things: something blue, the GOTR snack for the day, something smooth, etc. They had to run, they had to jump rope, they had to do a cheer. But best of all, they had to find their GOTR t-shirts, which are a bright pink this season. Now we're all powerful in pink this season!
After all the girls finished their hunts, we did our cheer and went on our way. What a great way to start our weekend!
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
All about Cooperation
It's been a while since we posted anything on our blog. This season is just flying by! We're sure you have seen all the emails about the upcoming 5k Fun Run on Sunday, May23. We are excited to have as many family and friends join us in that celebration run! Let us know if you didn't see the email and we'll ensure you get the information.
Yesterday, our GOTR group focused on COOPERATION. It is simply amazing to watch these girls devourer such a heavy topic as cooperation. Of course, they were able to tell us what cooperation was (and wasn't). There were many antipodal stories about challenges with classroom project teams and how cooperation didn't always work at home with their brothers/sisters. But what we found the most interesting was the cooperation demonstrations that these girls put on for us.
We started with a game called "skin the snake" (not really sure why it's called that...but whatever.) The girls had to put themselves in a line formation and one by one sit on the ground while holding the hand of the person in front of them. Sound simple? Well, imagine that the hand holding is happening while you are bent over and one of your hands is looped through your legs... Now, there's a yoga challenge for even the best of us. But that pose wasn't at all challenging for our girls. Not only did they follow directions quickly, but they just as rapidly figured out how to accomplish the sitting without letting go, without falling and without a bunch of yelling. Pretty impressive, we have to say!
Our cooperation then moved to jump roping. Using the LONGEST rope you have ever seen, the girls took turns getting through as Coach Connie and Coach Tanya turned the rope. The rules were to get through the turning rope without it touching you. They could stop, jump, and run out, or just run through. Together the girls decided the best way to get from one side to other. And although they had a few instances where the rope touched them, they quickly regroup and began again. The listening, the respect, the cooperation just oozed out of them like they were professional meeting organizers! And within minutes they had move the team from one side to otherside of the turning rope.
We then put out the biggest cooperation challenge yet. Coach Jenn put 80 colorful bracelets into a big pile and told the girls that the bracelets represented the number of laps that had to be run. She didn't tell them how many laps they had to run though. She left that up to them. Here's where we saw some math skills (and negotiation skills) come into play. It was easy to say that each person would run 10 laps...hence the math skills. But not every person could (or in some cases wanted) to run 10 laps. So the GOTR team negotiations took over. In the end, each person had a number of bracelets representing the number of laps she committed to do for the team. And everyone ran their laps per their commitment....
But guess what? At the end, we had only 79 bracelets! Call it a miscalculation or "by design", but the missing bracelet allowed the girls to run the last lap as a one big GOTR cooperating team! We wished we had the camera to snap pictures of the girls coming into the finish area together.
This Friday, we have another heavy topic -GOSSIPPING and how that impacts not only the person who is being talked about, but also the person who doing the taking.
Yesterday, our GOTR group focused on COOPERATION. It is simply amazing to watch these girls devourer such a heavy topic as cooperation. Of course, they were able to tell us what cooperation was (and wasn't). There were many antipodal stories about challenges with classroom project teams and how cooperation didn't always work at home with their brothers/sisters. But what we found the most interesting was the cooperation demonstrations that these girls put on for us.
We started with a game called "skin the snake" (not really sure why it's called that...but whatever.) The girls had to put themselves in a line formation and one by one sit on the ground while holding the hand of the person in front of them. Sound simple? Well, imagine that the hand holding is happening while you are bent over and one of your hands is looped through your legs... Now, there's a yoga challenge for even the best of us. But that pose wasn't at all challenging for our girls. Not only did they follow directions quickly, but they just as rapidly figured out how to accomplish the sitting without letting go, without falling and without a bunch of yelling. Pretty impressive, we have to say!
Our cooperation then moved to jump roping. Using the LONGEST rope you have ever seen, the girls took turns getting through as Coach Connie and Coach Tanya turned the rope. The rules were to get through the turning rope without it touching you. They could stop, jump, and run out, or just run through. Together the girls decided the best way to get from one side to other. And although they had a few instances where the rope touched them, they quickly regroup and began again. The listening, the respect, the cooperation just oozed out of them like they were professional meeting organizers! And within minutes they had move the team from one side to otherside of the turning rope.
We then put out the biggest cooperation challenge yet. Coach Jenn put 80 colorful bracelets into a big pile and told the girls that the bracelets represented the number of laps that had to be run. She didn't tell them how many laps they had to run though. She left that up to them. Here's where we saw some math skills (and negotiation skills) come into play. It was easy to say that each person would run 10 laps...hence the math skills. But not every person could (or in some cases wanted) to run 10 laps. So the GOTR team negotiations took over. In the end, each person had a number of bracelets representing the number of laps she committed to do for the team. And everyone ran their laps per their commitment....
But guess what? At the end, we had only 79 bracelets! Call it a miscalculation or "by design", but the missing bracelet allowed the girls to run the last lap as a one big GOTR cooperating team! We wished we had the camera to snap pictures of the girls coming into the finish area together.
This Friday, we have another heavy topic -GOSSIPPING and how that impacts not only the person who is being talked about, but also the person who doing the taking.
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