The Walking Classroom

Our Terrific Teacher Thursday this week spotlights a former Westfield teacher and a current one.  Anyone who had the privilege to work with Laura Fenn either at Wilson or Franklin knows what an amazing educator she is.  I was one of the lucky ones and was sad to lose her to her new life in North Carolina.  A few years ago, Laura came up with with an innovative way to help her students learn and improve their health at the same time.

From the website:

The Walking Classroom is a teacher-initiated, in-school fitness and obesity intervention that improves health literacy and builds core content knowledge while addressing different learning styles. Students listen to entertaining and educational standards-aligned podcasts while they walk. Different learning styles are addressed, and all students return to the classroom in brighter moods with oxygenated brains that are better able to focus.

Here is Laura explaining the program:

A few classrooms in our district have been using the program.  Mary Tarashuk, Wilson School, has been using the program.  Here is her walking classroom just yesterday:

Mary loves the program and says the following

With The Walking Classroom, the topics of healthy nutrition and positive fitness habits are carefully woven into each podcast, adding an underlying message that promotes healthy living with a range of core content topics that excite and interest my students.  In addition, each lesson is directly aligned with the Core Language Arts and Literacy Standards that have recently been adopted across the country.  Multiple lessons cover standards in Social Studies, Science, Art, and Music as well.

As an educator who, at times feels a bit overwhelmed with the curriculum changes and additions that seem to expand the school day without actually affording teachers with the precious time we need to fit it all in, The Walking Classroom has enabled me to use a cross-curricular approach to teaching.  It is like killing ‘three or four birds with one stone,’ an exaggeration on a metaphor that I have always found to be a bit troubling, but fitting in this circumstance.  I am combining skills and goals that meet the standards of multiple content areas.  And we get to go outside for it!

The program is great!  Please check out the website for more details!

Happy tech trails Blue Devils!