Kids Read and Ride: North Carolina Elementary Connects Exercise with Education in Fitness Initiative

Each year the nation's juvenile obesity level rises. Increasingly more students lead sedentary lifestyles, playing more video games, watching more television and getting less exercise and fresh air. The combination of the sedentary lifestyle with an alarming increase in the consumption of calorie-laden, nutrient void fast food and junk food is propelling the obesity trend in an every-increasing downward spiral.

Many school districts are responding with first aid measures to counteract these growing health concerns. One such school, Marvin M. Ward Elementary School in Winston-Salem Public Schools, North Carolina, has implemented a novel approach to fitness and health. Kids Read and Ride connects fitness and health with reading.

AC's own Scott Ertl, a guidance counselor at Ward Elementary developed Kids Read and Ride. Here's how it works. Ward Elementary found itself with an unused classroom. Ertl reasoned, 'why not place some stationary exercise bikes in the classroom, along with a library of kid-friendly magazines and books?' So Ertl called in community resources, parent groups and local sponsors, asking for donations of exercise bikes with book holders attached. How many people in any given community have an unused exercise bicycle 'gathering dust' as Ertl puts it, in their basement? As Ertl found, quite a few. Why not ask for a donation of that unused exercise bicycle for students to use?

And that is just what happened. To date, 43 exercise bikes have been donated. The Kids Read and Ride classroom houses thirty bicycles, while the remainder are placed in various classrooms for students to use when work is completed or during silent reading time. Teachers have scheduled times when they bring their students to use the Kids Read and Ride room. With funding cuts for arts and physical education, in many districts, Kids Read and Ride is a great way to get students up and moving in a safe user-friendly environment. And students are not only getting a great workout, they are reading, too. Kids Read and Ride is a win-win situation.

For more information on Scott Ertl's program, to find out how you can beginKids Read and Ride in your school or district and to explore ways to support the program, visit the web-page at www.kidsreadandride.com. For more information on healthy, interactive lesson plans and educational initiatives, visit me at www.freelessonplans4u.blogspot.com . For more on health, fitness, nutrition and wellness, visit me at www.healthhelp4u.blogspot.com .