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Our After School Care Program.
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Spring 2010 After School Activities
Tracking at Home
ReCharge Champions of the Month!
Anthony Langereis, Major Maydon, River Benton and Brittney Martin display their "Energy In-Energy Out" tracking sheets from the ReCharge! lesson on balancing your physical activities and diet. The kids kept track of their daily physical activities as well as the foods they ate each day. Applying lessons they learn at Dr. John's in their own homes, and involving their parents, helps establish healthy habits that will last a lifetime. Contratulations kids on being our first Recharge Champions!
November After School Activities
- Reinforcing the Magic of Play
Although many educators and parents would like to think otherwise, character traits such as responsibility, cooperation and self-discipline cannot be transmitted to children authoritatively by adults. Such behaviors must be developed and adopted by the individual child out of their own experiences. This means that children may follow adult rules for fear of "getting in trouble" but they will not permanently adopt socially acceptable behaviors unless they are given the opportunity to experience the positive and negative affects of their choices in social settings with their peers.
 Free play occurs at the end of the day during our After School Care Program. It is one of the kids' favorite times because they have the freedom to move from one activity to another - building houses with our foam mats in the Dance Studio, playing wall ball in the gym or creating fantastic creatures with the Legos in the multipurpose area. When they get tired of one activity, they are free to move to another area in the building.
Why do we do this? Because there is no better time for children to develop positive character traits than in "free play" settings. During these periods, the rules of play are established by the children themselves and initally reflect the rules adults have established for them in structured play. The difference here is that once play begins, the rules will be broken, stretched or ignored by some, leaving everyone the opportunity to choose how they want to continue. Over time and with enough opportunities to experience free play situations, children will ultimately learn that "getting along" with one another is much more fun than breaking the rules. As an adult it's often messy and frustrating to watch and we want to rush in and control the play, but it is absolutely essential that we give kids the freedom to simply play with one another without adult intrusion.
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Coordinated Approach to Child Health - CATCH!
Dr. John's Sports Center was named the 2008 CATCH National Champions for Private Sector After School Care Programs.
Motor Skill and Sport Development
Before children can participate successfully in a sport or recreational activity, they must learn the basic movements that allow them to perform the many individual skills contained within the game. Throwing, catching, jumping hitting, kicking, dodging, chasing and fleeing are examples of fundamental skills that all children can learn. To be able to perform these skills, children must develop eye-hand coordination, coincident-timing, spatial awareness and other perceptual abilities. Practicing these movement skills in non-competitive, self-paced games allows children to learn and refine the perceptual motor skills used in sport.
As the children develop their movement skills, instruction and play in team, individual and dual sports. Emphasis is placed on learning to play and compete while respecting yourself and your opponent. Children love to compete in sporting activities and administered correctly, sport offers a wonderful opportunity for children to learn important lessons about the value of hard work, cooperation, commitment and patience.
Fitness Trek
Dr. John's Sports Center knows and understand children really do like to be active. They enjoy playing games, moving to music, running, jumping and, gee - just being kids. We also know that children are interested in learning more about their bodies and how to measure their fitness levels.
Each year we teach the kids simple ways to measure individual levels of health-related fitness and then provide opportunities for them to chart their fitness levels throughout the year. Once a month, on our “Fitness Trek” day, the children are encouraged to participate in fitness testing in order to chart changes in their fitness levels. The end of the year brings many pleasant surprises to the kids and their parents. They learn that being fit and healthy on a DAILY basis can be an enjoyable experience.
There isn't a better way to become responsible for their own health as they grow to adulthood.
Testing Upper Body Strength - Zoe working out on the pull up bar.
Claire was not sure she could do this - but look at her now.
Brooklyn is exploring the importance of the package labels.
Brett, Bonnie, Josh and Thomas picking out their favorite fiber rich foods for this week's trail mix.
Too many choices for Thomas.
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