By

Mary Lou Clough,   Frontier Elementary School

Play:

Community Playtime – It’s Good for Everyone

Topics:

Community Involvement,  Physical Activity Participation

At Frontier Elementary, we are always looking for ways to encourage our students and staff to remain active outside of school hours. We started a Mileage Club program a few years ago, where our students and staff can track their activity outside of school and earn tokens. They can earn tokens for any activity outside of school hours such as hiking with their families, being on a team sport, or playing outside with their friends. This year, we decided to change our token system to different tokens each month. Student love the change and we have increased our participation each month. We have put in place an incentive that students who collect 6 out of the 8 monthly tokens will be invited to a party in May. We originally thought we would have one or two parties, but with the amount of students that have participated so far, we may end up having each grade have their own party. Our staff has also loved the tokens. Some of our teachers are collecting the tokens along with their students.

How do you plan to make this Play last during the school year and beyond?

With the success we have seen this year changing to monthly tokens, we are planning on continuing with monthly tokens in the following school year. We will look at changing the tokens each year so students and staff will be excited to collect the new tokens.

What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

One of the challenges we faced was needing funds to purchase the tokens, paper feet where participants record their activity, and necklaces. Our Healthy School Committee took over our Skate City Fundraiser nights that happen four times a year. We have been able to raise just over 200 dollars each night, which has given us the necessary funds to continue the mileage club.

What improvements have you seen at your school?

With the change to monthly tokens, we have seen an increase in our participation as the year goes on. In the past, students would participate the first few months of the school year but as the year went on fewer and fewer students participated. Monthly tokens have encourage students to stay active throughout the school year.