The 6th grade at my school has been participating in the NFL Play 60 program for the last 2 years. The program, funded by the NFL, encourages kids to lead a healthier lifestyle. The goal is to get kids to "play" or be active for at least 60 minutes a day. My students only have PE every other day for one quarter of the school year, so this program helps students learn the importance of staying active outside of gym class.
The cool thing about participating in this program is that the local NFL teams are directly involved in it. The teams invite students from the program to attend a home football game as well as send players out to the schools to talk and play with the students. This year, a group of our 6th graders got to attend a Jaguars game and even go on the field. This past Tuesday, our school got a visit from 2 Jaguars players for an exciting afternoon.
All the 6th grade students and teachers got to skip the last class period of the day on Tuesday for a Play 60 assembly in the gym. Jaguars players, Derek Cox and Don Carey came to speak to our students about the importance of eating right and exercising. After their little speech, they invited about 60 students to join them on the gym floor for some exercise. I was really impressed that when the kids were coming out onto the gym floor the Jags players took the time to shake hands and say hi to every kid individually.
They split the kids up into teams of 10 and set up a little relay race/obstacle course for them. Each kid on the team had to run, hula-hoop, jump rope and do sit-ups before they could tag the next person on their team. The first team to have all of their members complete the relay won, and every kid on that team received a mini Jaguars football signed by the 2 players that came to visit. Two of my students were on the winning team and they were so excited. A number of my students were chosen to participate in the activities and meet the players and they had a great time.
It is very exciting for me to get to see my students participate in something like this. My students don't have the opportunites that I did as a kid, and an experience like this is something that they would probably never get to enjoy if it wasn't for this program. The Jaguars are literally in our own backyard, but so many kids who live in Jacksonville will never have the means by which to buy a ticket and sit in that stadium. I hope that this program continues in the future so that these kids are able to have these memorable experiences.
I do not have any of my own photos from this event; however, I did find some photos of it on the Florida Times-Union website. The photos are only available for sale so I can't save or copy them from the website. Therefore, I listed some links below to the photos with my students in them.
Some of my students watching the activites from the bleachers in the gym
http://photos.jacksonville.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=33570973&event=1150260&CategoryID=57820
A group of my students with Jags player Derek Cox
http://photos.jacksonville.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=33570997&event=1150260&CategoryID=57820
A group of my students with Jags player Don Carey
http://photos.jacksonville.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=33570993&event=1150260&CategoryID=57820
Thank you to the NFL and the Jacksonville Jaguars! There are some very happy 6th graders at LSMS :)
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