Classroom theme: Triathlon!

First things first: I survived my toe surgery! First ever "surgery", and it went well. My 5am pick up and 6:30am procedure was a bit early, but being back home by 9:30am to rest was priceless!

I spent a bit of my morning trying to get some sun with Lambeau Puppy! We're looking at some cloudy/thunderstorm type weather soon... 

This summer, I wanted to have a fitness focused classroom theme. I didn't want to stick with JUST running, because that doesn't appeal to every student. I chose triathlons because there was more than one focus. Here are a few pictures of the ways I set my classroom up to be fitness focused:

Our "Flow of the Day" was renamed "Class 307-E's Training Plan" accented by photos of Kona Ironman swim start, Craig Alexander on the bike and running to the finish!

We did interactive writing daily to record daily exercise. Each student got to share what they did to keep their bodies healthy!

Each table was named Runners, Swimmers, or Cyclists. Because summer school has smaller class size, I only had runners and swimmers! The pictures are of Chrissie Wellington finishing strong, and another Kona swimming photo.

I printed out individualized race bibs. I had my name, our class number, and "summer triathlete" at the bottom. I personally added each student's name. My most recent half marathon bib went at the top, the students loved this!

Want to do this yourself? Here is the race bib I used! I added the words via Microsoft word, but Publisher would work best! (Add "Word Art")

Via

I also shared some reading passages about triathlons! It was difficult to find, but I located some lower level articles about triathlons. Although my students had limited prior knowledge about the language of triathlons, these articles helped me explain the key facts about triathlons: 

Teach kids about triathlons!

Teach kids about the history of running!

Teach kids about why running is good for them!

Teach kids about bike safety!

Teach kids about swimming as exercise! 

Last but not least, I shared photos of some friends who completed their own triathlon! Heather, Michele, Kara and Juan all were AMAZING finishers at Ironman Lake Placid! It gave me great pleasure to show the students pictures of my friends through their journey; I doubt they understood the greatness of these photos, but I know the oo'd and ahh'd at them.

I'm so glad I did this. I learned what challenges students (The idea of doing races for medals, not to "win", endurance, time frames of more than five minutes!) and their attention when it comes to real life stories about the sports. They were enthralled by my marathon photos and my friend's Ironman photos.

How about you? Are you a teacher? Do you remember an important teacher in your life? Have you been instrumental in teaching people about endurance sports? TELL ME ABOUT IT!