Physical education is an important part of our school day. I require my boys to run/fast walk a mile each school day on the treadmill. In addition all three kids have to spend 30 minutes on a sweat-producing activity each school day. If I had to rank all our subjects in the order of importance they have in our day to day schooling, physical education would be at the top with math and Bible also ranking quite high.
Physical education also extends beyond exercise time. For the past few years we have been following suggestions from the Dr. Sears L.E.A.N. Kids program. It not only covers exercise, but healthy food choices and having a good attitude. It has been a great resource for us. We talk about healthy food choices all the time. The only allowed snacks are from Dr. Sears snack list 🙂 Milk and juice are limited to one cup per day and water is the drink they can have in abundance. They do still have dessert once per day. Many of our school projects are made with edible materials. We pace ourselves and have a little each day until it is gone.
Also we have gone the route of attaching screen time (computer/Wii) to exercise time so if a child wants extra screen time then the child would have to complete extra exercise first. Every mile run equates to 45 minutes of screen time. This pretty much only applies to the computer, Wii, or the iPad though. We don’t limit TV watching since the kids don’t watch it very much.
My youngest doesn’t go on the treadmill, but she sure does like the rebounder!
