With students home from school because of COVID-19, parents and teachers are getting creative with ways to bring the classroom into their homes. At Lakeside Elementary School in Orange Park, one P.E. teacher is keeping her students active outside of gym class with a daily challenge.
Her mini-workouts give children both a physical and a psychological boost.
Kim Tracanna-Breault, or as her students affectionately call her, Mrs. T, is literally starting a movement by posting a fitness challenge on her Facebook every day.
In her first video, Tracanna-Breault pumps up her students asking, "Are you ready for the challenge? I am! Let’s jog in place for one minute…keep going!”
Tracanna-Breault isn’t letting her students slouch on the couch while Lakeside Elementary school is closed.
“I love my kids so I knew they were going to be a little bit upset about not having their normal routine so I created a fitness calendar,” she says.
March 16 was day one. The challenge: jog in place for 30 seconds.
However, it isn’t just the students getting involved. She says, “everybody’s doing it!”
And she's right. She's received videos from the school principal, custodial staff, parents, former students and even children in Canada doing her challenges, which she says, “it’s exciting!”
Tracanna-Breault posts a daily video on Facebook of each exercise. Parents are posting their kids doing it. It’s only been two days but already Tracanna-Breault has gotten almost a hundred posts.
“It makes me so proud of my kids that they’re embracing my fitness calendar,” she says to overload of responses.
Tracanna-Brault doesn't stop there. She comments back to each student on what a great job they’re doing.
In a time of uncertainty, she knows exactly what her students need.
“It’s giving them a sense of belonging, a sense of school spirit, even when there’s a negative situation going on in our country right now,” she says.
She adds she’s just trying to unite her community through fitness.