Bulletin Boards - La Mesa School

"We havae done some ladder runs where each group runs in a line and they take turns going from the back to the front of the group to set the pace. Every other week they like to JUST RUN the course to see how fast they can go. With the younger kids we do some red light, green light, orange light drills so they can learn pace a bit better. They tend to know their own limitations and slow down and speed up as they feel. We have found that when we tell them not to stop until they reach a cone marker, that helps their endurance as they often go a bit further when they feel like stopping.

The coordinator at our school created  a JUST RUN bulletin board, located in a prominent location in the main hallway. A map of the United States shows how far we have run on our trip to the east coast. Pictures of some of our runners and words of encouragement are also on the board.

Course: The moms measured and layed out a half-mile course around La Mesa's school yard and put out cones to mark every 10th of a mile.

Separating into Groups: There are children from kindergarten up through 6th grade and at the first session, based on ability, there were 4 running groups formed. They are mostly based on age but there are some younger kids that run with and keep up with faster groups.

Stretching and warm up: Each session is started with a group stretching session for warm-up. A child is selected to begin each session with his or her favorite warm-up.

Another teacher printed off JUST RUN mileage markers from the website for 25, 50, 75, and 100 miles and attached them to colorful paper. These were posted on her classroom door along with the lists of children who achieved these mileage goals. This was a great motivator and gave recognition to all of the children who reached these mileage accomplishments."