Ideas to Keep Your Children Moving Through the Winter
In an effort to give caregivers more tools to keep children moving through the winter, our Movement teacher, Heather Pearl, has put together a list of equipment to inspire active play at home!
Exercise Equipment
Click on the image to learn more!
Fitness Activities
40-30-20-10-4
This is a Movement class exercise grades 2-5 have been doing all fall:
40 jumping jacks
30 crunches or bicycle sit-ups
30 plank shoulder taps
10 burpees
5 donkey or scissors kicks
Marathon Kids
A Cedarwood parent referred this program and it looks great! Ms. Pearl is planning to sign Cedarwood up for it, and would love to have a parent coach each grade (let her know if you’re interested!).
7 Minutes to Fit
These anytime, anywhere interval workouts by Brett Klika are a big favorite of Ms. Pearl (as the middle school students know).
Hood to Coast Kids Challenge
This includes video running instructions, the challenge of running a half marathon (over a number of runs), and a medal for completion. Might be best for 5th graders and up?
Circus Arts
Click on the image to learn more!
Heather Pearl grew up playing in the woods, fields and waters of Connecticut. Basketball, soccer and track were her first sports loves, followed by ultimate frisbee and biking in her 20s. Heather moved to San Francisco to attend SFSU, and it was there she fulfilled her secret desire to study drama, which luckily led to her meeting clowns and circus performers. At a rehearsal one day where people were doing push-ups, running around and creating work to make people laugh, Pearl found her calling. In the city by the Bay, she performed solo, as well as with Clown Conspiracy, the SF Women’s Circus, Make*a*Circus and Clown Mobile. In 1996-97, Pearl attended and completed the Dell’arte International school of physical theater in Blue Lake, California.In 1998, she moved to Portland and joined do Jump! extremely physical theater, with which she performed for four years and taught for seven. After leaving doJump!, she co-founded the nomadic theatre Company with Michael O'Neill. In 2001, Pearl received a call to help out at an after-school circus class at Portland Waldorf school.
Heather began substituting on a regular basis, and her interest in spacial dynamics grew. In 2004, she began her five-year, level 1 spacial dynamics training. In 2005, she was hired as the first movement education teacher at Cedarwood. Developing the Movement Education Program has been one of Ms. Pearl's greatest joys in life. An experience that continues to provide new challenges and inspirations, to always meet who the children standing in front of her are--and what they most need and will thrive learning! There are calm and sweet moments teaching, but never dull ones!