ACES wild: Fun fitness event captures
elementary school students’ attention, imagination
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
MOVIN’ AND GROOVIN’ — This year for All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) Day, which was held May 4, students and teachers at Zippel Elementary School in Presque Isle danced to the song, “Move to the Groove.” Physical education teacher Monica Bearden incorporated the dance into her classes teaching part of the dance each week for the last three-and-a-half months. The dance, which was performed twice, was very successful and all involved had a great time.
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE — Children were racing in the halls and dancing in the cafeteria at Pine Street Elementary School recently, while a dance broke out in the gymnasium at Zippel Elementary School. No, school administrators didn’t lose control of their buildings, but rather encouraged participation in All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) Day.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
PINE STREET ELEMENTARY SCHOOL students danced to such songs as the “The Chicken Dance” and “The Cha Cha Slide” during the May 4 All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) Day. Physical education teacher Ron McAtee — with the help of student teacher Seth Dorr — devised eight stations with each class participating in four. Other stations included scooter races, crab soccer, basketball, hokey pokey, Simon says, an egg walk and a relay race.
ACES Day began back in 1989 by New Jersey physical education teacher Len Saunders, who wanted to get one school in every state to exercise at the same time on a specific day in May to motivate his gym classes to exercise. The program was also designed to show the importance of physical education in school.
According to the Project ACES website, Saunders began a letter-writing campaign to schools throughout the United States to see if they wanted to join in this massive exercise event. He received confirmations day after day until every state had a participating school involved. In 1989, ACES stood for “American Children Exercising Simultaneously,” because he never imagined schools outside the United States would participate.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
CRAB SOCCER was a popular activity as Pine Street Elementary School observed All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) Day May 4. The game was played like regular soccer except the kids used a much larger ball and had to walk like a crab. ACES Day began back in 1989 by New Jersey physical education teacher Len Saunders, who wanted to get one school in every state to exercise at the same time on a specific day in May to motivate his gym classes to exercise. Last year, 27,000 Maine students alone participated in ACES Day.
The first year of ACES was a huge success. Children from 1,200 schools participated in all 50 states and the island of St. Croix. Within months of completing ACES 1989, Saunders started receiving mail for the 1990 ACES event, which at the time did not even exist. Letters continued to pour in from schools throughout the country (almost 500 letters a day) and even from outside the United States. The name could not remain “American Children Exercising Simultaneously” anymore, and became “All Children Exercising Simultaneously” in 1990.
The 23rd annual ACES Day was held May 4. Locally, due to inclement weather, the event was held inside.
At Pine Street, physical education teacher Ron McAtee — with the help of student teacher Seth Dorr — devised eight stations with each class participating in four.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
ALIVIA FITZHERBERT, a kindergartner at Pine Street Elementary School, covers one eye as she competes in an egg walk, in which children raced carrying a whiffle ball rather than an egg on a spoon, as part of the recent All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) Day.
“I thought of some different activities that wouldn’t take a lot of equipment and explanation,” said McAtee. “Years past we’ve had teachers and ed techs filling in, but this year Seth was able to get a whole class (Elementary Methods) from the University of Maine at Presque Isle to come down and help out. It worked out really well. We had one or two students at every station, and they helped keep things running smoothly.”
Stations included scooter races, crab soccer, basketball, rhythms/dance where the students danced to such songs as the “The Chicken Dance” and “The Cha Cha Slide,” hokey pokey, Simon says, egg walk, in which children raced carrying a whiffle ball rather than an egg on a spoon, and a relay race.
“I think things went very well,” said McAtee. “The only problem was the water fountains were scarce between events.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
SCOOTING ALONG — Damion Van Houten, left, and Kendall Robbins, both first-graders at Pine Street Elementary School, demonstrate their different techniques as they squared off in scooter races during ACES Day, which was held May 4.
“I really hope the kids understand the importance of exercise. I tell the students that in order to tell if it’s a good exercise, you want to get hot, tired and sweaty. I can exercise next to the woodstove and get hot and sweaty but I might not be doing much. You want to have all three, and I think we accomplished that today.”
Second-graders Sydney Robichaud and Colby Carlisle thoroughly enjoyed ACES Day.
“My favorite activity was basketball,” said Robichaud. “There was a big basket which was worth two points and a little basket which was worth one point. I tried for the two-point basket, and our class won. I also liked dancing to the song, ‘Funky.’ It was really fun and it helps us exercise. When the hour was done, we had snacks and drinks and I was pretty tired. It was a good workout and a lot of fun.”
“I liked ACES Day a lot,” Carlisle said. “My class did crab soccer, basketball, relay races and scooter races. Crab soccer was my favorite; I really like soccer. It’s harder to do crab soccer because you walk like a crab; you’re not running on your feet. That makes it more challenging and more fun. It’s fun to get up and play and get exercise. I can’t wait for ACES Day next year at Zippel.”
This year at Zippel, physical education teacher Monica Bearden tried something new. For the last three-and-a-half months, she has been teaching her 350 students — and some 20 staff members — dance steps to the song, “Move to the Groove.”
“My daughter, Brittany, came up with the idea. She is competing for Miss Maine America and her platform is childhood obesity. We saw on ‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’ an episode with Rhex Arboleda, a music teacher from Wisconsin, and he wanted a way to fight obesity using music so he wrote ‘Move to the Groove,’ which has developed into a dance fitness program,” said Bearden. “They talked about a flash mob and Brittany had seen one on ‘Oprah’ and thought about incorporating ‘Move to the Groove’ and doing flash mob as part of ACES Day.”
With a flash mob, one person will start dancing and then others join in until everyone is performing the same steps.
“I wanted a way to reach out to the kids and I thought using my Mom’s school kind of as a guinea pig would be good,” said Brittany. “I’m an athletic training major at UMPI, so when I wasn’t in class, I’d come and help my Mom teach the dance steps. It was an awesome experience and it was so cool to be able to be done here for the first time.”
Monica Bearden incorporated the dance into her physical education classes.
“Each week, I’d take five minutes and teach them part of the dance. The next class we reviewed it, and the next week we learned a new part, and did that until we had all the parts learned and then we put it all together,” she said, noting that the dance would have been held outside had the weather cooperated.
Bearden encouraged the student body to wear red or pink shirts on ACES Day.
“I wanted to incorporate as many health issues as possible along with fighting childhood obesity,” she said. “Red supports women’s heart health and pink is for breast cancer awareness. If students didn’t have either color, they wore white. Wearing those colors helped draw awareness to different issues which is important.”
Bearden said she couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome.
“This surpassed my expectations. I really didn’t know how this would come together or how enthusiastic the kids would be, but they really got into it,” she said. “A lot of kids would come before school to practice and I’d open up the gym, others would come in at lunchtime. They really worked hard and were excited about it. I’d run into parents and they would tell me how excited their kids were. A lot of kids were practicing at home, and it certainly showed. It was an outstanding performance. I’m absolutely ecstatic.”
Fifth-graders Hailey St. Thomas and Cameron Lahey were among the student dancers.
“I thought it was actually pretty exciting. We haven’t done anything like this since I’ve been at Zippel and I thought it was pretty cool,” said St. Thomas. “Sometimes I like to randomly dance around in my room. It’s good exercise and it’s fun.
“I practiced at home the night before ACES Day and some before that,” she said. “One time I stayed the night at my aunt’s and I thought it would be cool for my cousin, who is in kindergarten, to see the dance. I played the music on the computer and started dancing and he looked at me and said, ‘How do you know those moves?’ I told him we had been doing that for our phys ed class.”
Lahey said he started to learn the dance steps pretty quickly.
“If you paid attention, you could pick it up pretty easily,” he said. “Doing stuff like this is really fun. I practiced some at home. My sister, Kiarra, also goes to Zippel. If I had PE one day and she didn’t, I would go home and show my sister the new move we learned and we’d practice together.
“This year’s ACES Day was better than previous ones because we were a lot more active,” said Lahey. “I’m glad we did it.”
Last year, 27,000 Maine students participated in ACES Day.
