{"id":14567,"date":"2016-06-23T14:49:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T18:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=14567"},"modified":"2016-06-23T14:49:38","modified_gmt":"2016-06-23T18:49:38","slug":"healthy-kids-challenge-plants-summer-seeds-at-st-joseph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/healthy-kids-challenge-plants-summer-seeds-at-st-joseph\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthy Kids Challenge plants summer seeds at St. Joseph"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Students are now in the home stretch before packing up their books for a well-earned summer vacation but, as the school year winds to a close, local leaders are hoping they\u2019ve put down the solid foundation of a healthy and active summer.<\/p>\n

Aurora\u2019s Healthy Kids Community Challenge was at St. Joseph Catholic Elementary School on Friday for a day of fun and games, along with healthy activities and lessons on healthy eating.<\/p>\n

Formed into teams, groups divided by the colours of their shirts \u2013 usually coinciding with the colour of a healthy fruit or vegetable \u2013 fanned out across the school, and into surrounding green spaces, for a packed schedule of nature exploration, yoga, Zumba, and even a sample or two of Kambucha. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s year end and we\u2019re getting them to have physical activity in mind going into the summer,\u201d said Gemma Goldstein, Program Coordinator for the Healthy Kids Community Challenge, providing Mayor Geoff Dawe and The Auroran a tour of the ongoing activities. \u201cIn each group\u2019s schedule there are different aspects of physical activities. We\u2019re going to be doing things in Town throughout the summer, but we want to keep it in their minds.
\n\u201cWhen the school puts so much energy into it, you know you\u2019ve got a winner and so far so good!\u201d<\/p>\n

Through Friday\u2019s sticky heat, students braved the sun for outdoor Zumba lessons, obstacle courses facilitated by Sport Aurora, volleyball games, and nature hikes courtesy of Forests Ontario.<\/p>\n

Inside, things were a bit more laid back with quiet yoga, speed stacking, and the sampling of healthy go-to staples.<\/p>\n

The gym, however, was a different story, where Coach Steve took on a barrage of plastic balls pelted at him by the students. It was a good warm-up, he said, for what\u2019s in store.<\/p>\n

\u201cI teach kids of all ages different sports skills without having to worry about game play, without having to worry about winning or losing, and it is all about having fun while learning,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is no pressure, which is very important, because the kids are young and they get very upset if they don\u2019t score or if the team doesn\u2019t win.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main idea is to have kids use their sports skills as a way to learn life skills. One of the main things is a lot of kids don\u2019t understand failure. A lot of kids are so scared of failure they won\u2019t even try but my program is about teaching kids it\u2019s okay to fail. And it\u2019s not just okay to fail, you have to fail before you succeed at something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s fun was one of the final capstones to Principal Christine de Haas\u2019 time at St. Joseph as she prepares to take leave for a new posting in Newmarket. Working with Gemma, the Town, Sport Aurora, the Aurora Sports Hall of Fame, and the Healthy Kids Community Challenge, has been a pleasure and the kids have learned a lot, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just amazing; the kids are learning so much about physical literacy and healthy eating and I am just so grateful for this opportunity,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is such a wonderful community for the kids to be educated.\u201d<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students are now in the home stretch before packing up their books for a well-earned summer vacation but, as the school year winds to a close, local leaders are hoping they\u2019ve put down the solid foundation of a healthy and active summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/2016-06-23-06.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3MX","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-23 12:33:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}