PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
Guidelines from the World Health Organisation say that children over the age of six need at least an hour of physical activity every day. In St. Michaels we promote inclusive physical activity throughout the school day.
Our School Day
We have two playground breaks each day. When the weather is poor, children remain indoors and complete short physical activities with teachers.
Have a look at our Wet Day activities!
Movement Breaks
The use of movement breaks are an important part of our school day. The children enjoy doing a variety of different types of breaks.This year we are using a variety of resources which includes Movement in the Classroom from the PDST/Oide and Bizzy Breaks from The Irish Heart Foundation.
Our Active Yard
At St. Michaels, we all really enjoy Active Yard. All the children are divided into four groups. Each group has an Active Yard leader. Children from first to sixth class get a chance to become an Active Yard Leader.We try to come up with lots of different games that everyone enjoys! The Equipment and Active leaders set up the equipment.
Music in the yard
Throughout the year, our whole school is treated to some music in the yard for Feel Good Friday,European Schools Day, Halloween, Christmas, Seachtain na Gaeilge, Easter and Active School Week! The chilldren are given opportunities to vote for the songs which they would like to hear on the yard. It's a big treat for us all!
Check out some of our Movement break videos on our social media pages
Our Active Walkway is use to:
Our Walkway Route
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The active committee worked together with the help of teachers to plan our school walkway.The walkway is made up of fourteen colourful signs. Mrs. Mc Guigan, the Active Committee walked around the shcool grounds and chose the best location for each sign making sure that each sign is visuable to all children in our school community.The children carefully measured the whole yard space using a trundle wheel. Our whole yard measures 200m. Therefore 5 laps = 1km . A map was designed by Evie to indicate the location of each sign. A number of copies were made to be shared by all classroms. We use our walkway for daily movement breaks, for PE lessons especially for Outdoor and Adventure and to help us to learn Maths,English,Gaeilge and SESE. We even have some motivational statements to promote positive physical and mental wellbeing in our school. #Learningonthemove
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Active Classroom Challenge
As a whole school, we started the Active Break Challenge on Monday 13th November. Each class committed to completing at least one movement break each day until Friday 8th December. During those four weeks, the children completed laps of the yard, danced to their favourite songs using Just Dance and did Go Noodle workouts. As a whole school, we also participated in the ‘Dare to Believe Olympic Movement breaks challenge’. We all enjoyed doing the movement breaks lead by a variety of Olympic athletes. Well done to everyone who completed the challenge!
Dare to Believe challenge
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Run Around Europe Running Challenge
We kicked started our whole school Run Around Europe Running Challenge on 26th February - 22nd March. Over the four week period, all classes counted the number of laps ran each day and recorded it on their class 'Run Around Europe Challenge sheet. Everyone was encouraged to do their best and help others along the way! Each classroom tried to research each destination and find out some interesting facts! Every Friday, children in each classroom calculated the number of laps completed per week. By 22nd March, we had ran to Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Belguim and London a total of 6,430 laps!
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European School Sports Day
European School Sports day took place on 29th September. It is always our first active event of the new school year. On the day, each class started with some warm up exercises, played Wacky Waiter race,Quick Change Relay,Connect 4 and Bench ball.
#Table Tennis Take Over
We enjoyed trying out a different types of sport 'Table Tennis'. The children now enjoy playing Table Tennis during wet play.
Halloween Active Day
The Active Committee kicked off our Halloween celebrations with some Active Halloween games for everyone. The children enjoyed playing Zombie Tag, Witch and Wizard, Smash the pumpkin and Monster says! We had a whole school dance to 'Wednesday' song and had music in the yard to help us get into the Halloween spirit!Everyone had a great day to end our first term.
Active School Slogan
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Active Xmas
As part of our Active Christmas event,the whole school participated in our annual 'Santa Dash'on Friday 22nd December. The children looked very festive wearing their Christmas jumpers and Santa Hats!
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Movement class
During the months of January and February, junior and senior infants completed a five week block of a movement class with Emma. Each week, the children practiced different fundamental movement skills such as throwing,catching,jumping,skipping, balancing and hopping! Great fun was had by everyone!
ACTIVE EASTER
At Easter Time, the Active Committee and the Student Council decided to have a joint event. We played lots of different types of games with an Easter theme. In the Active lines, the children completed a variety of exercises to the magic number of 37-10 lunges, 10 squats, 10 jumping jacks and 7 high knees. This was to symboloise the 37th year of Daffodil day in Ireland. We also had a special whole school Daffoidl walk.
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FEEL GOOD FRIDAYS
Have a look at all our lovely Feel Good Friday activities!
Get Moving!-decrease sedentary time
Every classroom have decided upon three ways that they can get more active everyday at school!
Have a look on our social media pages for more photographs and videos of our Physical Activities throughout the year!