BEING BACON

McDonald Elementary School

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MOSCOW, Idaho—"OK, class, let's dance like bacon in a frying pan," says Amy Thompson, movement specialist at McDonald Elementary School. "You're lying there, just getting warmer and it feels good."

Twenty-three first-graders sprawling on the gym floor wiggle meditatively, dreamy smiles playing on their lips.

"It's warmer now," says Thompson. "Ooh, you're getting hot! You're about to be crispy!"

As if they have springs in their legs, the children hop up, trying to keep off the imaginary skillet. They are dancing now, absorbed by the challenge of being bacon.

Thompson laughs. "When new kids arrive here, they just don't get it. They say, 'Tell me what to do.' But I stress creativity from the beginning, from kindergarten. What they come up with is amazing."

McDonald students have 45 minutes of PE or movement every day, and often Thompson has her fourth-, fifth- or sixth-graders spend a half-hour of that time choreographing a dance that they present to the class at the period's end. She finds that boys are often resistant at first, but not for long. "Then they thrive," she reports. "They want to choreograph as often as the girls, and they do some incredibly athletic moves."

In kindergarten, Thompson has children work on body control and traveling through space making, for example, curvy or zigzag lines. In first through third grades, they do more explorative, unregimented movement. "We do a lot with the weather," Thompson says. "I'll say, 'Make your body look like it's in a storm.' Or we do vegetables. I'll have them be a carrot growing, or a salad. There's no right or wrong, but they're engaged, moving. By fourth through sixth grade, I move into real dance steps, like line dancing, hip-hop, folk dance, maybe swing. The right music is crucial."

Thompson did not always have this approach. There was nothing like this at McDonald seven years ago when she arrived. But the school has a strong arts component, and Principal Laurie Austin, a former PE teacher herself, backed Thompson's approach to fitness. "I did a ton of reading and got to know the kids," Thompson says. "Over time this is what I've found that works."

"Amy develops the right side of the brain," Austin says. "It's so creative and dramatic—and innovative—that it really connects to the students."

The sports and fitness classes Dan Peterson teaches complement Thompson's movement work. He stresses cooperation rather than repetition of skills or drill practices. "I use sports as vehicles to understand teamwork, with fitness woven in," says Peterson. He makes sure that the pitfalls of sports instruction as offered in the past are avoided. "For example, when we start on skills that lead to tennis, I have two kids work together, but only one has a racquet. The other tosses the ball for the first to hit. Instead of two of them bashing the ball around competitively—and missing, they work together focused on improving their skills, developing self-esteem along the way."

The school has a climbing wall, and the approach there is also cooperative. "Many children don't have upper-body strength to support themselves on our wall, which has only handholds. But they can travel some distance if another child helps by holding their ankles." The wall has only handholds because Peterson is finding that many of today's children need to build upper-body strength.

At other times, Peterson's classes look similar to Amy Thompson's. Peterson sets up a maze of colorful six-inch markers and puts on a tape by legendary soul musician Wilson Pickett. Students gallop and skip through the maze to the music. Then Peterson connects the markers with wands, making them into hurdles, and the kids explode over the jumps with glee. "They're getting a good workout," says Peterson, "but they just think they're having fun."

Back in Thompson's room, a third-grade class is discussing what to represent next. Giraffe? Washing machine? They decide on a bulldozer, and with no help from Thompson they quickly assemble themselves into a hooked shape that will grind its gears and scoop vigorously. The student who has waited outside will come in and guess what her classmates have become. They, too, think they're just having fun.

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