Walking Wednesdays At Sandy Hook School

Since October, third and fourth grade students at Sandy Hook School have been participating in a program called Walking Wednesdays. The students arrive at school early on Wednesday mornings. They warm up in the gym, put on pedometers, and head out to the playground to walk for about 20 minutes.

Physical education teachers Pam Lupo and Jan Huot lead the students through warm-up exercises and walk with them. The program integrates exercise with geography and mathematics. The students wear pedometers to get the exact number of steps they take. Two thousand steps is roughly one mile. The students add up all the miles walked that morning, convert it to miles, and track the group’s progress on the Appalachian Trail.

Joyce Sgobbo, one of the regular walkers, says of the program, “It’s fun. The math is pretty cool. It’s very educational learning about the United States.”

There are 25–30 regulars who walk every week. The group covers about 65 miles in any given week. The program began October 19 and will finish June 7. They hope to have covered the entire length of the trail by then.

“Not all kids do sports,” Ms Lupo said. “Walking is a good exercise for any age.”

A number of mothers and siblings of SHS students have joined the group. In bad weather, the walkers can be found in the hallways. Sometimes stickers and other surprises are hidden along the route to entice the students.

“The students take fitness tests in the fall and spring,” Ms Huot stated. “The walkers are ahead [of nonwalkers] in the mile.”