Educating Today's Children for Tomorrow's World!

All of us are aware that physical fitness is critically important for children – especially in today's world. Physically active students learn better, develop better self-esteem, and build the habits that lead to a healthy life style as adults.

Two factors in today's world make the need to include physical fitness and a healthy lifestyle in the school experience even more important:

• A well documented growing epidemic of childhood obesity – in the context of a more sedentary lifestyle for many children and the elimination of physical education from most school programs.

The Wilson School includes physical fitness and the development of a healthy lifestyle as an integral part of Educating the Whole Child through:

• Required physical education. The Wilson School week includes two periods of gym, one of swim instruction, and one of yoga.
• Making physical fitness a goal children embrace and celebrate. The Wilson School has been awarded the Group 1 championship for highest percentage of students winning the Presidential Physical Fitness award for the 7^th straight year, an accomplishment featured in The Daily Record.
• Helping children develop healthy eating habits through our "Healthy Lunch" program
• Including health education in the curriculum. The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills states that "Health Literacy" is an essential part of any student’s education. At The Wilson School, our students learn what it means to be healthy by attending health class once per week.

• Encouraging students to develop their own interests in physical fitness. Our Physical Education program offers the students a wide variety of activities to suit students from Pre-Kindergarten through eighth grade, including soccer, volleyball, flag football, baseball, softball. A long-standing tradition at The Wilson School has been weekend family ski trips through the winter.
• Restoring the importance of "play" as a learning experience. Students in the Wilson Plus after school program spend time doing what most of us did as children — engaging in self-designed, innovative play. We see this opportunity to "create" physical fitness as a valuable counter-balance to often rigorously structured, adult-directed competitive sports programs