Marathon Kids is a Game Changer for Gym Class
Sam Houston Elementary School is a public school in Corpus Christi, Texas and is part of the Corpus Christi Independent School District (CCISD). The school serves over 300 students enrolled in grades Pre-K through 5th grade. Jackie Macias is the P.E. teacher there and has been utilizing the Marathon Kids program as a component of her physical education curriculum for 6 years.
Coach Macias has always valued the many benefits physical activity can provide a person; physically, mentally, and emotionally. How it can positively affect a person in so many ways is unmatched and is why Coach Macias loves being able to use Marathon Kids to teach her young students about the importance of running and physical activity.
The Marathon Kids program was first introduced to Coach Macias by the district’s Health and Physical Education Director in 2016 as a potential addition to the physical education program. After a bit of research, they decided to give it a try. Since its initial implementation, the Marathon Kids program has become a crucial part of the physical education lesson plan for students and is used year after year largely in part to its unmatched ability to motivate students to run and enjoy the time they spend running.
Although the majority of Coach Macias’s students will participate in other P.E. activities without complaints, it has always been a struggle to get them to run. The Marathon Kids program and its robust fitness tracking and reporting features has been a game changer for that. By allowing students to see their progress, they are more excited than ever to see their number of miles ran climb and love to engage in friendly competition with their friends.
Involving kids in the data is essential to drive motivation and teach the importance of goal setting. Coaches can project the interactive dashboard to filter mileage totals for each class, grade, and the entire club. The six reports within the platform give you detailed data on each participant and allow for mini-challenges to be created by using the date range feature to keep the energy and excitement fresh.
On Fridays, Coach Macias’s students run for 20 minutes straight and then use the QR codes provided by Marathon Kids to accurately track their laps and miles. Within those 20 minutes, a majority of the students complete at least 2 miles. Additionally, Coach Macias uses the Marathon Kids program outside of school for her running club and also utilizes the QR codes to keep track of their progress.
Having multiple programs within one season is easy to do by customizing the tracks within your account. In the digital platform, all effort is assigned to either a track or activity. This allows coaches to pull reports for each program as well as see the data collectively.
Coach Macias is sure to keep her students motivated through praise and prizes. She celebrates each marathon a student runs with a special prize and every two weeks, she announces the top 5 students with the most miles ran. She says the “top 5 students” announcements always motivate her students to run more, “When I announce the top 5, the other students ask where they are and it gets them to start running more”.
There are many ways to showcase the thrill of running and Coach Macias has learned how to use Marathon Kids to do just that for her students. More than ever, kids love to have immediate feedback on their performances and activities and the Marathon Kids program provides just that. Creating reports and even mini challenges and competitions for students is a breeze and is sure to keep kids engaged and always striving to perform to the best of their abilities.
Make Marathon Kids Your School's Running Partner