Enjoying music in a whole new way

Once again the Meisel Music Collective joined forces with the third and fourth graders and provided a wonderful evening of entertainment.  Mr. Meisel's musical group comes in and performs a few of their own selections, but they also give the students the chance to sing and play along with a jazz ensemble. The students sang and played jazz, world music and danced the waltz for an attentive audience.  

Exercise is serious business
by Sarah Mann
It was a toe-tapping, jump-roping, bicep-curling, rope-pulling, obstacle-hurdling good time at Erin School’s Fitness Friday.

Erin School celebrated one of its biannual allschool Fitness Fridays on Friday afternoon, an event where kindergarten through fifth grade shut down to become students’ personal gym with a variety of fitness activities designed to keep kids moving and having fun. Though Erin School’s physical education teacher, Tim Mueller, regularly organizes the event, this Friday was something special: It was the first time the fitness community has gotten involved.

“The more kids see the positives of working out as an adult, the more opportunities they have of staying physically active throughout their lives,” Mueller said.

That’s why he invited trainers from Snap Fitness, Anytime Fitness and Hartford Jazzercise, all in the city of Hartford, to come and show kids that playing games and running around having fun aren’t things that they have to grow out of.

Fitness Friday features a variety of stations where small groups of kids can rotate from area to area and complete activities at each: One room was devoted to trampolines while another classroom, with desks pushed out of the way, became a scooter-arena. 

Snap Fitness co-owner and trainer Thea Schulteis had one classroom where she, her fellow trainer Jesse Pesch and the students played a card game: The suit or face on the card determined what exercises, like push-ups or backwards lunges, the students had to do. “Mr. Mueller, he called on the club and asked if we wanted to take part. This is our first time (to participate),” Schulteis said. “It’s fun. It’s super-cute how the kids have free roam.” 

For Marcus Biskobing and Catherine Guttmann of Anytime Fitness in Hartford, the goal was to get students thinking about different, fun ways that they could exercise — “Instead of the conventional gym exercise like running a mile,” Guttmann said. 

“(We) give them some different ideas of what they can do, like with a a heavy medicine ball, maybe with their friends,” Biskobing added. It also helps that Snap Fitness and Anytime Fitness members are often the parents of children in area schools. It’s important to talk to parents about keeping their kids active and healthy, because children who are overweight or obese face increased risks of being overweight or obese in adulthood, said Matt Paulson, co-owner of Rueben’s County Market in Hartford. he said. Paulson said. 

Mueller will do his part to help bring it down further. Erin School just finished with a month-long effort for Jump Rope for Heart, a program that raises money for the American Heart Association. During the month of February, Mueller brought in yoga and zumba instructors to keep kids moving and active.