PE Central is proud to present our collection of online programs built to motivate children of all ages to become more physically active. We started building these programs in 1999 with each enjoying a great deal of success. They are featured here so you can more easily decide which program might fit with your schools needs. Each of these is designed for a teacher, instructor or parent to register their school/organization first and then students register under that teacher, school and class. Some of these were only available for a short time (e.g. Coleman Everest 5.5 Challenge) and one of them, The Kids Quiz, is not a motivational physical activity program. Only one, The PE Central Challenge, has a small fee associated with it. The rest are FREE. If you have questions, please contact us at pec@pecentral.org.
The Log It Site debuted in Aug. 2001. It is age-appropriate for 4th grade and up. The program encourages students to record physical activity steps/miles online. It is not built to record activity minutes. The program features a virtual hike around the USA with stops at each state capital, students can set daily goals, compare their progress with others and they can compete in a Challenge Hike. Teachers can view their students UN's and PW's, add steps/miles for students, communicate with students and they can view their class and student progress.
The Get Active Stay Active Log Web Site debuted in Aug. 2003. It is age-appropriate for 4th grade and up. This site encourages students to maintain and increase their physical activity by logging onto the site to record their physical activity minutes and/or pedometer steps. Students can also create a personal exercise history log, view their progress on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly time period, earn awards (PALA) and certificates of improvement for regularly logging steps or minutes, and see fitness tips to find new ways to be active.
The PE Central Cooperation and Activity Skills Challenge debuted in Jan. 1999. It is designed for 4th & 5th grade students.. This program not only helps kids learn skills such as throwing and catching, it also develops their cooperation skills. There are 6 challenge tasks. Three are individual tasks (jumping rope, striking a ball with a racket, and hula hooping), two of the tasks require a partner (throwing and catching and a cooperative balancing task), and one task involves children working together to volley a ball as a team. Teachers register at PE Central and have 6 months to complete the tasks with their students. Students who pass 4/6 tasks earn a bronze, 5/6 tasks completed earn a silver pin, and 6/6 tasks completed earns a student a gold pin. The cost to register for a teacher is $15.00.
The Kids Quiz debuted in Aug. 2002. It is age-appropriate for 4th - 6th grade. It is an interactive, educational weekly quiz where kids test their knowledge about nutrition, health, and physical activity. Each week a new question is posted and kids have a week to answer the question correctly. Kids answering correctly are eligible to win a T-shirt prize in a weekly drawing. Kids not answering correctly are shown the correct answer and can come back the next day to try a new question. Prizes are mailed directly to the child’s physical education teacher for distribution to the kids who won.
The New York Healthy Steps program debuted in Aug. 2005. This program is only available to teachers and students who live in New York. It is a program designed to get the children in NY to increase their level of daily physical activity, in addition to regular physical education classes. The program is offered twice a year. Teachers in schools register and then they choose 10 days to record the steps or miles their students walk. The school recording the most miles during the 10 day time period wins the competition and the top schools earn prizes.
The Coleman Everest 5.5 Challenge took place between the dates of in April 9 - May 8, 2007. The Web site had students record and track their physical activity in minutes and/or steps while virtually attempting to reach the Summit of Mount Everest. The Challenge, named for the height of Mount Everest in miles, coincided with 8th grade science teacher Mike Haugen's actual climb to the summit of the world's highest peak. In addition to the virtual hike, students also saw video and e-mail reports of Mike's actual Everest expedition. To reach the virtual summit students had 30 days to complete 20 activity segments that led them to the Everest Summit. Each segment was completed when a child reported being active at least 60 minutes (or 10,000 steps) for that day. This program was a great success with over 7000 students participating and Mike Haugen successfully summitting Everest on May 21, 2007.