Administrators and teachers organized the second annual Wellness Day at Bear Tavern Elementary in Hopewell Township to give their 450 students the tools to make healthy and happy choices.
On Feb. 28, the school started Wellness Day with a school-wide assembly in the afternoon. Afterward, the students broke up into two sessions each with activities and presentations.
“We started this day last year,” Principal Chris Turnbull said. “It started last year because of a mindfulness initiative in the district. We were asked to set aside some time each day for mindfulness. A number of staff at our school and our school psychologist Dr. Beth Hoffman came up with the idea of putting together a specialized day or activity. This day would celebrate wellness and give the children some tools. Last year it went well and we decided we wanted to expand it for this year.”
Mindfulness can be defined as being aware of your thoughts and feelings, according to the University of New Hampshire.
The two separate sessions in the afternoon had 30 activities called breakouts per session for the more than 400 students in Bear Tavern.
“There were five different yoga activities, there were two nature walks, an agility training exercise, cooking activity, four different art activities, four art sessions, kickboxing, two martial arts activities, Princeton University wrestling did a presentation, there were crafts, dancing, gardening, music and acting sessions,” Turnbull said. “The day just had all types of positive wellness activities.”
Last year students at Bear Tavern did not have choice when it came to the activities provided on Wellness Day. However, that changed for Wellness Day in 2019.
“About a month ago every student filled out a google form that asked questions about their interests and we paired them up into groups with things that they were interested in,” he said.
Students had a name tag that had their specific sessions on it. That plan helped get students to the session that had most of their interests.
In order to incorporate all of the activities the school split the gym in half, used the cafeteria twice, the music rooms and 90 percent of the school’s classrooms.
Turnbull said one of the big goal objectives of the day was to bring in members of the community.
“We want this to help our students. They have so many expectations, the academic rigor is so much higher, and with sports added in can be really stressful for them. Just having the tools for mindfulness is really important,” he said.
