Build Our Kids Success With BOKS

Build Our Kids Success With BOKS

Building Our Kids Success! BOKS helps kids get physically active. As the long cold winter left, students and staff at the J. Turner Hood School embarked on a journey together. The Hood School recently started to pilot the BOKS program two mornings per week. Our guiding premise is that great kids deserve a great start. We are helping set our kids up for success by giving them a body and brain boost with the BOKS before-school physical activity program. The BOKS program is sponsored by Reebok and is designed to prepare students for a day of learning while teaching the benefits of exercise and making healthy choices.  BOKS was inspired by Dr. John Ratey’s book “Spark” which speaks to exercise being “the most powerful tool that we have to optimize the function of our brains.” Over sixty Hood School students have been joining physical education teacher Matthew Quinlan, school Nurse Lois Bisson and other school volunteers two mornings per week this spring for this exciting before school physical activity program. BOKS will continue to run every Monday and Wednesday for the remainder of the school year.

The data reflects the idea that active kids lead have active minds and that morning exercise and activity improves student learning. BOKS is involved in a multiyear research study with the National Institute on Out Of School Time (NIOST) to determine the effectiveness of BOKS. The most recent results for 2013 are now in, and based on a study of 570 children, has determined that:

•   Some subsets of BOKS children improved significantly more than their peers on assessments of working memory (holding information to complete a task) and shift (transition and problem solve) based on teacher or parent assessment.

•   Children participating in BOKS showed significantly more knowledge post-test about various food types, serving size, and nutrition content.

•   BOKS parents with children attending one or more sessions were significantly more likely than the comparison group of parents to rate their child’s health as better than the year before in both Year 1 and Year 2 of the study.

The program includes a number of team-oriented games, movement activities and a nutrition component as part of the program. We are very fortunate in that Reebok donated a number of supplies for the program including materials and BOKS T-shirts for all our students and staff volunteers.

Check out their website at: http://www.bokskids.org/