Before School Fun @ Forestdale

By Susan Sarafin – Forestdale School

This year, the Forestdale School is proud to offer a great new program to our students – BOKS. BOKS is a 40 minute exercise program that meets before school two days a week and is lead by staff volunteers. BOKS stands for Build Our Kids Success, and is sponsored by Reebok. Staff members were trained at the Reebok facility in Canton, MA. We have just finished our first 6-week session, with more sessions to come!

Here’s what BOKS at Forestdale looks like —

Students arrive promptly at 8am and are greeted by cheering staff. A brief “free play” is followed by our meeting and discussion about the “health tip” of the week. Some of our topics included sugar hidden in foods, healthy snacks, sodium and the best beverages to drink. WATER!!!  We gather as a group shouting the BOKS cheer that can be heard throughout the school. After this lesson Mr. MacDonald introduced the skill of the week. Some of the skills were running, throwing and team challenges. Games are changed weekly depending on the skill. The “toilet tag” was a favorite for reasons we will leave to your imagination.

The students were challenged and learned about teamwork and nutrition. We have received many positive reviews from parents and teachers. “ No longer has a problem waking up in the morning”, “Looks forward to BOKS days”, “Better attention”, “Showed me the better cereal to purchase”, “Made some new friends”, “Thank you for offering this program we have seen a huge improvement in behavior”.

Weekly, each staff member chose a BOKS star of the week. This was a student that was helpful to others, paid attention, did their best, and was a good friend to others. All the students did a great job!

The positive feedback and support of our administration has been rewarding also to the volunteers. The program will be continued this year with 2 more 6 week sessions. We had a waiting list last time and hope to have everyone that is interested able to experience this awesome program, presently open to students in grade 1 and 2.

Staff volunteers Wayne MacDonald, Dianna Barbosa, and Susan Sarafin want to thank parents for sharing your children with us and for committing to get them to school early!

Learn more about BOKS here: https://www.bokskids.org/about-boks