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10,000 Words & 10,000 Steps – A New Definition of Physical Education

I was reading about a new educational program being put into practice at a few schools on the West Coast and I think it’s a great idea. I already plan to write to my local school district and suggest it as an idea that could be implemented at our schools here. The program is referred to as 10,000 words; 10,000 steps.

So what is 10,000 Words & 10,000 Steps?

You may have heard of the 10,000 step program that encourages you to increase the number of steps that you take every day until you are walking on average of 10,000 steps a day. 10,000 steps equals about 5 miles and if you are averaging that many steps daily you are building towards physical fitness and health, not to mention burning off excess calories and energy. It’s a great way to motivate yourself onto a fitness program.

Well these schools have taken then 10,000 steps and incorporated not only challenging their kids to hit that 10,000 steps a day program, but also to incorporate reading 10,000 words a day so that not only are they getting more physical fit, they are also increasing their mental fitness through reading and more. It’s a great idea and it’s a great solution for teachers looking to motivate their students.

Before you think 10,000 words is a lot, 10,000 words equals about 40 pages and they aren’t expecting students to achieve it the first time out. Like 10,000 steps, you discover what your average number of words read per day as well as your average number of steps taken.

The average person takes about 2,000 to 4,000 steps in a day. The average person probably reads about 2,000 to 4,000 words in a day when not actively reading a book. For example, the average blog here at Families.com is 300 to 400 words. So if you read five or six entries, you’re reading 1500 to 1800 words right there.

See?

I think this is a great idea and I hope more schools incorporate the idea into their physical education and standard academic education plans. For those of you keeping track, you’ve just read about 379 words if you read this whole blog.

How many words a day do you think you read on average?

Related Articles:

10,000 Steps May Not Be All That

Book Review: LEAN Kids

Let’s Talk Walking

Step Up And Join the Walking Craze Book Review

This entry was posted in Motivation and tagged , , by Heather Long. Bookmark the permalink.

About Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago. They have a beautiful daughter who just turned five years old. She is learning to read and preparing for kindergarten in the fall. An author of more than 300 articles and 500+ web copy pieces, Heather has also written three books as a ghostwriter. Empty Canoe Publishing accepted a novel of her own. A former horse breeder, Heather used to get most of her exercise outside. In late 2004, early 2005 Heather started studying fitness full time in order to get herself back into shape. Heather worked with a personal trainer for six months and works out regularly. She enjoys shaking up her routine and checking out new exercises. Her current favorites are the treadmill (she walks up to 90 minutes daily) and doing yoga for stretching. She also performs strength training two to three times a week. Her goals include performing in a marathon such as the Walk for Breast Cancer Awareness or Team in Training for Lymphoma research. She enjoys sharing her knowledge and experience through the fitness and marriage blogs.