ELMHURST – The Elmhurst Academy of Early Learning has taken a new approach to harnessing a healthy lifestyle by challenging its faculty, students and their families to take part in "Gimme Five," a challenge from First Lady Michelle Obama's fitness campaign, "Let's Move."

Early childhood teachers Dana Naffziger and Leslie Mueller decided to accept the challenge and create a summer curriculum that encouraged members of their school community to participate. The two also decided to include just one more bit – how can students demonstrate good character?

Elmhurst Academy's philosophy centers on a project-based method to develop and enhance physical, social and emotional skills, Naffziger said. She added the philosophy embodies communication as a crucial construct to building balanced relationships with oneself, one's peers and one's family, and that's what they hope to accomplish with the Gimme Five challenge.

Naffziger explained their summer school program runs from June to August, and she and Mueller devised each month to concentrate on individual, partner and team tasks.

The two said these include various types of activities that develop hand-eye coordination and balancing through catching or kicking a ball to one another, as well as learning how to work together to accomplish a goal.

A large aspect of this project is that the students are in charge of coming up with challenges for their peers, teachers and parents, Naffziger and Mueller said.

This allows them not only to use their critical thinking skills but also to take ownership in receiving the challenges and performing them, Naffziger said.

For the week of June 30, Michelle Pike and her infant class challenged Mueller and her preschool-age class to give high-fives to five different friends, which primarily encompasses good sportsmanship and targets social development skills. In return, the infants were challenged to look at picture books for five seconds, aimed at developing their literary skills.

Lisa Dillard and her kindergarten class received a similar assignment and were asked to give compliments to five friends, family members or teachers.

Mona Webber and Naffziger's toddler-age classes received missions that helped them touch base with their bodies and their environment. Naffziger's class, who already were taking advantage of a perfect summer day with a beach-like activity, took some time to complete their exercise, which entailed jumping in five different ways, while Webber's class went on a short nature hike around the academy's garden and playground to collect five nature items.

Mueller said another important component to completing these activities is documenting them through photos and video and sharing them with parents, as well as other students, faculty and staff.

But there's someone else Naffziger and Mueller would like to share these photos and videos with – the First Lady herself.

Mueller said at the end of the summer, they intend to showcase their journey in one video, send it to her and "challenge her to give five minutes of her time" to take a look at their accomplishment so far in achieving good health and wellness.

"It's a big dream," Mueller said. "But we take it to heart that we are role models, and we want to show our students that if you dream big, anything is possible."

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Know more

For information on Gimme Five and the Let's Move campaign, visit letsmove.gov.