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Welcome to Cross County Connection's South Jersey Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Newsletter! Through a partnership with the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), Cross County Connection assists schools, school districts and municipalities in South Jersey with developing fun and educational events and activities to enable and encourage children in grades K-8, including those with disabilities, to safely walk and bicycle to school. We also provide technical assistance with assessing the physical environment around schools and provide strategies to make it safer.

If your school, school district or community is interested in learning more about SRTS, contact Cross County Connection TMA at (856) 596-8228.
Safe Routes at Home: Your Weekly Source for Fun Ways
to be Active and Teach Your Kids Safe Walking Skills
How To: A Social Distancing Adaptation
of the Golden Sneaker Walking Challenge
Looking for a way to keep your children and students active during this uncertain time? Cross County Connection’s Safe Routes to School Program has got you covered! This adaptation of The Golden Sneaker Walking Challenge is fun, active and can be done outside of the school’s walls. 
 
Typically, the challenge is a competition between two or more grades that compete to determine who can walk the most steps during the week. Students track their steps with a pedometer provided by Cross County Connection, record them in their daily tracker and calculate those steps to determine a winner. 
 
We have adapted the challenge to suit the needs of students who are unable to attend school during the current Stay at Home order. This program can be used by teachers in a virtual learning environment or can be used by parents at home. 
 
When conducting this activity, please remember that Governor Murphy’s Stay at Home order allows you to leave the house for exercise, but social distancing measures must be taken. Members of the same household can walk together, but they must give six feet of space to anyone that does not live in the household. 
Outdoors Challenge
  1) Choose a location you would like to walk that is not too crowded such as a neighborhood park or quiet street.

2) Download a step tracker app (recommended: Leap Fitness’ Step Counter) 
  • If you cannot download an app, use Google Maps to see how many miles your route is. 
  • Then convert the miles to steps. There are approximately 2,000 steps in each mile. 
  • If you are walking to a destination like a park, do not forget to track the steps it took to get to and from there. 
  • Plan to track the children’s steps Monday through Friday. Keep a log of how many steps each child has completed per day. 

3) Have your children and/or students walk the selected route.

4) See how many times they can complete the walk. 

5) Keep walking all week. 

6) At the end of the competition, tally the number of steps completed
Monday through Friday.
 
7) Announce the child with the most steps as the winner! 
a. Include a prize if you wish 
b. Examples of prizes: more screen time, they can select the movie for the
family to watch, an extra snack…Whatever work best for you! 
Take the Challenge Indoors 
(on your property)!    
1) Make an active chore list (for example: raking the leaves, vacuuming, washing the dishes). 

2) If each child has their own phone, have them Download an app tracker (see Step 1 of outdoors challenge). 

a. If your children do not have their own phone, create a “phone holder” list and allow the children to share a parent’s phone. 

b.This list will assign the phone to each child, evenly dividing the time each child may use it. 

3) Children scan be given a time each day to track their steps while doing an
active chore. 

4) Be sure to give them a sheet of paper and tell them to record their
steps daily before giving the phone back for the next person. 

5) At the end of the week, have your children total the number of steps walked.
The child with the most steps is the winner! 

6) Examples of prizes: a chore pass (one day without doing
chores), and those mentioned in Step 7 above. 
(Students enjoying spring cleaning and counting daily steps)
A Teacher’s Challenge  

1) Ask parents for feedback on what will work best for them, and outdoor or
indoor challenge. Maybe combine the two. 

2) Create an online leaderboard using the virtual school platform that your
school already utilizes. 

a. The leaderboard can be in the form of an online document with a chart of all the students’ names and days of the week excluding the weekends with a space for students to enter their steps for the day. 

3) Instruct the students to track their steps Monday through Friday. 

4) Make recording their daily steps each night a homework assignment. 

5) Let the students (and parents) know that there will be winner(s) selected at the end of the week so they should try their best to stay active. 
6) Create a space (forum) for students to share what they did to help achieve a
high step count. 

7) Select an end time and day (i.e. 12p.m. on Friday) and announce the
winner. 

8) Examples of prizes: homework pass, extra credit on a test, lowest grade dropped from a test, lowest grade dropped from homework, or extra credit on homework. 
Share your thoughts and photos of you and your students participating in this challenge with Cross County Connection by contacting our Safe Routes to School Coordinator, Latifah Sunkett, at  sunkett@driveless.com . You may just be featured in our next newsletter! We look forward to seeing how you all stay active!  


Ronda R. Urkowitz 
P.P., AICP
Executive Director
(856) 596-8228

Latifah Sunkett
SRTS Coordinator
(856) 596-8228

SRTS Resources:


 

Communities can earn Sustainable
Jersey and Sustainable Jersey
Schools certification points by
participating in SRTS!

Learn more at: 


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