Tragically, many physical education teachers have been devastated by the recent hurricanes on the gulf coast. Many of us want to help them get their programs back up and running. Therefore PE Central has set up a new site entitled The Hurricane Relief Connection Center. The purpose of the site is to connect those teachers who have been devastated by the hurricane with those who want to help. To do this PEC is encouraging those physical educators who were devastated by the storm to post their story on PE Central. In turn those who wish to help can contact them and see how they can best help by sending PE equipment or gift certificates to purchase PE equipment. We hope by providing this service PEC can help those physical education teachers who have been affected by the recent hurricanes. To view the site go here:

www.pecentral.org/hurricane

Thanks to those who have already sent supplies to those who have posted their story on PE Central. Check out this wonderful story about kids in California who sent along some of the equipment their PE teacher earned by publishing a lesson idea on PE Central. Thanks to Jeffrey Merzbacher, their PE teacher, for letting us know about this!

As we started this year, I was really hurting for recess equipment but I was really impressed with my students. After receiving the equipment from earning the gift certificate for publishing one of my ideas on PE Central, a student piped up and asked, "Can we send our stuff to the children who do not have stuff because of Hurricane Katrina?" The others voiced the same request. Off it went to the south where the students wanted it to go. Thank you so much. You made us all feel as though we made a little difference.

We wanted to let everyone in Mississippi know that your state convention is being held. Gary Wilson, Executive Director of Mississippi AHPERD contacted us to update us on this as it is difficult for them to communicate through their web site due to Hurricane Katrina.

Mississippi AAHPERD State Convention
Convention Date: December 2-3, 2005
Location: The University of Southern Mississippi
Hattiesburg, MS
Contact Gary Wilson

MAHPERD Executive Director
Anniston Elementary
2314 Jones Street
Gulfport, MS 39507

We are very pleased to announce that registration for the PE Central Challenge, our popular motor skills Challenge for 4th and 5th graders, will begin at 12:00 (Noon EST) on Tuesday, November 1, 2005. (We will let you know of the exact registration web site address on our PE Central Challenge Web site and on the top of the PE Central Challenge site). Unfortunately, we cannot offer it for free this year. We are very disappointed about this development, but our efforts to secure a sponsor were unsuccessful. This is a program we are very proud of and we know that is had a positive affect on the kids who have participated in the program for the last seven years. The only way for us to offer the Challenge this year is to charge a minimal fee of $15.00 for those teachers who choose to register for the 2006 PE Central Challenge. We thank you in advance for your understanding of this change. We think it is a better option then canceling the Challenge.

The PE Central Challenge will essentially work the same way it has for the past 7 years. The challenge tasks will remain the same. 30,000 pins will be available to reserve starting on Nov. 1, 2005. The major change is during registration. Interested teachers will pay a $15.00 registration fee using a credit card (no PO's or checks accepted-electronic receipts will be sent for reimbursement purposes). This will allow teachers to reserve 30 award pins along with additional benefits. As has been done in the past, teachers will return in March 2006 to report the exact number of gold, silver, and bronze pins their kids earned. Additional pins (above the 30 already purchased) for registrants will be discounted 15% to .85 cents a piece.

Teachers who do not register can still participate in the Challenge. If you want to participate for free you can award your kids the free downloadable participation certificates from the Challenge Web site or you can purchase pins ($1.00 each) using our printable order form that will be available on the Challenge Web site soon.

Thanks again for your interest in the PE Central Challenge. We will continue to seek external funding to support this program in hopes of returning it back to its free version. In the meantime thanks for understanding as we move forward.

Information About the 2006 PE Central Challenge

As we announced in our previous newsletter, S&S Worldwide has become our new Primary Sponsor. We are excited to announce they have now increased the prize incentives from a $25.00 gift certificate to a $50.00 gift certificate for those who get their lesson ideas, best practices, kids quiz question, or kids quote published on PE Central! This should really help those who have great ideas to share and those who have limited PE budgets! To submit your idea go here:

www.pecentral.org/pecinfo/guidelines/guidelines.html

In addition, we want to remind you that from now until Dec. 31, 2005 S&S is offering a 15% discount on any orders you place through the special PE Central link noted below. To take advantage of this generous discount offer use the following link:

The next step is to enter the offer code M2058 when prompted during checkout if you make a purchase.

S&S is graciously donating 5% of all proceeds from these sales to PE Central thus allowing PE Central to continue to grow and expand!

Lastly, it is now easier to obtain the equipment that is associated with all of our lesson ideas. After accessing a lesson idea, click on the equipment pictured on the left side of the lesson ideas and you can purchase these items directly from the S&S Web site.

We keep adding new items products to our store! This time we focused on adding some cool dance books (Thanks Joella!) and we are now publishing a new adapted PE book from one of our Adapted PE Advisory board members! (Thanks Christine!)

New Titles:

Two left feet and a beat

And the beat goes on...

Adapted PE Guidebook

To order use a VISA/MC in our secure online store, fax us a PO (800-783-8124), mail us a check (payable to PE Technologies), or call us at 540-953-1043 (8-5 EST). Shipping is $3.50 per order; $15.00 per Int'l order.

CAHPERD (Canada AHPERD) has just launched three new events for their National School Challenge program. These are for PE teachers who are in Canada only.

The MOGA MADNESS National School Challenge, Thursday November 24th, 2005: MOGA stands for the Most Outrageous Group Activity and provides a great opportunity to involve the entire school in the zaniest physical activity event you can imagine! CAHPERD will award the school that we believe has organized the Most Outrageous Group Activity with a $250 gift certificate from their online bookstore, Excelway.

The Jump2bfit Across Canada National School Challenge, Thursday, February 23rd, 2006: Join other Canadian students to accumulate 8,000 km of jumping across Canada! Your students can take a day, two days or even a week to complete this challenge, as long as they start or finish their jump across Canada on Thursday February 23rd, 2006.

The SpecTAGular National School Challenge, Thursday, May 25th, 2006: Back by popular demand! Last year, 260,053 students yelled "Tag! You're It!" in a giant game of tag. This year their goal is to reach 300,000 participants playing tag for a minimum of 30 minutes.

You can choose to participate in one, two or all three of these challenges. Please register online at

www.cahperd.ca/nationalschoolchallenge

For more information contact:

That does it from PE Central for now. We hope you have a great (and safe) Halloween. Make sure to check out all of our Halloween lesson ideas in our Holiday Lesson ideas section. Have a great day. We will be in touch with more news soon.

Sincerely,