Every Wednesday at our school is travel day in P.E. class. Students come to the travel field which is a tenth of a mile around to walk, jog, or run as many laps as they can. Students work up to a twenty minute run and are given a Popsicle stick for each lap they complete. All scores are recorded in a log book and each class is given an average for the day. A total is kept each week for the schools total daily run and total miles completed. The lap scores are calculated into mileage and recorded on a map in the P.E. hall at school.

The first year we ran around the United States traveling to all the State capitals. Each class was assigned 3 States to write to and find information pertaining to that state. We then created our own travel book.

On our last travel day we traveled to a pool to swim to Hawaii and have a luau. The students had a great time swimming laps at the pool and the younger students were allowed to jog their laps in the pool if they could not swim. We have traveled to Europe, South America and the past two years have been spent walking and jogging through Africa.

Students and teachers have enjoyed writing each country and writing letters to American schools in a specific country. This year we will try to work with our technology department as we try to e-mail our pen-pals.

Students also have the opportunity to receive a colored shoe on the wall with their name on it. Different colored shoes are awarded for every 15 miles a student travels. At the end of the year we award t-shirts to the top 20 travelers that have a picture of the traveled continent that says "AOS Laps Africa" for example.

Last year many students ran 60 miles and some kindergartners ran 45 miles. There are many ways to keep the students motivated and always learning. We give bonus tickets to students who can tell us at any time what country we are presently in, the nearest body of water, the capital of the country or how many miles we have run so far. The best part is how forward the students look to swimming home and the festival where food from all the countries are served. Someday we plan to lap the world and have our middle school join us as we run the equator.

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