White Pine Elementary Jump Rope Club promotes health, coordination, and friendship
The White Pine Elementary Jump Rope Club is a long-lasting tradition that started many years before White Pine Elementary was even formed! About 10 years, four principals, and two schools ago, Mr. Daines, the principal at Park Elementary, came to Kelly Crafts and Michelle Rogers with a request that began their “jump rope career” and set this momentous club in motion.
What started out as a three-year jump rope grant then became an afterschool program which finally grew into its own sustainable program. The Jump Rope Club allows White Pine students in grades K-6 to participate, learn new skills, and accomplish goals. The club meets every morning before school and offers a variety of beginning, advanced, all-boys, and all-girls classes throughout the school year.
Each year, the club showcases its skills during a Christmas performance and an annual end-of-year jump rope assembly, where its routines incorporate double dutch, basketballs, dance, jumping in the same rope, and even costumes and props. To end the school year, the club jumps their way through Richmond City’s Black and White Days parade. This year, the club also had the opportunity to perform during a USU basketball game halftime show, both a girls and boys basketball game halftime show at Sky View High School, and even participated in a fundraiser with the aim to help a college student raise money to purchase jump ropes for children in Guatemala.
“We feel that jump rope allows students to learn and feel success, accomplishment, coordination, getting along with others, finding new friends, and working together with their new friends,” remarked Crafts. “We see many HUGE changes in students from the time they begin the classes to where they have grown. It’s so rewarding to share in student successes every day.”
For more information about the White Pine Jump Rope club, contact Kelly Crafts, Michelle Rogers, or Tami Abbott by calling White Pine Elementary School.