Annual ACES Day promotes fun and fitness for kids
YOU PUT YOUR HEAD IN — Doing the motions to the hokey pokey, which was one of the stations at Pine Street Elementary School during last Wednesday’s All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) Day, are kindergartners, from left: Karlyn Gilmour, Summer Hayes, Abbygail Benson, Alyssa Thomas, Karee Bagley and Sharon Ward, ed tech.
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE — Students at Pine Street Elementary School were among the millions of children from all 50 states and over 50 countries who exercised together last Wednesday in observance of All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) Day.
Staff photos/Scott Mitchell Johnson
LEARNING THE MOVES to “The Cha Cha Slide” was a lot of fun for second-graders at Pine Street Elementary School. 
Rhythms/dance was one of eight stations that students participated in during last Wednesday’s All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) Day. Other stations included scooter races, crab soccer, basketball, hokey pokey and Simon says.
ACES Day began back in 1989 by New Jersey physical education teacher Len Saunders, who wanted to get one school in every state to exercise at the same time on a specific day in May to motivate his gym classes to exercise. The program was also designed to show the importance of physical education in school.
According to the Project ACES website, Saunders began a letter-writing campaign to schools throughout the United States to see if they wanted to join in this massive exercise event. He received confirmations day after day until every state had a participating school involved. In 1989, ACES stood for “American Children Exercising Simultaneously,” because he never imagined schools outside the United States would participate.
LOGAN SHERMAN, left, and Zander Gallagher-Easler, first-graders at Pine Street Elementary School, race while dribbling a ball during the May 2 ACES Day event held at the school. 
Students at Pine Street were among the millions of children from all 50 states and over 50 countries that exercised together in observance of All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) Day.
The first year of ACES was a huge success. Children from 1,200 schools participated in all 50 states and the island of St. Croix. Within months of completing ACES 1989, Saunders started receiving mail for the 1990 ACES event, which at the time did not even exist. Letters continued to pour in from schools throughout the country (almost 500 letters a day) and even from outside the United States. The name could not remain “American Children Exercising Simultaneously” anymore, and became “All Children Exercising Simultaneously” in 1990.
Ron McAtee, physical education teacher at Pine Street, devised eight stations with each class participating in three.
Stations included scooter races, crab soccer, basketball, rhythms/dance where the students danced to such songs as the “The Chicken Dance” and “The Cha Cha Slide,” hokey pokey, Simon says, egg walk, in which children raced carrying a whiffle ball rather than an egg on a spoon, and a relay race.
“The rules to the various stations are really simple, so it didn’t matter if the children were in kindergarten, first or second grade,” said McAtee. “I want to keep it simple so it takes only a minute to explain the directions and then they’re off. It’s set up so the kids have a hard, physical station and then they go to an easier station — back and forth.”
JUSTIN GAGNON, a kindergartner at Pine Street Elementary School, does his best to carry a whiffle ball on a spoon while racing as part of All Children Exercising Simultaneously (ACES) Day. 
This was Pine Street’s fourth year participating in ACES Day.
Some of the school’s ed techs, the librarian and a few students from the University of Maine at Presque Isle assisted in overseeing the stations.
“My goal is to reinforce the idea that exercising is fun,” McAtee said. “There’s no real winning or losing at the station. Some were keeping score to help motivate the kids, but at the end, there were no winners or losers … just kids having fun.
“I’m a firm believer in getting kids as active as possible,” he said. “Not every student in the school has gym today, so it’s a day to get everybody going. The fact that other schools all over the nation are doing it at the same time, on the same day, is great.”
This was Pine Street’s fourth year participating in ACES Day.
