Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Jog-a-Thon

For weeks my Daughter's Kindergarten has had "Jog-a-Thon" as an event in the weekly newsletter, organized by the PTA. I haven't really care about the PTA activites so far - they do so many things - scrapbook nights (I'm not a scrapbooker), movie nights (our kids are too small) etc. I have supported the school in other ways. 

But this week I realized that this Jog-a-Thon really is something I have to, need to, pay attention to. The kids are suppoused to do something (jog??) and get money (a ton?) that people pledge for what they do - and it's on Friday! I'm frantically reading back in old newsletters trying to figure out what this thing is all about...  but it seems it's assumed you know exactly what a Jog-a-Thon is. Seems my Daughter should have been preparing (how?) for this all week and getting ready. 

Gaah! The stress of being an alien Kindergartner parent! 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jo, jag minns hur det var. Stressigt och ännu värre för någon som´arbetar...:) Tyvärr har jag aldrig varit så road i allt engagemang som PTA mm. Men jag volunterade och bidrog på annat sätt.
Men..man kan efter ett par år sakna den perioden i barnens liv, Kindergarten och elementary school.

Anonymous said...

Usually how it works is, you pledge money for how many miles the kids run during the jog-a-thon. I doubt they'll actually have them run miles, since that is a long distance for a small child.
But pledging money for distances jogged is the general idea.
Did they give her any forms for pledges? You can always ask the teacher about it too. Teachers here are used to parents asking them lots of questions!

Ally said...

My mom's school has the cutest jog-a-thon (maybe they're all like this now) but they have a DJ that spins tunes while the kids are out there. The kids and I went one year before L&L were in school and they had a ball.

Your friend is right. You should have received a sheet so she could gather signatures pledging so many dollars/cents a lap. They could also do a flat pledge so that it wouldn't matter if she only makes it around once.

JaCal said...

Veronika - ja, det är svårt att hinna med och engagera sig. Vi supportar så gott det går - och hade jag mer tid skulle jag nog gärna engagera mig - om så inte för att kanske göra något mer än just "scrapbook nights" - måste ju finnas andra intressen som kan dra föräldrar till skolan. Fast högst upp på listan är att bidra till förbättrad kommunikation - gaaah!

Melissa - well, I found the form - on the back of the general information that I had put aside - but I still didn't really, really get how it was supposed to work. In the end I pledge money from us and her relatives and they seemed to have run around today with the Principal in the lead (should have been there - must have been a fun sight). The pledge form had 17 rows - but I doubt that they had those kids run 17 times... oh, well... getting the grasp of it. But it sure would save the Teachers time if the information sent out by the administration office was more clear and instructive - every week I'm trying to dissect what they really mean. But then - I'm probably over critical - communication is what I do for a living...

Ally - nice! Well, it seems they had had a lot of fun with the Principal and the teachers running around too. Good the weather was nicer today... The pledge sheet wasn't very clear on how to pledge - probably assuming you know how it works. But hopefully it turned out ok...