Stepping Our Way Up the Empire State Building

We finished up our imaginary trip to New York City with a visit to the Empire State Building.  Prekindergarten and Kindergarten students heard about the height of the building, its massive size, and the observation decks on the 86th and 102nd floors.  (The view from the observation decks can be as far as 80 miles on a clear day.)  They also learned about the 103rd floor which is reserved for dignitaries and special guests.  It was also interesting to hear about the Empire State Building Run which takes place annually.  Runners try to climb the 1,576 steps to the 86th floor observation deck as quickly as possible. People often do this in less than10 minutes.  Whew!!

In Physical Education, we challenged ourselves to climb as many steps as possible during our class period by doing step aerobics.  I wore a step counter while we turned on the music and stepped to the beat.  When the song was over, we checked the step counter to see our progress.  Students discovered that this was not an easy task and it sometimes took 3 times through a song to accumulate enough steps to complete the challenge. (This was a good lesson in mathematics.)  I was impressed with the job that students did on this activity.  We were tired at the end of class!!

This class successfully steps their way to the 86th floor observation deck.

Click here for a few more photos of our step aerobics.