Stretch-N-Grow

I've meant to blog about this for awhile, and today, while I was thinking about what to write for my blog post and also making lunch, Vince gave me an idea.  We were having bok choy and peanut butter and he asked me if there were any "abc vitamins" in the bok choy.  I lied.  I was having grapefruit and I gave him a wedge and he asked about the vitamins in that.  Sorry.  It was 4 hours ago.  I'm getting old and my memory is fading.  Anyway, the "ABC vitamin" comment came from his Stretch-N-Grow class that he takes after school on Thursdays.  He LOVES it!  He's not a huge fan of school, but Thursday's I can always get him out of bed with a "It's Stretch-N-Grow day!".  He's always very vague about what he does in class, but I do know that there's always a theme.  They do a great job of keeping them very up-to-date.  He did How to Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me, Shrek,   and other pop culture topics as well as traditional preschooler favorites like dinosaurs and firefighters.    I should probably back up and tell you that Stretch-N-Grow is a fitness program for kids.
The Jewish Center brought them in when Caden was there and it was part of his physical fitness program, but Jackson Children's Academy has it as an after school program.  Vince stays for an hour after school, 1/2 hour for lunch then 1/2 hour for SNG.  I love it because one day a week I get an extra hour of errand/exercise time (which I'm currently filling with Olivia's gymnastics class) and the more I learn about the program itself, the more I'm impressed.  Every month he'll come home with a newsletter about what they're learning and the themes for that month.  One month there was a list of about 6 muscles that they claimed to have taught the kids.  "Right"  I thought.  They probably mentioned it in passing, but there was no way vince was going to be able to tell me which muscles were his pecs, glutes, abs, quads--but he did!  He knew them all!!  I was shocked.  It was at that point that I started taking Stretch-N-Grow as more than something fun that he does on Thursdays.  I realized that it's a really great program where he's learning about exercise and healthy living.  He always comes home with a coloring page that just gives me a general idea of what they talked about (that's how I knew about the ABC vitamins).
Stretch-N-Grow is an international franchise so even if you're not in my area you can probably find a program near you.  Check out their webpage to find one.  I found a Stretch-N-Grow clip on Youtube that shows a little bit about what a class looks like as well as some interesting stats on preschool nutrition (only about 15% of 5 year olds can pass a basic physical fitness test).