We are partnering with CrossFit Kids to bring you information to help encourage and inspire your children to incorporate health and fitness into their every day lives and to improve their ability to learn. It's important for all online school students to spend some time every day moving, playing, and exercising - not only because in some states, it's required, but because the overall benefits to health and learning are immense!  

However, It is very important that you consult a doctor before you or your children begin any type of exercise. Always stop exercising immediately if you experience any shortness of breath, dizziness, or pain.

The posts provided by CrossFit Kids in this series are designed to explain the overall philosophy of CrossFit Kids, review some basic movements, and offer suggested workouts that can be incorporated at home. We will be reviewing different movements throughout the series and providing you with ideas to get your kids moving.  The workouts won't be anything you can't handle and you should, by all means, join in!

Remember, this should be fun!  Are you ready? 3, 2, 1...Go! 

Walk midway into a class at a registered CrossFit Kids program and you might discern the kind of energy that usually emanates from a playground during recess. There is joyful noise: laughter and thrilled shrieks and triumphant shouts. Kids are having a blast. And the trainers look like they might be having an even better time. A well-run program always looks like a boatload of easy fun. But all of that fun, as merrily hectic and aimless as it sometimes seems, is by design, purposeful. CrossFit Kids intends to teach children to associate exercise with fun, with the ultimate goal being that they will value the pursuit of fitness into adulthood.  It is the new school when it comes to physical education.

But when parents find themselves acting as their child's learning coache at home, that sense of easy fun can become decidedly uneasy. The urge to get their children to a registered CrossFit Kids program can become strong. But that is not necessary.

Agora Cyber Charter School (Agora) music teacher Andrew Rinaldi has been named the 2013 national winner of the American Pioneer of Teaching competition. The award is given annually by PublicSchoolOptions.org, a national alliance of parents, students and teachers that supports and defends parents' rights to access the best public school options for their children.

The American Pioneer of Teaching competition recognizes top performing K-12 teachers who work in nontraditional public schools, such as virtual, charter and magnet schools. Thousands of students, parents and teachers from across the country cast online votes through Facebook to determine the winner of the award, which is held each year in honor of National Teacher Appreciation Week.

Meet K¹² parent and learning coach Jill, who chose online schooling for her daughter because it gave her the flexibility her family needed to accomodate her serious illness. 

Online students want flexibility. They want the freedom to do their work when they want, where they want, without being tied to a desk in a classroom. One tool that can help provide that flexibility is Google Drive. Drive is a cloud-based tool for creating, storing, and sharing files. It gives you the freedom to bring your files anywhere, no matter what device you’re using. Here are 7 reasons Google Drive is an awesome tool for students attending an online school.

Access your documents anywhere

Your files no longer live only on your home computer’s hard drive. Now they’re on your phone, your tablet, the library computer, or anywhere you are. Drive takes the place of gadgets like thumb drives which can easily break or get lost, and which aren’t compatible with mobile devices.

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week!

Many of us have special memories of that one teacher, or if you were lucky, a group of teachers that really left their mark on our childhood. They inspired us, put their faith in us, made us feel special and with their support, made us feel that there was nothing we couldn't do. Think about the influence and impact teachers have on the development of our children. Great teachers recognize that it's a partnership with parents that works best and together they teach them, help develop their knowledge, and lend support and inspiration so they grow up having all the opportunities available to lead a successful life, whatever that looks like to them.