Silver Award Girl Scout, Ginger Waters

Motor Breaks Hallway

Ginger observed that students at her school sometimes need help focusing on their schoolwork, especially students in grades 3-5. Ginger worked with teachers and the principal at her school to learn more about what causes children to be inattentive. She learned that there are many reasons and factors that cause inattentiveness in children, but one of the biggest reasons is due to sensory overload. Allowing kids to take a break and focus on something different calms their bodies and allows them to retain what they’ve learned and remained more attentive in the classroom.

For her Silver Award project, Ginger created a Motor Break Hallway; a colorful, exciting, fun, physical path with wall push-ups, a yoga station, moon rock hop, balance-lines, and more for the kids at her school to move and get their "wiggles" out. Ginger themed her wall and included decals of planets, stars, space ships, star-shaped mirrors, and motivational posters with positive messages.

To measure the impact of her project, Ginger asked teachers to monitor how many students in their classes were using the hallway activities and then report back on their level of attentiveness. One obstacle Ginger encountered with her project was working around the schedules of the school staff. Trying to arrange meetings and work sessions were not always easy, but Ginger advises to stick to your project timeline as much as possible and plan ahead.

Ginger says that she will use the leadership skills she gained from her project in the future by being “fearless to make small changes in communities that need help.”