Head Start hosts Ninja Day

Although it was recently fall break week for White County schools, Sparta Head Start students and faculty hosted attendance spirit week at their location and dressed up each day to make learning more fun.

On their final day of spirit week, the facility had “Ninja Day” and got members of the community involved by inviting Sparta karate students to participate with the Head Start students.

“We would like to say thank you to Bushido Karate Center and their students who came to our school recently to teach a mini karate class,” Melony Pryor, center supervisor at Sparta Head Start, said. “Our kids were all so excited to show off their new ninja skills. A special thanks to Kolt Pryor, Autumn Lewis, and Jackson Cocke for spending your morning with us.”

According to Dani Auberger, head coach at Bushido Karate Center, members of the school’s leadership program volunteered to spend time working with the students at the Sparta Head Start.

“Our STORM program aims to help our athletes develop leadership skills,” Auberger explained. “Once an athlete reaches a certain level in their athletic training, we feel it is important that they not only learn how to execute moves but how to be leaders. While karate is seen as an individual sport, there are plenty of opportunities to build leadership skills and learn to be good teammates, leading by example. More importantly, developing leadership skills will help with any future endeavor that our athletes take on and will give them the skills necessary to be successful in any situation.”

The three athletes who visited Sparta Head Start, on Oct. 13, took time out of their fall break to create their own lesson plan and evaluate the ages of the students they would be working with and what skills would be both appropriate and achievable for them.

“We are very proud of Kolt, Autumn, and Jackson for their willingness to help with Sparta Head Start’s Ninja Day,” Auberger said. “They are some of our younger STORM leaders, with all of them just in sixth grade. To participate in this with no assistance from any of their older, more experienced program members and without a head coach, was a big step for them. They really took a huge leap forward in their leadership training.”