A ghoulishly good time at Forest Lake gym classes

“Scary cool,” is how Franco, a third grade student at Forest Lake School described the haunted gym, where 15 different Halloween themed stations were set up to test a range of physical education skills. Inspirational signs accompanied the ghoulish decorations on the walls. Halloween music set the tone for a lively and fun-filled hour of exercise.

“The games keep the kids moving and help them develop better hand and eye coordination, agility and balance, and throwing and catching,” explained Physical Education teacher David Sposito who created the haunted gym at Forest Lake School, and modeled the program after the haunted gym created 10 years ago by physical education teachers Christine Moran and Anthony Ciuffo at Wantagh Elementary School. The fitness frenzy program also required students to keep score at each station and to make a final tally at the end of class, thereby incorporating mathematics skills.

Students, kindergarten through grade five, played a variety of games including “spider bowl,” “soccer ghoul,” and “graveyard golf.” The children visited the haunted gym twice, over a two week period of time which ended on Friday, November 1.

“The kids are taken back by the decorations,” said Mr. Sposito. “The younger ones are more timid, at first, but they walk around and then get more comfortable.”

Mr. Sposito said his favorite game is the “witch hunt. It’s a power point presentation with animation,” he explained pointing to the animated witch who darted across the wall. “You use the bean bag and try to hit the moving witch for points,” he said.

But the students said the “tunnel of terror” was their favorite game.

“It’s really fun. You slide through it and there are boxes in there, stuff, like skeletons and pictures,” said Roman.

“There are a bunch of cool decorations in there,” added Laura.

“I saw pumpkins in cages,” whispered Angela.

“It’s scary,” said Franco, “but it could be scarier. We are in third grade.”

Mr. Sposito smiled. “ I want this to be great fun for them. But I’m happy to take their suggestions. They have such great imaginations!”