Physical Education (PE) plays a hugely important role for students in school, especially in the younger grades. Not only does it build critical motor skills, burns off some energy, and teaches healthy habits, but it also teaches vital life skills like overcoming obstacles, practice, and setting goals.
PE Teacher and former college football player Masen Oltmanns got into teaching with a little encouragement from an uncle who was a PE Teacher and through the realization that being able to help and encourage other athletes made him a valuable asset to his team. In his second year at ACGC, Oltmanns is not only keeping traditions alive, but is establishing new ones!
Field Day 2026
Hosting a field day is a popular option for elementary schools with a few different ways to pull it off. One is a full track and field day event, which requires a lot of logistics in travel and may not always have something that each student truly enjoys. The other, which was used at ACGC this year, is setting up a variety of different stations around the school with a ton of different activities.
Each student got a punch card and they would get a Pokemon sticker at each station they completed, the goal of course being to “catch them all.” Certain stations involved some of the skills they have learned throughout the year like underhand toss, frisbee, and others that incorporated PE standards.
“We tried to incorporate a little bit from all of the games we have played throughout the year and all of the skills we learned,” said Oltmanns. “It’s important to have goals with some structure around it so the students keep moving and trying different things because we want them to be motivated to participate.”
The day was divided up into two sessions with kindergarten and first grade in the morning and second through fourth in the afternoon. Stations like climbing all the way across the rock wall, hitting a homerun and others gave students the chance to enter their name in a raffle to earn the prize of being able to pie Mr. Oltmanns in the face.
“We had five kids in the morning and ten kids in the afternoon so I got pied 15 times in one day,” laughed Oltmanns. “Those kids are going to remember that and I feel very grateful that I was responsible for that. The final student to get me with the pie started all the way at the back of my head and smeared it all the way down my face. It was awesome!”
Field Day is widely known, but it’s the other schoolwide competition that Oltmanns says is “his baby” and how he was able not just to measure growth and success, but teach important life lessons about loss, encouragement, and trying your best.
Falcons Work Hard to be the Fastest Class
Holding a Fastest Class competition is something that Oltmanns has been wanting to do for a while and decided to kick off this year. Hoping to have a tangible activity that could show student growth and wrap up a lot of topics and skills that students have learned throughout the year, he came up with a simple but effective strategy, a schoolwide competition to see who is the fastest class in the whole school.
This was not a race or a measure of distance, instead it was a five-minute run where the class would run laps around the gym. Oltmanns would measure each time a student finished a lap and run averages to determine the overall score of each class. Each class got three tries, one in December and two more recently. They also had one time where it was just their class in the gym, while the other two times involved an additional class in the gym watching and cheering on the runners.
“I had seen other iterations of a fastest class competition on social media and I recently started my running journey because I was not a distance runner,” said Oltmanns. “I started running on my lunch breaks and wanted to incorporate how rewarding it’s been for me to do that. I really want to leave a legacy here because running is something that is really hard to do for yourself but it is so rewarding.”
Students maybe didn’t fully understand the concept at first but when they started hearing about the individual medals and the class trophy and overall glory that they would receive they got into it. Students quickly learned how to best bring out the energy and excitement in others. If someone started walking because they were tired, students who brought that negative energy did not have nearly as much impact as those who said encouraging words like, “you’re OK, catch your breath and then give it your best for the next minute!” They were able to learn that loss is ok, staying positive is ok, and pushing yourself is OK.”
“In December the class that won had an average of 13 laps per student and every single class got faster and better as the year went on,” said Oltmanns. “I heard there was some friendly trash talking going and teachers and students got really into it. Teachers said students were stretching and warming up in their room before or giving pep talks and some kids even brought running shoes in for those who didn’t have them.”
Classes got updates from the first two runs on their scores and how they compared to others, but the final results were withheld until an all school assembly. The average number of laps after the first run was 11.5 and increased up to 12.25. In the end, it was Mrs. Leikvoll’s fourth grade class who took home the truly impressive trophy with a score of 14 laps per person. The competition was tight though with the second and third place classes having 13.9 and 13.8 laps respectively.
“We were able to really show that as a school we all got faster,” said Oltmanns. “Five minutes of straight up running is hard and I wanted to create a situation where I’m not making you run fast, I leave the choice to them and it was really cool to see them choosing that and staying positive.”
The lesson was simple, give your best for five minutes and encourage your classmates to do the same. Seeing students push themselves and each other through competition, knowing that there would ultimately only be one winning class was a great lesson as well. While Mrs. Leikvoll gets to keep the trophy until next year, the competition will return with a few potential new ideas and Oltmanns hopes it becomes a strong tradition in ACGC.
“Proud is really the only word I have for this,” said Oltmanns. “Competition is a good thing because we are going to lose more than we are going to win in life and that effort is the only thing we can control and use to make us grow and make us stronger. I really do hope that this is a lasting tradition here and that I someday see the fastest class medals on the tables at graduation parties.”
Through encouragement and excitement, every single K-4 class improved in their times from December to May. The level of competition was just enough to motivate, excite, and show students the impact of hard work and teamwork.
“These types of events really stand out and I want to create those for kids,” said Oltmanns. “I want to create core memories of their elementary years!”