Merry Christmas St.Mary's!!

The theme of our final lab at St. Mary's this week was Christmas! We all came to lab dressed up in our best Christmas attire! This was our final lab so we did not have a set of locomotor skills that we needed to observe. My two lab partners and myself worked with the pre-schoolers for our final lab. I was really excited. I brought a big poster board that said "Merry Christmas St.Mary's" on the top. All of the kids colored different christmas pictures and we then taped them on the big poster. I had a couple of girls that wanted to be my helpers and they helped me tape all the pictures on the poster. They were so cute and were so excited that they could help me. They we played a big game of Simon Says. After this I read a really cute Christmas story to the preschoolers and then they had a quick snack before coming out to the gym to play some parachute games.




I definitely think that all of the kids absolutely loved to parachute games! Andrew did come fun games where the kids got to crawl under the parachute and other games that involved getting balls off the the top of the parachute. I then did a couple of games too. I think that their favorite game was probably "air conditioning".




Overall this weeks lab was definitely the best lab yet! I have had so much working with the kids at St.Mary's and it definitley was an awesome experience to get started working with the kids!!!

Gobble Gobble! It's Thanksgiving at St.Mary's!

The theme of our lab this week was Thanksgiving! Although we did not dress up the kids knew very well that the theme was thanksgiving because we all brought colorful and exciting props for our games. My lab group was in charge of teaching the opening gym games. To get the kids warmed up and moving, Steve did a quick game of pilgrim tag. We had 29 kids in our group and it definitely was a lot to handle! The kids were full of energy and enthusiasm which definitely radiated to me when it came time for me to teach my game. The name of my game was the "turkey trot" and was done to to observe the locomotor skill of kicking. Before the lab I made colorful poster boards with different thanksgiving clipart pictures. The game involved the students kicking the ball to the poster and person across from them and then running to the poster where they just kicked the ball. I added in some different fun variations. For example, they had to gobble like a turkey when running to the next poster, or they had to make the sound of an Indian. Overall I think the game went well. There was definitely alot of kids and it felt like I was screaming in order for all of them to hear me. I definitely think that using music works really well to cue stopping and stopping for the kids and capture their attention. After my game, Andrew did a game that involved dribbling. His game also went very well and I really believe that my lab partners and I have come a long way since Week 1. After the opening gym games, the children went outside and we played a big game of kickball which was a lot of fun! At the end of the afternoon, we played one final game and then did the turkey pokey! The turkey pokey was really cute and the students really seemed to enjoy it. I would have to say that this was probably our best lab yet! I am looking foward to our next and final lab!

Ahoy there, Matey!

This week was our first real lab at St. Mary’s. I was really, really excited but a little nervous at the same time.  The theme of the week was pirates!! My teaching partners and I were assigned to work with the pre-k students. We met twice the week prior to lab to make sure we were ready for the lab. We planned our lesson, made posters and a treasure chest, and also bought pirate accessories. I picked out a book called “How I became a Pirate” to read to the students while another one of my partners planned a craft and my other partner designed a pirate themed games. Even though we were dressed a little bit ridiculous, I really think that the pre-k students liked seeing the way we were dressed. They really seemed to enjoy the book I read and loved interrupting to ask questions and point out different things they saw in the pictures! Although we didn’t have time for the coloring craft, I really think that the kids enjoyed the games. The last game led the kids to a treasure chest full of mardi-gras bead necklaces and each kid got to take one home. I think they really liked this!

 During this lab we also got to observe the students playing three games right when we got to the school. We were asked to observe the students locomotor skills in terms of running, galloping, and hopping. It was interesting to see where the younger children were in terms of development. I think it would be fair to say that the students had the most trouble with the hopping, but did a good job with running and galloping.

Overall I think that this lab went well! I am excited to go to St. Mary's again in 2 weeks!

Some PE Hall of Shame Games...But why tag???

In 1992, there were 6 games in the official Physical Education Hall of Fame. Some of these games were dodgeball, duck duck goose, kickball, and musical chairs. Some of the new inductees to the 1994 Hall of Shame included “Red Rover”,  “Simon Says”, and tag. I agree that “Red Rover” and “Simon Says” are not appropriate for physical education settings. They do not incorporate enough physical activity and the kids are left standing around too much. I also believe that they do not involve enough cognitive aspects and thus they do not require much thinking. Tag is on the Hall of Shame list for a couple of different reasons. Although it does involve a good amount of physical activity, some tag games are elimination games which everyone knows is very bad in the physical education classroom. Another reason that tag games are on the Hall of Shame is because more often than not, the slower and less fit kids are always “it” or eliminated. Yet I have learned many different tag games that would be appropriate for kids to play in physical education classes. After all, tag is always a lot of fun!! For example, the tag game blob tag involves the entire class moving around the whole time. Students are not discouraged when they get tagged because they become part of the “blob” and thus have the new goal of tagging all their other classmates. Everyone had to be moving at all times which is beneficial. I think a very important job of each physical education teacher is to switch up who is “it” often. Another good tag game I have come across is “temple tag”. In this games there are about 3-5 “its”. When the “its” tag someone, the person who got tagged must stand with their legs apart and the palms of their hands touching about their head in the “temple position”. To be unfrozen from the “temple position” a classmate must crawl through the legs of someone who is in the temple position. This game involves the class always moving, except for the few brief moments a kid may be in the “temple position” before being untagged.

Tag games are a lot of fun and also provide great physical activity is the proper modifications are made!!!

Young Kids Playing a Game of Blob Tag

First Lab at St.Mary's = ALOT of fun!!!

I have to say that I was a little nervous before the first lab at St.Mary’s but it turned out to be a great experience! The first thing I noticed when I got to St.Mary’s was how much energy all the kids had! They were so excited to finally have free time to play and move around.  The lab assistants did a really good job getting the younger kids motivated to play the different tag games that they had prepared and it was really helpful to watch them to get a better idea of what was expected of us.  After we observed for a little bit, a few of my classmates and I went outside to play with the pre-k students on the small playground. I immediately noticed how much energy they had and how they could make the simplest things a lot of fun. I played with about five students who would jump off a surface that was about 1 and half feet tall. They would jump and land right in front of me and then high-fived both my hands.  Even if they did not land on their feet every time, they seemed to enjoy the activity very much and probably could have played for hours without getting tired! They used their imagination and pretended to be jumping off a cliff into a lake. After playing outside with the pre-schoolers for a while we went inside to the gym to play with all the kids that were left. Another lab student and I decided to organize a game of knockout with some of the older fifth graders. At first it seemed like they did not want to play with us but as the game got moving, I think they too began having a lot of fun. After this I played with the house and little action figure toys with one young girl named Mary. It was so neat to see her using her imagination to come up with different scenarios that the figures would be put through like a “tornado that might destroy the house!”.  I had a lot of fun and am really looking forward to going back next week!