Watch this short video to get a glimpse of what kids are like when they come into the gym. As we head into the fall break it’s a good time to look back at all the things our students have accomplished. Beyond celebrating the first Awesome Gym Days of the year, the upper elementary grades have spent lots of time on tossing, throwing and catching. In 5th Grade we’ve been doing lead-up games for basketball. In the younger grades students are expanding their movement vocabulary and enjoying the thrill of simple tagging games as well as the variety offered by stations and Obstacle Courses. The video below is of our youngest working on jumping on one such course. Obstacle courses have become a popular staple in our elementary PE program. They can be used as a warm-up activity or as an opportunity to practice new and related movement skills. Recently, instead of telling and showing students what to do at each section, I gave them some general parameters for using specific equipment and let them make up the rest! The video below shows children moving through obstacle courses in this way. Keep your eyes peeled for individual choices. In a student’s ideal world, Awesome Gym Day would happen every day. For those who don’t yet know, AGD is a PE play day that class groups can earn by accumulating AGD Awards. After a short locomotor warm-up, students stretch and then it’s Play Time! 😃 What’s important to note is that these times also provide prime learning opportunities which are student-driven. Students seek out and pursue their own challenges. They discover new interests with uncommon equipment like pogo sticks and stilts. AGD offers more than a fitting reward, it’s also a powerful motivational component in encouraging diverse student interests. ...allow students to practice a variety of skills.
...introduce novelty which boosts challenge. ...give students a range of related movement skills to explore. ...are fun and social. ...let students practice social skills of taking turns, waiting patiently and offering or receiving help. Stations in PE are like centers in the classroom: students spend a short time at each area and eventually rotate around to most or all of the activities. Mentioned above are just a few of the advantages of using Stations in early childhood classes. Pre-K students have been outstanding in PE and as a result enjoyed celebrating the first Awesome Gym Day of the school year. Below is a short video which captures the fun. We start the year in upper elementary with team building activities. Bridges is an old favorite. I challenged 4th & 5th graders to choose their equipment and the amounts. The results were very interesting. We are very lucky to be ES PE teachers, at times we get to see things that are awesome. Here is a 1st grader that blew our socks off at jump rope yesterday! |
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September 2017
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