Lab 6

Today is our last day at St. Mary's. Its kinda sad because we have gotten to know a lot of the kids over the semester.

Today's theme is Easter. Our group did a relay game in the cafeteria. We set up a Easter basket in the middle of the room with plastic Easter eggs in it. The eggs had paper with different tasks written on them inside. We had two hula hoops at either side of the Easter basket with half of the group at each hoop. The object of the game was to run to the Easter basket, pick an egg and do the task back to the hula hoop and put the egg in the hoop. Then the next person goes and does the same until the eggs are gone. The group with the most eggs win. We also had music for this game. The kids really enjoyed this game and they got really into it. The only problem with this game was that the kids were fighting over the bunny ears our group were wearing.

Overall I thought today went really well and the kids had a lot of fun.

Lab 5

Today at St. Mary's we worked with the preschool students. This is my favorite age group to work with. They are so eager to learn and are open to new games. We started off by reading them a series of animal books in the classroom. While half of our group was reading to the kids the other half set up our activity in the gym. We played a variation of Zany Zoo. We put a bunch of poly spots in a circle and put a bunch of cards in the middle with animals on them. The object of the game was to have one person go into the middle and pick a card then the rest of the group would do that animal walk to a different poly spot. Then the person that picked the card would pick another person to go into the middle. I feel that this game was very age appropriate because the kids had a blast.

lab 4

Today's theme at St. Mary's was food. My group organized a "popcorn" game. We broke the students into three groups. One group was behind the "popcorn maker" which was a series of mats that we stood up in a wall. The other two groups stood by their "popcorn bowls" which were hula hoops. The object of the game was to catch the balls that the "popcorn makers" threw over the "popcorn maker" and put them in your popcorn bowl. However, if you dropped the ball that the popcorn makers threw you had to throw it back over the top of the mats. The kids had alot of fun with this game. They liked the change of enviornment when we rotated and they could go from the popcorn bowl to the popcorn machine.

After our popcorn game we remained up in the gym and worked with the older students. We played the game "SPUD". This game kept them entertained for a long time. We put different variations on the game to keep it inyteresting. One variation we tried didnt work so we quickly moved on. This made me realize that not every variation will work but its not a bad thing to try new things. If it doesn't work you can just move on.

Lab 3

I was excited coming into lab this week because we had a superheroes theme. I felt that we could get the kids that usually wanted to sit out excited about acting like superheroes. For this weeks game my group played endless bucket. The object of this game was to grab a card out of one of the 4 buckets we had, then go to the station where the activity on the card was located, then perform the skill. We decided to make 10 cards each with superhero themes. I put superhero pictures on the cards I made in an attempt to get the kids excited about performing their tasks. Some of our stations included throwing balls at pictures of villains, jumping up high like superman, and sliding along the wall like Spiderman. Most of the kids were excited about being superheroes, however, some were not. I told the kids that didn’t want to pretend to be superheroes that they could pretend to be villains. This worked well and got more kids to participate because they had a choice.

Lab 2

I felt more prepared going into lab today because of my experiences last week. My group, The Wild and Crazy Kids, prepared a gamed called “Zany Zoo” for lab this week. In this game we had three different hula hoops with a series of cards with animal walks on them in the center of the gymnasium. We then organized the students into 6 lines, one at each end of the hula hoops. The object of the game was to go to the hula hoop and pick a card with an animal walk written on it then do that walk back to your group and get at the end of the line. One member of our group was at each hula hoop and we had two others that helped to keep the lines organized. This made me think about playing this game in my physical education class someday and how I would have to adapt myself to play the same game with out the help of four others to keep things flowing. The kids were really into this game and they enjoyed making animal noises as they walked back to their lines. They thought it to be especially funny when we make animal noises with them as they were doing their animal walks. After our game we went to the preschool classrooms. I read a book to all of the students. It was difficult to keep them all seated so everyone could see the pictures because they all wanted to be right in my face as I read. To fix this issue I told them I would not read until they were all seated. This worked because they wanted to hear the story. After this we went into the gymnasium with them and set up an obstacle course. I feel that the obstacle course was a great activity because it kept the kids moving and they had a blast.

Lab 1

Today was my first visit to St. Mary’s other than the training session that we had to attend. The kids were full of energy and eager to see what we had in store for them. At first it was difficult to get them to quiet down but eventually we got them seated in a circle to explain to them what we were doing. We started off with some tag games. When the kids seemed to get board with the games we added new variations to keep the games exciting. I feel that the kids especially enjoyed the crab walk and bear-crawl tag game. The students thought it was funny to see the college students crawling around the floor with them. This got some of the kids that were sitting out to get up and join in on the fun. After our time in the gym we went down to the cafeteria to get to know the kids a little better. During this time I was the score keeper in Cameron and John’s game of checkers. I learned what their favorite sports were and why and about their favorite subject in school. Overall today was a good experience and I am excited to see how things work out next week.

Pros and Cons of Dodgeball

Dodge ball is a great game to get students involved in Physical Education Class. It raises the student’s heart rate and encourages them to strategize to stay in the game. Many students love the game of dodge ball however, many students do not. For the students that do not enjoy dodge ball, phys ed class is an awful experience. They are easy targets for their more skilled classmates.

Dodge ball can also be very dangerous if the rules are not clearly stated and the proper equipment is not used. If a student is hit in the head with a rubber ball they can be seriously injured. There has even been a case where a child died due to a dodge ball accident.

There are a number of things that Physical Education teachers can do to keep the game of dodge ball both safe and enjoyable for their students. One thing teachers can do to ensure safety is to use foam balls. Foam balls do not travel with the speed and force that rubber balls do. Teachers can also create variations of dodge ball such as making the target something other than the students themselvs such as a cone or something the students are holding. This will reduce the risk that a student gets injured by another student throwing the ball directly at them.

Dodge ball should not be completely eliminated from the school systems but measures must be taken to keep the students safe.