Final Day in a Fun way

Our final day at St. Mary’s was full of fun activities. One thing that always get the students excited is the parachute. On this day we were able to have 2 parachutes available to us one very large one and a medium one. 

We started off with the large parachute, this way many people would be involved in the activities. Some of the parachutes games that were played were:

-Switcheroos (parachute is lifted up, a color is called, if the student is holding that color they run under the chute and find a nother spot to hold before the parachute falls.)

- Merry go round- ( Various locomotor skills are being performed while traveling in different directions with the parachute) We performed, skipping, sliding, hopping, and walking to the right and left.

- Mushroom- the parachute is lifted up and then pulled down underneath students bottoms so they are sealed inside. This is where information was exchanged about each student. We asked questions to go around their circle like, favorite color, favorite sport, favorite school activity, favorite animals.

- Soup- balls were being thrown into the middle of the parachute and students were saying their favorite soup ingredients, then when the soup was ready to boil over the balls were popped off the parachute!

- Popcorn- multiple balls are thrown on top of the parachute while being shaken (similar to soup game), the objective was to lift the parachute up and then snap it down to the ground and see the balls to flying way up. One variation of this was to try and make a ball into the basketball hoop!

-Sharks and lifeguard- A game where we sat with our feet under the parachute. Some students were assigned roles as sharks (taggers) and lifeguards (savers). If tagged we were “dragged” under and became a shark and got to tag others! The students love being underneath the parachute.

This is when most students left to do other activities so the big parachute was put away and the medium one was brought out for those still wanting to play.

-          Trap the mouse- a student was chosen to be the mouse and crawled under the parachute while being shaken. The parachute was then lifted up and brought down “trapping” the mouse inside.

-          Don’t let in the lion- a student was assigned the role as a lion and the other parachute participates were mice. The parachute was lifted up and brought down underneath the students bottoms leaving the lion student out. The object of the game was to try and cover all the spots so that the lion couldn’t get in the cave to the mice!

When the parachutes were put away, tag games filled up the rest of the day!

Line tag- participants could not leave the lines unless tagged. Once tagged the student has to stand next to the line until someone comes along to let them back on. There was some cunfision wit this game, some students were hopping the liens while other only wanted to play without leaving the line.

 Mario tag- when tagged the students had to say “mama mia!” and hold a peace sign to show they were tagged so someone can let them back inot the game.

 Chinese temple tag- a classic and always fun to play. When tagged the students had to form Chinese temples with their legs shoulder width apart and arms met together above their heads. The student had to slide underneath the legs of other students to get them unfrozen. This was a challenged because some of the taggers liked to “puppy guard” the tagged players creating more of a challenge.

 Crazy pose tag- this went over really well, once the student was tagged they had to stand frozen in a silly pose and hold it until someone set them free. There were some pretty creative poses seen!

Blob tag- brought in more participants. A giant blob chain is formed with the more people tagged. The students strategized by breaking the blob apart to get more students tagged. Then when there was only a few students left the blob came together creating one giant blob and circled around the remaining students so there was so escape from being tagged!

Then it was time to wrap up the day. For spring the bumblebee song was sang with the students. This was a silly song and had funny dance moves for the students to join in with. Finally the last of our St. Mary’s cheers was done. This is a great way to end a great experience at St. Mary’s I am grateful or all that I have learned here and all of the wonderful students who helped me learn to be a better teacher. 

THANKYOU ST. MARY’S!

Lab 6

Exercise + Game = EXERGAMEING!

Video games have had a bad rep in the past. It was said that it makes the young lethargic and rots their minds. With Exergames neither is the case! Exergames is a opportunity to stimulate the mind and body while playing a video game! Technology in this area can really make an impact on the face of future PE classrooms. Not only do the games get you moving and having fun, they can be educational as well!

Bringing education in with the physical activity is a huge innovation. This allows the opportunity for students to learn different subject through their movements. The game Hyperdash is an excellent example of this. This is a target tagging race course game. It is a game that can be modified in many ways. It can be set up as a course, where the students would have to run around finding the colors or numbers the Hyper Dash unit calls out. This is a way for youngsters to learn their colors and numbers in a fun and active way! The course can be changed around whenever during game play, having the multicolor pods scattered around their room and students would have to overcome obstacle in order to get to the pod. It is a fun way to learn to be active and even compete to try and beat your fastest score!

There are other ways to bring education into the PE classes. For younger students there are foam cut outs and pieces that match up. These can be utilized in PE in a multitude of ways. The only limit to the activity would be your imagination. The students could move around the room trying to find the match to their piece. So many games involving such simple items can be played and with different objectives!

For students who love to go on bike rides there’s an exergame for them too! It is an interactive biking game. The students get to ride their bike and steer to the position they are at one the screen. The screen gives a course with different subjects such as, counting and the alphabet. Now the students are able to bike and learn in the classroom! There is even more to the interactive bike game the course sets up lots of turns and obstacles that need to be avoided. This works on the students cognitive problems solving skills that relate to their movements so they can avoid the obstacles and continue the game.

 There are even biking games for the older students as well! Games like these can be  used for any ages.

What about the older students? Of course there are a variety of activities for the upper grade levels.  There is the classic DDR game newly modified to incorporate a whole class’s participation! The class gets to dance as a group grooving to the music and having a good time.   

There is another game out that is similar to DDR but upgraded! It is kickboxing to the beat! This great form of exercise while working on timing and coordination.

An idea for using this for other school subjects would be to make a song up about the subject of study and upload it onto the music player and kick box to the beat of the educational song! MOVE GROOVE AND LEARN! Finally a chance to relieve all the built up stresses of school! ;)

These are video games can enhance ones health, mind, and body. Technology is a huge part of our lifes already. Why not make it part of our healthy living?

Birthday Bash at St. Mary's

I was fortuneate enough to spend my birthday with the time of the St. Mary's students. I had a lot of fun and they really made it a birthday to remeber.... :)

To start off the day my group and I were the leaders of the initial gym activities. The subject of today’s activities were, kicking the ball, and stationary dribbling. There was a wide variety of games involved with these skills. First there was the game of “kick the can” modified so that it was kick the pins over instead. The pins were all lined up and the students had a specific starting point. They had to aim in order to kick over the pin and stay controlled. The other student teachers reset up the pins each time they were knocked down. Continuing with the subject of kicking, the next game was a team game. It still involved the kicking skill but this time there were goals involved instead of pins, and some of the students were defenders until they got to switch.

Then we moved onto the skill of dribbling. The first game played was a modified version of “red light green light.” The students were instructed to dribble the basketball from one side of the court to the other while listening to the color of the lights indicating to go, slow, or stop all while dribbling. This went pretty successful. I tried to key in on the important factors of dribbling such as keeping it at waist level, using fingertips to bounce the ball, and keeping their heads up while dribbling to make sure they did not run into anyone else. This was followed by a dual game of kicking and dribbling. This game was set up so that there were goals underneath the basketball hoop and the student were split up into two teams. One of the teams had pinnies and the other did not, this helped clarify who was on what team. The objective of the game was to score points by either shooting a basket or kicking the ball into the goal. There was a catch though the students could not run all the way down the down to score they could only take three steps and they would have to pass it to a team mate. This was a very exciting game and it got lots of involvement, especially when the student teachers joined in.

After they students were done with that game they were able to do whatever activities they would like in the gym. Some wanted to play a game of tag with the student teachers. We played the original freeze tag first but then it was changed to Chinese temple tag. This was a lot of fun and it got a lot of students running around. The students began to get worn down so before the next activity they all grouped and had a water break for a few minutes.

The next activity was in the cafeteria where they had snack and then was able to participate in various activity such as building blocks, coloring book, checkers, and dominos. The students were very creative with what they build. The student teachers had fun building blocks with them as well. It was interesting to see the different concepts each student creates. The ones who were playing with the dominos were creating house layouts originally but then decided to build the blocks up and then topple them down. We even made a few domino tracts and had lots of twists and turns involved. Then cafeteria time came to an end and each of the students helped clean up their messes and other activities.

We were able to return to gym again and resume playing whatever activities they liked. I got to experience a new activity with one of the students practicing for her beauty pageant. She was very eager to show off her talent portion and even help and train others in their pageant walk and wave. It was humorous, especially when she began her strutting, but it was fun so we played along. Her talent portion involved some gymnastics moves, so we found a blue panel mat in the back corner of the gym to practice on. Once other students saw what we were doing they decided to join in. soon there were a couple students showing off their gymnastics skills. I saw students able to perform splits and cartwheels. Then we decided to work on a little routine with leaps, jumps, rolling, and even a couple of handstands and cartwheels. The students loved being able to show off what they could do.

Soon the day came to an end as we all met in the middle of the gym for our closing games. We started with a game of toilet tag. I worked with a preschooler and she loved to run around and flush everybody’s arm to set them free. Once the game was over a fun and silly song was sung that the students seemed to enjoy. Then finally the St. Mary’s goodbye cheer. It was a successful and fun day once again at St. Mary’s.

Lab 5