Lending a Hand for St. Mary's!

The day before the St. Mary's Christmas Bazaar some classmates and I helped to set up the gymnasium.  We are very greatful for the experience at St. Mary's, and since I was unable to attend the Bazaar itself I figured this was the least I could do.  We all worked together and had fun doing so, by the time we left the gym was all set up and there was no doubt in my mind that the kids were going to have a blast!

Lab 5 a Turktrendous Time!!!

Another lab @ St. Mary's, another great experience!  The theme of this lab was Thanksgiving, and the kids gobbled it up!  It was a great day and the weather was actually warm enough to get outside for a bit which was a nice surprise.  My group was working with the Pre-K kids this lab, and we had a great time as expected!

Halloween @ St. Mary's is SpOoKtaStiC!

Lab 4 @ St. Mary's was a blast once again!  In this lab we worked on throwing and catching with the kids, and had a blast doing so.  Everyone had great costumes and all of the kids seemed to be really enjoying the Halloween themed games.  Really looking forward to the Thanksgiving Lab!!

Thank You St. Mary's!

St. Mary's 2010 - An Unnforgettable Experience!

Lab 3 @ St. Mary's -- SUPER HEROES!!

Monday's Lab at St. Mary's was a great time as always! The theme was Super-Heroes, and I dressed up as

"The Amazing Red Man" and it seemed to be a big hit with the kids. Everyone really seemed to enjoy this lab, I mean come on who doesn't like super-heroes!? The games all seemed to go rather smoothly, and I picked up on some good techniques and strategies used by some of my classmates that really helped to keep the attention on the kids. Looking foward to next Monday and the Halloween Lab!!

https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1dahAngNF__Lgh-9NY5ImfjClGedutPMeKyfPi0QpkOE

Dodging the Ineffective

The P.E. Hall of Shame has a number of games that I played during my early years in school.  From Dodgeball, to Simon Says, to Elimination forms of Tag, my P.E. class had them all.  Dodgeball was one in particular that looking back on it now, really was not appropriate for our class and age group.  First of all, it single's out the weaker players in the class, which leads them to have to sit out and watch once they have been eliminated.  This is exactly what we are fighting against now.  Not only did they feel bad about themselves after being one of the first ones out, but then they got to sit down and wait for the game to end.  That's right I said SIT DOWN!  We need to keep kids moving as much as possible throughout the P.E. class, and having them sit down and wait is absolutely unexceptable.  Now, Dodgeball is not a great game to play in my opinion, especially not the way we played it, but with certain variations to the original game it could still be affective in a P.E. class.  It does work on throwing, catching, dodging and weaving so it is not all bad.  A variation that could have been made to my particular P.E. class was that instead of having the "eliminated" players be sent to the sidelines to watch, they could instead of being "eliminated", be "sent back to base" and from the "base" they would have to each catch a pass from a teammate before the teammate could attempt to "eliminate" anyone on the other team.  This would keep them invloved and still feel important to the game being played.  It also will keep them from SITTING DOWN!!!

Lab 2 @ St. Mary's - Walking the Plank...

Lab 2 was awesome and I really enjoyed the Pirate theme and watching my classmates teach their games as well as when I got to teach my own game.  It was also really interesting to assess the kids and to look for certain movements and motor skills. It is interesting to assess the kids that way becasue you begin to notice differences that you may have overlooked otherwise.  I thought that everyone had some really good ideas for their games and for the most part everything went fairly smooth.  My group was one of the last groups to have a chance to actually teach their game however, and by that time a lot of the kids were tired of playing games and just wanted to do their own thing.  Due to that, the numbers were down, but once we all started playing the game and were having fun, the numbers would increase, as the kids who originally did not want in changed their mind.  I was having a great time playing all the games and it was pretty obvious because by the end of lab I was sweating profusely haha! I am looking foward to the Super Hero lab!