Week of 11/23/2015: Great Turkey Award!!

It's Thanksgiving week!  Students will participate in the Great Turkey Award!

• Young Fives-2nd grade: centers.  At the end of each center, students color the corresponding feather for that center.  Then, students rotate to the next center.  
• Third-fifth grade: free-flowing centers.  Students work at their own pace, completing one exercise at a time, then coloring the corresponding feather.  

See this previous blog post about the Great Turkey Award for more information.  

5th graders working on their Great Turkey Awards

First graders at work!  

Have a fabulous Thanksgiving!  

Week of 11/17/15

PE:  
Grades 3-5:  We are continuing fitness testing this week with the curl-up test (measuring abdominal strength and endurance), and the trunk lift test (measuring core strength).  For more information on FitnessGram, click here.

Fourth graders completing their curl-up test.

Fourth graders preparing to complete their curl-up test.

Grades Y5-2, and some 3-5th:  Locomotor Go Fish!  Students are in different groups (skip, gallop, hop, jump, walk, run).  They do that skill to go to the center of the gym, one at a time, where there are cards.  They take a card and try to be the first group to spell their locomotor skill's name.  This game works on practicing locomotor skills, cooperation, and relay formation, along with literacy/spelling/letter recognition skills.  Kindergarten and young fives play this game "open face", with letters showing in the center.  1st - 5th graders play with letters facing down.  3rd through 5th grade classes participate in this activity if there is time after fitness testing.

The template at each station helps students know which letter(s) they still need to complete their word.  

The "open face" format for K and Young Fives 

This team has spelled their skill word, RUN!  

This kindergartener waits for her teammate to return before hopping to Go Fish. 

Kindergarten

Young Fives

Fourth graders working together

Health: 
First graders are continuing talking about fire and burn safety!  We read some fire and burn safety situations and discussed why each situation was dangerous, and what students could do to be safer.  We also had time for students to share personal connections to fire/burn safety.

Week of 11/9/2015

Grades 3-5:  Fitness testing has begun!  This week, students in grades 3-5 started fitness testing items.  This week, most classes finished flexed arm hang and sit and reach testing.  For these two tests, we run the class in centers.  One center is the fitness test for that day.   Next week, we will do curl-ups and trunk lift testing.  For more information about fitness testing, see previous fitness testing blog posts (tagged with "Fitness Testing" in labels) or the FitnessGram website.

Upper elementary centers included:

• exercises:  choose from ski jumps, jumping jacks, ABC strong soldiers, push ups
• fitness test:  sit and reach or flexed arm hang
• jump rope
• hula hoops

Grades Y5-2:  Centers, centers, centers!  This week, younger students have learned and/or reviewed center expectations in PE.  These include:

• follow the directions at the center
• when music stops / whistle, clean up, sit, and point at your next center
• stay at your center until the signal to clean up, sit, and point

Second graders also took a district common assessment.  The assessment is a written true/false test to measure cognitive concepts related to physical education and health concepts.

Lower elementary centers included:

• exercises:  jumping jacks, ski jumps, ABC strong soldiers, scissor jumps, leg stretch, arm stretch
• bowling
• balance beam/sight word walk:  criss cross walk (crossing the body's midline) while reading sight words on floor tape
• hula hoop

Criss cross sight words station.  Each piece of white tape has a sight word on it for students to read as they criss-cross step.  

Young Fives enjoy hula hoops!

Young Fives at our bowling center.

Our SXI class had centers, too:  bowling and tball!  Students loved using the ramp to roll the ball and knocking down the pins.  Tball is also fun, practicing holding the bat, striking the ball, and then zooming to each base.  

ASD classrooms continue with our routines each PE class:  walk, warm-up, skills, kickball, and choice time.  Warm-up time is focused on four main locomotor skills:  skip, gallop, sideways slide-step, and running.  These locomotor skills are the basis for most games and sports.  Skill work with each student depends on their current skill level, and is mostly focused on throwing, kicking, and catching.  These skills are the base for most games and sports.  

Health (1st grade) classes have worked on "Safety on Wheels":  bike, scooter, rollerblade, skateboard safety.  We looked at posters and discussed rules we should follow when using bikes, scooters, and other things with wheels.  Then, students drew a picture of themselves following safety rules using equipment with wheels.  During the second health class of the week, we started discussing fire safety!  We watched a 10 minute video about fire safety, and then discussed fire and burn safety rules.  

One student's drawing of her following bike safety rules

Safety on wheels illustration

First graders hard at work.

Skateboard safety

Skateboard and bike safety

Week of 11/2/15

This week, students were off Monday and Tuesday (teacher report card writing and election day/Teacher Professional Development).  Wednesday was a "regular day" in PE!  Thursday and Friday I attended the SHAPE Michigan Conference in Lansing.  SHAPE is the Society of Health and Physical Educators, the professional association for all teaching PE and health.  I learned so much from this experience.  The sight word criss cross walk center (pictured below) is just one of many new ideas I'll be implementing from the conference.  Sessions I attended included:

• Keynote speaker:  John Ratey, author of SPARK
• Fitness Warm-Ups
• PE Classroom Transitions and Management
• I Need it ASAP:  Instant Activities for grades 3-6, Pre K-1
• K-12 PE:  Station Activity Tool Box
• Tick Tock Beat the Clock
• Physical Activity as Intervention K-4
• Inclusive Games for Elementary PE

Sight word criss cross walk.  Each white piece of floor tape has a sight word on it.  Students criss cross walk on the tape, reading each sight word as they put their foot on it.  Cross cross walking involves crossing the midline of the body.  Crossing the midline helps our left and right hemispheres of the brain communicate better with each other.  For more information, see http://www.livestrong.com/article/388671-brain-gym-exercises-with-left-handed-right-handed-movements/.  

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, students did many different activities!  These included:

• Y5-2:  explored deck rings
• Guard the Pin
• Pins and Baskets

Deck rings

Deck Rings are so much fun to explore!  Deck ring activities continue working with manipulative skills, including eye-hand coordination, spatial awareness, dexterity with left and right hand, visual tracking.  We named our deck ring "Dexter".  For these activities, each student had their own "Dexter" to use for the class period.  Students did activities with deck rings that included:  

• rolling Dexter around the gym into open space
• holding Dexter on different body parts (arm, elbow, foot, leg, head, etc.)
• stepping over, to the side, in front, behind Dexter
• tossing and catching Dexter: 
• favorite hand - catching with favorite hand
• other hand - catching with the same hand
• tossing from favorite hand and catching with other hand, and vice versa
• toss Dexter up and catch it kneeling down
• and more! :)