Week of 11/30: Fitness Testing, Playground Balls, and Fire Safety

This week, most upper elementary classes are finishing the fall/winter fitness testing (pre-test).  Each class needs something different, or may already be finished, with all of our fitness testing items.   Click the FitnessGram graphic below or this link to access more information about our fitness testing.  Why is the schedule so different for each class?  If there are days off from school, or if I'm away from the building, testing has to wait.  Especially with Thanksgiving, testing was a little delayed for some classes.  When testing is finished for most of the class, we celebrate with a Pins and Baskets game day.

Lower elementary classes explored with playground balls!  These lessons improve manipulative skills, ball control, and visual tracking.  Crossing the midline is also encouraged during these activities, which helps the left and right brain hemispheres communicate better with each other.  Lessons are adapted from Ready to Use PE Activities for Grades K-2 by Landy and Landy.  Tasks included:

Intro:  

• Hold your ball high with both hands, low, far away from you, near to you, behind you, in front of you, to the side, to the other side.  Watch the ball while you do this! 
• Keep your hands near each other, pass the ball from one hand to the other hand.  Pass the ball with hands high, medium level, low.  
• Put your ball on the floor and make a bridge over the ball.  Be careful not to smush the ball with your body - the ball isn't a pillow or bed to lay on -- this can ruin our equipment! 
• Pick up your ball and hold it in both hands.  Sit criss-cross-applesauce.  Stand up without using your hands to help you, keeping hold of the ball.  Sit back down criss-cross-applesauce still holding the ball in both hands.  
• Find a partner.  Explore different ways to hold the ball between the two of you without using hands or arms.  Can you move while holding the ball like this?  

Rolling:  

• Sit criss cross applesauce.  Roll the ball around your body.  Switch directions.  
• Stand up, roll the ball around your feet.  Switch directions.  
• Stand with feed wide, roll the ball around your feet, switch directions. 
• Roll the ball in a figure 8 around your feet.  
• Sit with legs in front of you, knees slightly bent.  Roll the ball behind your body, then lift your legs (like a drawbridge) as you roll the ball underneath your legs.  Don't forget to switch directions! 
• Go to your letter, take three steps from the wall, and roll the ball to the wall.  Use two hands, one hand, the other hand to roll the ball.  No bounces makes a perfect roll!  
• In partners, students rolled the ball back and forth with a partner -- sitting, standing, even backwards.  
• Keep it Rolling:  Everyone in the class has a ball.  The challenge is to keep your ball rolling the entire time -- no stopping!  Watching personal space and safety first, bending your knees, keep the ball rolling the entire time.  
• Guard the pin:  Students in a circle around one pin in the center.  One player guards the pin.  One ball per circle.  Edge players roll the ball into the center, trying to knock over the pin.  If an edge player knocks over the pin, they switch places with the pin guard.  

Second graders partner rolling

Second graders hold the ball between partners

First graders: Guard the Pin

First graders: Guard the Pin

In first grade health classes, we learned more about fire safety.  Some highlights of what we discussed include:

• In a fire emergency:  Get out!  Get help!  Get out FIRST, and then get help. 
• Stay calm. 
• Stay low and crawl if in a smoky area.  
• DO NOT HIDE.  
• If clothes are on fire, STOP, DROP, and ROLL.  

Coming up next week in health, we'll talk about the 3 Ds of telling:  Dangerous, Destructive, or Disturbing.  If a situation is any of these three Ds, we need to tell an adult right away.  

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

1st Health: Fire Safety

First graders learned about fire safety this week in health.  First, we talked about how fire can hurt things and people:  burn and smoke.  We discussed the different ways burns and smoke can hurt people and damage things.  Then, students watched a short fire safety video, summarizing fire safety points.  Finally, we reviewed fire safety ideas and concepts with discussing rules for preventing fires and burns.

Next week, we'll continue fire safety with reminders of what to do in case of a fire.  This will include reading aloud some situations and then discussing the safest option.  Students are so engaged when we read situations, and they have so many connections to all of our topics!