Week of 5/23: Battleship and Helicopter tag!

Grades Y5, K, and 1:  Helicopter tag and more!  

1.  Pathways warm-up:  Students move in different pathways around the gym, staying inside the box (basketball court boundaries).  Pathways include a figure eight, circle, wavy line, snaked line, back and forth straight lines, random (everyone's favorite!), and more!

2.  Stretches

3.  Alphabet letters activity:  Students are assigned a partner.  They move around the gym to the music.  When the music stops, they reunite with their partner and look at me.  I hold up a letter for each pair to create with their bodies on the floor.  

4.  Months dance:  Students practice our months of the year dance.  Each month is said to the tune of a musical audio track, and each month corresponds with one move of the Macarena.  Ask your Y5, K, or 1st grade student(s) to show you this dance!  We have been practicing each class.  

• January:  one hand out in front (palm down)
• February:  other hand out in front (palm down)
• March:  turn first hand over (palm up)
• April:  turn second hand over (palm up)
• May: First hand touches opposite shoulder
• June: Second hand touches opposite shoulder
• July: One hand behind ear
• August: Other hand behind other ear
• September: Hand cross to touch opposite hip
• October: Other hand crosses to touch opposite hip
• November: First hand to hip
• December: Second hand to hip

5.  Helicopter tag:  Students start in a "helipad" marked with colored cones.  I call out which color moves to which new helipad.  One or two taggers are in the middle and have a pool noodle to tag (gently - no hitting) with.  If tagged, a runner goes back to the color they were just at.  For example, "Blue, go to red".  Players in the blue cones run to the red cones.  If tagged, they return to blue - they're still in the game, just wait for the next direction to move.  

Grades 2-5:  Battleship
Students have really enjoyed learning new games these past couple of weeks!  This week's game is Battleship.  As the week progressed, we made a few changes:

• each team has ONE ship (rather than two separate ships)
• each team also has two hula hoops - to use to rake cannonballs back to the ship within reach, and/or to contain cannonballs on/near their team's ship

Battleship Rules #1

Battleship Rules #2

Monday's classes all had two separate ships per team.  Tuesday - Friday classes then experienced one large ship per team (it made the game less confusing).   

Week of 4/11: Flickerball & Directions/Levels/Pathways

Warm Up:  All grades
Continuous Jog
To prepare for upcoming mile run testing (grades 2-5), all grades complete a continuous jog warm-up.  Since we don't have an integrated scoreboard in our Haisley gym, we use a projector to put one onto the wall.  This shows students exactly how long we have left to jog/speedwalk/run.  Students are encouraged to try to jog/run the whole time, taking speedwalking breaks as needed during the activity.  The length of time depends on the class length and age level.

Mile run testing will begin in the next couple of weeks, weather and sidewalk track conditions permitting!  Please have your student dressed appropriately for outside time each day - particularly morning classes.  Thank you!!

Fifth graders:  continuous jog warm-up

Kindergarteners warming up

Grades 3-5:  
Flickerball is a game usually played with a football (3rd and 4th use a foam sphere ball, 5th uses a foam football), with scoring at the two main basketball hoops.  We play with the same setup as Ultimate (Frisbee), so this is great follow-up game!  Students have enjoyed this game, and the competition.  We mix up the teams each time, so it's a new game/competition each class period.  Teams accrue points each time they play, playing a different opponent each game during the class.

Flickerball Rules

Depending on how the game is going, we sometimes modify one rule:  dropped/incomplete pass --> turnover.  In classes having difficulty completing passes, we modify to this:  if the intended receiver touches the ball in any way, it's that receiver's ball.  If they totally miss it, it's a turnover.  This allows teams having difficulty completing passes to still progress and enjoy the game, while maintaining safety (preventing the loose ball from being chased by all players).  This is more common in third grade games, but can happen in fourth and fifth grade, too.

Game order - keeps teams playing new opponents.  Each game is 2-3 minutes long.  Teams are new each class, so it's never a repeated game or matchup.

Fourth Graders

Fifth graders

Fifth graders

Fifth graders

Third and fourth graders

Grades Y5, K, 1, & 2:  
Directions, levels, and pathways is the basis of movement and space awareness.

• Directions:  Forward, backward, and sideways.  This is the direction of your body, not the direction your body is going (east, west, north, south, counter/clockwise, right, left).  
• Levels:  Standing = high level, knees bent = medium level, on the floor = low level.  
• Pathways:  Imagine walking through a surface covered with snow.  Your footprints are the pathway you took.  Pathways can be any shape, anything!!  

We began talking about directions, and then students explored with movement in different directions on different body parts.  For example, prompts included: "Try moving forward only on your hands and feet.  Try moving backward on your belly/front.  Move sideways on three body parts only."  After exploring these directional movements, students then made up their own "directions story".  They created a story with a beginning, middle, and end -- with a movement and direction for each part.  Volunteers shared their story with the class.  We then extended these exploratory movements and movement stories to include pathways, and then levels.  

Kindergarteners: exploring directions and pathways

Young Fives: exploring forward movement on their front

Second graders:  exploring backward movements

Second graders:  exploring sideways movements