Friday, November 27, 2009

Giving Thanks!



Today was our thanksgiving lab at St. Mary's. We were originally assigned to work on cleaning the equipment rooms but they did not need it so we had to assist other groups with working on their activities. While helping one group they were playing a tag game that had a twist to it which had the students dribbling in order to stay safe from being tagged. As I observed a few students dribbling I noticed that they had a few of the correct critical elements but were also making some mistakes. I helped one student realise that he needed to use his finger pads. First he was dribbling with a flat palm, then after I told him to use his finger pads he used his finger tips so I showed his the difference between finger tips and finger pads. During the students free time I played soccer with a few of them and was the goalie while I had them practice shooting so that they could work on their kicking skills as well. It was also our groups turn to conclude lab with a song and a dance. We decided to play the song Cotton Eyed Joe and to teach the students how to work on the dance. I think everybody looked like they were having a good time with the song. Going along with the theme of lab we ended the day by having all the students yell TURKEYYYY!!!!!

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Clowning Around




We had a circus theme this week at St. Mary's. Many of the students thought that it was funny to see college students dressed like clowns. We began the day downstairs and soon went outside. I found that having the clown hair on made me an instant target for a fierce game of tag. When we came back inside we went to the gymnasium to set up our game. I told the students about the game that we were going to be playing was the "popcorn game"(renamed from messy back yard) because everyone loves some popcorn at the circus! I chose to play this game because we were supposed to be looking at the students ability to throw and catch. In this game the students must throw the balls over a matt that is standing up. There are two groups and the group that has the least amount of balls at the end of the song wins. I felt like the students really enjoyed this game and got very excited. They got so excited we had to remind them that they could catch the ball instead of just letting it fall to the ground. Most of the students really did a pretty good job of throwing and stepping into the throw while following through. We ended our day at lab by having everyone come together to play with the parachutte. I felt like we did a good job of providing a circus type atmosphere for the kids and I think they really enjoyed themselves today.

Rise and Shine



On Tuesday I went into the Pre-K classroom first thing in the morning. This was a totally different setting than we are used to seeing after school. The students came in one by one. I helped them work on their coloring and number matching assignment. I found that while the atmosphere was very different there were similarities as well. Just as with the various locomotor movements, with the coloring and classwork, there was a wide range in skill level. Some students needed to be proded and helped along the whole way, while others were able to work independently after being told how to do the assignment just once. After the students finished their assignment they were allowed to have some free time where they could play. However, this was also different from after school activities. The students had to keep their noise level down and were reminded that they could not get too loud. This is much different that after school where the students get so loud at times they scream. I enjoyed being able to work with the various students on a one to one level. I felt like I had the chance to get to know them a bit better, while they got a chance to see a different side of me. I am truly glad that I had the opportunity to see this different side of the students.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Spooky Fun at St. Mary's




This week was our halloween theme at St. Mary's. Many of the students were very excited to tell us what they were going to be for halloween. The kids were most excited when our old pal Blaze showed us to say hi and play games! Our group was assigned the main gym and we played Zany Zoo with our students. We used different scary animals like snakes and sharks to use as examples for our different movement patterns that we were looking at for the day. The students seemed to really enjoy the game and got very invloved with what we asked them to do. We did notice, however, that some of the students struggled with a few of the different critical elements that are important in order to properly perform these movements. Some of the students needed work with their arms when doing the horizontal jump in order to propel themselves forward. After a fun day of playing games inside and outside we came inside to finish off the day with a fun song that was very fitting for the theme of the day. We learned to do some dance moves to the song "Thriller" by Michael Jackson. In fact I think some of the students ended up teaching us some dance moves by the time we were done. All and all though today was alot of fun and a great learning environment for the students.