Lab #6- The Finale!

It's hard to believe that the spring 2012 semester is coming to end. With the semester coming to a close, it also means that our time at St. Mary's is coming to an end. Overall, I enjoyed lab #6 the most. I had a great time at our last visit to St. Mary's and I know the kids had fun as well even though we had a couple of injuries during this lab. The first thing we did at lab was play with a huge parachute with all the kids. They all seemed to really enjoy it and had fun playing all the games. I remember back when I was in elementary school and we played with the parachute during Physical Education class; it was one of my favorite days in PE and I have great memories of it. I hope that we were able to make great memories for the kids of St. Mary's. After we finished playing with the parachute, I played knockout for a little with some of the older boys. Once again, I'm always amazed at how well these boys can play basketball. I also played jump rope with some of the girls and played tag with some of the younger boys. Throughout the day one boy seemed to keep following me around the gymnasium and kept playing the same activities that I was participating in. I finally asked him if he wanted to play any game in particular, he told me he wanted to play the statue game. He made up this game and it was so incredible to see him use his imagination and think of his own game to play. He had so much fun playing it. We also played Simon says together and then soccer for a little bit. At the end of the day, It was really nice to see all the kids playing the game we organized and that they were having fun. I'm so sad that our labs at St. Mary's are over. This was a great experience and the kids were so much fun to work with. I'm glad that I got to know the kids and that I was able to learn things about most of them. They were a great group of kids and working at St. Mary's has just made me even more excited to become a Physical Education teacher in the future. I would like to thank St. Mary's for having us at their school this semester and for everything that they have done for us.

Check out my Lab #6 Write Up!

Bouncing Our Way Through Lab #5

It's hard to believe that this was our second to last trip to St. Mary's. Time has gone by so quickly! We observed a boy and a girl's dribbling and kicking skills. They were both in the 1st grade. Both children seemed to struggle with kicking the ball. Both of them didn't really have an approach when they kicked it. They also stood very close to their target. They both just stood next to the ball and kicked it with their toe. As for their dribbling skills, the girl seemed to have more control over the ball. The boy would lose control over the ball after attempting to dribble it once or twice. My group went outside for a little and played with the pre-school kids on the playground. It was such a beautiful day and the kids had so much energy. I was running around with all of them. I was playing, hide and go seek, red light green light, and tag. When my group had to go back in the gym the kids were so upset. They were having so much fun with us. We didn't get a chance to play our games that we had organized for the older kids. There were only about 5 or 6 boys there so we decided to play basketball against them. It was boys vs. girls and the St. Mary's boys got really into the game.They took it very seriously and played hard. These boys can play basketball so well. They took some amazing shots and almost all of them would go in. The boys knew how to communicate well and pass the ball to each other. It was interesting to see the boys interacting with one another. We played basketball for such a long time and everyone was exhausted. However, the boys didn't want to stop playing. They would of played all afternoon if we didn't have to stop. I actually had a lot of fun playing with the boys. Overall, Lab #5 was very successful and I enjoyed it a lot. Before we left St. Mary's everyone signed the posters on the door and thanked St. Mary's for having us at their school. I'm excited for next Monday, but I'm very sad at the same time because it is our last lab for the whole semester! 

Lab #5 Write Up

Performing Live At Poolside

On Wednesday, April 11th my group, "The Powerpuff Girls" performed our song "Baby Move." I was shocked when I saw how many people came to watch our performance at Poolside. There was a lot of falculty there and a lot of students from different classes came to watch as well. Professor Yang had a huge screen set up that played our music video and song in the background as we sang our song. I was extremely nervous to perform, because I have never sang in front of this many people ever. I thought it was scary to sing in front of just the class, but there were so many people at poolisde that I was even more nervous. Once I got up there to perform my nerves went away a little bit. Our performance went well and afterward many people came up to me and told me they really enjoyed our song. They said our song was catchy and they couldn't get it out of their head. Overall, this was a good experience for me, because it gave me confidence to stand up in front of a group of people and do something that I am not too comfortable doing.  

Using Technology in Physical Education

Using technology in Physical Education can be very beneficial for students. I had the opportunity to use a toy called the Hyper Dash. This toy can be used by holding the Hyper Dash in one hand and spreading the color spots out. Each color spot is a different color with a different number on it. Students listen to the Hyper Dash and it would say either a color such as "blue" or a math problem such as "4+1" depending on the level the Hyper dash was set to. This toy could help pre school students who are learning their colors or older students who are learning math equations such as addition or subtraction. I could use the Hyper Dash in my classroom by creating a relay race. I know relay races aren't the best things in physical education classes, because many kids stand around, but this relay race would be different since it would also involve concepts students are learning in the classroom. In the relay race, the first student would perform a locomotor movement to where the the Hyper Dash was set up. The student would listen to the Hyper Dash and answer the question. If the student got the question right they would perform the locomotor movement back to the next person in line. If the student got the question wrong they would have to do ten jumping jacks before they could do the locomotor movement back to the next student in line. If the questions on the Hyper Dash were too easy for the students I would set the Hyper Dash to a harder level.

Another game we used in lab was called Dance Dance Revolution, also known as DDR. This game was so much fun and I really enjoyed playing it. It was actually quite the workout and by the end of the game I was pretty tired and actually sweating. I believe students would have so much fun playing this game in a physical education class. It would definitely get them moving and tire them out. Also students would be able to challenge themselves by playing the game on the hard level or even the expert level. I hope I have the opportunity to have my students play DDR in my classroom.