My Journey at St. Mary's

My Journey at St. Mary's

Dash!!!

This week was our final day at St. Mary's. We all made collages to show our thanks to the school and the wonderful students who participated in our activities.  We started off the day with parachute activities which the students seemed to love.  They were amazed as to how big the parachute was, and so was I for that matter.  We played many different games with the parachute click here for samples.   http://www.ultimatecampresource.com/site/camp-activities/parachute-games.page-1.html.  After our adventure with parachute games we then split off with the students our groups were assigned to work with.  Our group had pre-k.  Mallory, Matt and I went into a class room while Ryan and Steve did an art activity with the other students.  When I was in the class room I played hyper dash with some students.  They LOVED IT!  I think they liked the game because it "talked" to them.  They would listen for the cues from the hyper dash and match the colors up. One student even said on camera, "I'm sweating!” and had to get a drink of water.  I thought that was really cool especially because we were in such a confined space on a small carpet in a class room.  After playing hyper dash Mallory read them a story about an Astronaut while Ryan and I set up our games.  My game was called builders and bulldozers.  The point of the game is to have some students be builders and others are bulldozers and bulldozers knock down the cones I set up in our area of the gym and builders set them up so there is consistent activity.  At first I wasn't sure how the game would work, I thought the students would get bored easily but I was wrong.  The students loved the game and could probably play it all day.  I changed some cues throughout the game and had students skip to the cones and even had them knock down the cones with their knee just to change up the environment for them.  Ryan's game involved the students making ice cream cones and cotton candy using balls and cones which they seemed to really enjoy.  The day went by really quickly and before I knew it we were leaving St. Mary's, I have been proud in the way I have grown as a future educator and St. Mary's was an awesome experience!

Monsters, Crocodiles and Tag!

       By far my best experience at St. Mary's so far this semester.  My group worked with the Pre-K students and had a blast. First we went outside and played on the playground.  I played freeze tag with a couple of the kids until they decided to play red light green light.  I then saw that Mallory had made up a game with a couple of the girls on the jungle gym set.  The point of the game was to not get "eaten" tagged by the crocodile.  The girls seemed to love the game and always wanted to be the crocodiles. After a while some boys joined in to play and they were sharks.  It was a fun game because it worked on moving around on the jungle gym and taking turns being "it".  We then went inside and I read a book called "A Monster's Day at Work".  I picked out the book because it had a lot of great pictures and I figured the younger children would like the monsters.  When I was reading I had everyones attention and the students were asking questions throughout the story. When the story was over some students asked me to read other books, I probably could have sat there all day reading to them.  I thought it was amazing how they just went from running around like crazy outside, to being inside and paying such close attention to everything I said.  After being at St. Mary's this semester I know that I definitely want to teach,  I love being in the role model position in class and seeing the kids smile is the best part of the job!

Check out my lab five!

Dashing into PE!

Exergaming and physical education go hand-in-hand.  As a physical educator it is important to cross other curriculums into your classes.  For example, go around the school and ask other teachers what they are teaching in social studies, math, english etc. When you can include other subjects in physical education, students start using different parts of their brains to solve physical and mental problems. I would use the Hyper Blast to help my Pre-K students with math.  This game includes math skills and can get students physically active. The point of the game is for students to listen as the Hyper Dash calls out a number, the children then cover that number with the Hyper Dash and wait for a new number to be called.  This game can be used in physical education many different ways, for example races.  Yes I know students should not be standing around waiting on lines and we want students to be as active as possible but this is a great game to use if you are in a confined space (classroom, cafeteria).  Students can listen for the Hyper Dash to say the number four, hop to the piece with the number four on it, hit it, listen for the next number, skip back to the line, tell their partner the next number they have to find and go on.  That example has students using locomoter skills and  while incorporating math! The game also advances into addition, subtraction, multiplication and division so older students can use it as well!   Overall Hyper Dash is a great game for any teacher to use, not just physical educators.  This is one of the many different ways technology can be brought into classrooms and used to educate todays youth!

Future Yankees at St. Mary's!

      

      This week at St. Mary's we concentrated on throwing and catching skills.  My group had the older students, fourth and fifth graders.  Our games went over pretty well but it was a struggle to get the students involved.  The older students at St. Mary's love to play basketball and at first they didn't want to play our games.  Ryan, Mallory and I each told them if they participate in our games then we would play basketball after our lessons.  Luckily this incentive worked and we had about ten students stay and play.  I was pleasantly surprised at some of the students arms, they were advanced at throwing and catching.  Cortland must have a great little league!  

       We were in the gym for a long time with our students and it was nice because we had time to interact and get to know them.  One student in particular John, loves me and he listens to everything I say so he takes it upon himself to have his friends listen and follow directions.  I thought that was pretty cool!  While John was playing basketball he got upset because another student who was guarding him accidentally elbowed him.  I saw the incident happen and it wasn't on purpose so I took John and Thomas aside individually, and we worked the problem out.  I was excited we solved the problem and the tears stopped pouring out of John's eyes. Thomas apologized for elbowing John and our solution was that Thomas and John would be on the same team so they did not have to guard each other. When they started playing again it was like they were brand new kids on the court, they were both happy and passing the ball to each other!  It was a very exciting week at St. Mary's to say the least, I can't wait to go back in a week.  Solving Thomas and John's problem reminded me of summer camp and has gotten me really excited for this summer where I will be working at the Hampton Country Day Camp as a camp counselor!!

Be sure to check out my lab four!