Sunday, December 28, 2014

The Best Parts of My Week - 12/15/14--12/19/14

Hi everyone,
     It was a wonderful and busy holiday spent with family and friends so I am a little late with this posting of the Best Parts of My Week.  Nevertheless, it was a great week and I am happy to share the "Best Parts" with you!

.....The week began with an annual event to help others called the "Pageant for Peace".  Students and adults bring in food for those in need in our own school community and then we sing a variety of songs as a group.  It was started many years ago and is such a wonderful and charitable event.  In fact, our Healthy Highway road this month is called Charity Way and we have been encouraging our students to help so that others have enough.  Many families come to the event and this year I noticed that some of the family members in attendance had been students who had participated in the event when they were children!  How cool is that?

.....The week continued with an energetic Fuel Up to Play 60 Student Ambassador meeting!  We came up with a plan to increase classroom activity breaks and our ambassadors are ready to lead the way!  We ended the meeting with a few activities from Go Noodle.  During a warm-up activity, one of the athletes mentioned that your body is like a car and you need to take care of it and put good fuel in to get good performance.  One of the students said:  "Hey, you say that too!"  This made me smile because it means our Healthy Highway program is working!

.....Cardio Cal spent some time in a fourth grade class recently and one of the students in the class took him home during the Thanksgiving break.  She wrote a four page story about his adventures and this week she shared it with me!  

.....While I was in the Library working one morning during my prep time a student working on a project came over to ask me how many steps I had on my pedometer so far that day!  I am always happy to share my step count.  It helps me to set a good example and "practice what I preach".

.....One of my primary students had a birthday this week.  He brought in fruit kabobs and shared one with me.  He even helped to make them!  They were delicious and his healthy birthday treat earned a mile for his class!  

.....In support of the Common Core and learning that is happening in the classroom, I have increased the number and scope of the vocabulary words that I teach and reinforce during PE class.  One of those "teachable moments" happened this week with a first grade class when I was talking about the number of muscles that we have.  That discussion led to the number of bones we have and before I could even tell this class that they have 206 bones they told me!  Can you believe that first graders know this?  I was surprised and proud at the same time!

.....Our school was treated to a Winter Concert during this week before vacation.  I am always impressed with the musical talent of our students and our music staff!  The orchestra, band, and choral groups were truly wonderful!  It was obvious that a tremendous amount of perseverance and practice went into their performances!

.....The week ended with our traditional Winter Workshop Day.  This always occurs during the last day before winter vacation.  Students participate in four one hour workshops during the day that are led by teachers, administrators, and parents.  Some of the workshops included chess, healthy snack making, crafts, art, weaving, basketball, speed stacking, music, computer games, and circus arts and much, much more.  In fact, over thirty different workshops are offered during the day!  A colleague of mine and I organize the circus arts workshop and we had a terrific day!  We taught students how to juggle, spin plates, use angel sticks, balance feathers and other objects, and even walk on stilts!  I got to practice my diablo skills and for the first time ever actually caught the diablo!  It was a perfect time to remind students about the value of perseverance!  It was a day full of laughter, challenges, smiles, and accomplishments and it was a great way to end the week!  

I hope you enjoyed the "Best Parts of My Week!"  To find out more about the PE program at North Park, visit my website:  North Park Physical Education

Sunday, December 14, 2014

The Best Parts of My Week - 12/8/14--12/12/14

Hi everyone,
     It was a week of starts and stops as the weather in the Northeast began to look a lot more like winter!  As a result of ice and snow we had one snow day and one delay this week and technically it is not even winter yet!  Still, there were some great moments!

.....Fitness Frankie to Go came back on Monday after having some holiday adventures!  He helped to cut down a Christmas tree after a hike with one student and exercised, had a healthy dinner, and met some grandparents with another!  Not only are students taking photographs to include in his journal, but they are also writing about the adventures to go in the journal as well!  

.....Primary students began to practice throwing skills playing a game called "Clean Up Your Backyard".  This is a classic game and one that I have played for many years.  This game has been enhanced by a book of the same title written by a creative and talented PE professional - Lynn Hefele - through her company called LEPE - Literature Enhanced Physical Education.  The book sets up the game and reinforces good throwing techniques with a great story and surprising ending!  I read the book this week to my students and they were so excited!  The basic premise of the game is that students clean up their own backyard by throwing "garbage" over a fence into a neighbor's backyard.  Now of course, this is a story and students are told that this is only a pretend game.  When asked where garbage is supposed to be put they all know that it should be thrown in garbage cans and recycle bins.  I use baskets to store the balls and at the end of the game students actually clean up by putting the balls back in the baskets.  One of my kindergarten classes decided to actually clean up during the game.  I did not realize this at first but then I started wondering where all of the balls had gone because it seemed that there were not enough for the game.  I finally discovered that they were already being put in the baskets before the game ended! Students had so much fun playing and their throwing skills are getting better already!  

.....Recently,  I have been supporting learning that is going on in the classroom by including some of the new NYS Domain vocabulary words for first grade in my PE classes.  This week the two words that I  had on display were "muscles" and "voluntary".  Before I even had a chance to ask how these two words are connected, one of my first graders gave a wonderful description of what voluntary and involuntary muscles are!  I am quite sure that I did not know that when I was in first grade!

.....I absolutely love the "WHOA!" effect.  This is the reaction that students exhibit when they arrive at the gymnasium and see what is set up for their class.  I had the pleasure of this reaction many times this week as students in the upper grades were beginning to play small group games in Volleyball with a variety of different balls and court set-ups and my primary students were playing "Clean Up Your Backyard" and balloons filled with helium were ready to be used as targets!  

.....Sometimes the little moments and small gestures are the once that touch my heart the most.  I received a handmade sign this week from one of my students.  She is one of our Fuel Up to Play 60 Student Ambassadors and she made me a Fuel Up to Play 60 sign for my office door!  

 I hope you enjoyed the "Best Parts of My Week!"  To find out more about the PE program at North Park, visit my website:  North Park Physical Education

Sunday, December 7, 2014

The Best Parts of My Week - 12/1/14-12/5/14

Hi everyone,
    How did we end up in December already?  As we began the week one of my colleagues pointed out that there were only 15 school days until the Winter Break!  She then added that this fact was both exciting and terrifying at the same time since there is much to do and not much time to do it!   That being said, it was a busy and exciting week!

.....My primary students have been exploring different levels and I like to culminate the activity with a series of stations that use different levels and a variety of equipment.  When a first grade class arrived at the door one student walked in with a smile and said:  "Thank you for making this!"  As the students completed the stations, one student increased the distance he was standing from a target at a high level and said:  "I'm challenging myself!"  

.....Students in the primary grades are learning vocabulary words that connect with work that the students are learning in their classroom related to the NYS Common Core.  This week's words were "healthy" and "exercising".  One first grade student pointed out that those words are connected because one leads to the other.  What a smart student! 

....I recently made some posters to illustrate the NYS Learning Standards for Physical Education and I asked my fourth and fifth grade students to read them and pick out something important to share.  I was impressed with their conversations!  They made some meaningful connections as to how our program meets the standards!

.....Fitness Frankie to Go is off on another weekend adventure!  The student taking him home this weekend said:  "I know it will be a healthy adventure!  Another student suggested that Fitness Frankie could be put next to an apple and then she could draw or take a picture of that scene!  I can't wait to see how his adventure went!

......I love to use music in my program.  I believe in the power of music to motivate the students and this week that was proven again as one of my quietest students was dancing away as the music played!

.....I also love technology!  This week I began to use a great app called Comic Life.  It is wonderful and began to use it to do some simple assessments with students learning volleyball and others learning about levels.  As students completed the assessment I was able to truly see what they had learned and what they still needed to know.  I am looking forward to using it more and more!



 I hope you enjoyed the "Best Parts of My Week!"  To find out more about the PE program at North Park, visit my website:  North Park Physical Education