Hi everyone,
After an amazing trip to Seattle to attend and present at the SHAPE America National Convention I was ready to get back to school! It was a great week!
.....Fitness Frankie had a great time in Seattle! Visit his blog to read about and see pictures of his adventure!
.....I was greeted by several classes with a "Yay....you're back!" What a nice welcome! It was nice to be missed......
.....Whenever I go to a conference I remember what one of my friends always says about conference days. She always says: "Learn one new thing". I did that and more this past week in Seattle and tried out one of the new activities that I learned. It actually involved throwing and catching (play) food! Since we were celebrating National Nutrition Month with some nutrition activities it was perfect timing. We made some fruit salad and vegetable salad with play food, bean bags, buckets, and parachute panels. It was great fun but I remembered to make a disclaimer: "Don't try this at home please!"
.....I continue to be impressed and surprised by what my kindergarten and first grade students can read and discuss. This week students were asked about the words digestion and balanced diet. Not only could they read the words but many could tell me what they meant!
.....My student teacher finished his time at my school and is off to another school to continue his student teaching. I always like to do some kind of thank you from the students and very often try to connect it to something unique about each student teacher's experience. In this case, we are doing a "broccoli jar of thank you notes". While it is a long story, suffice it to say that students learned about the nutritional value of broccoli and how putting your hand in the broccoli jar to after shooting a basketball will help with your follow through! Anyway, it turns out that we have a broccoli puppet at school and I had so much fun this week with "Broccoli Brad!" He did warm-ups with us, gave students a high five at the end of class, and taught students about how great broccoli actually is! When I explained to my students how we were going to say thank you to our student teacher one of my third graders responded: "That is awesome!" I love puppets so this was right up my alley!
.....When students reset their pedometer they are asked to show a friend that the pedometer is reset to 0 so that they have an accurate step count. One of my fifth grade students came to me this week to show me that his pedometer was reset. He said: "You're my friend!" How nice is that?
.....Nutrition activities continued at the end of the week with a game of Nutrition Tag. Students used nutrition cards to ask questions when tagged. If the tagger answered the question correctly he/she collected the card. It was a new activity and the students had so much fun! I was impressed by how much the students learned about nutrition based on the number of cards that were collected!
......I had some great conversations this week with my students. Most of these discussions did not happen during PE class but rather during bus duty, in the hallway, or at the end of the day waiting for a parent. The conversations ranged from one student telling me about his grandfather who was sick but doing better, to another asking how my trip to Seattle was, to others telling me how they exercised after school, and still others telling me about their spring break plans. I enjoyed every single conversation and am always touched that students take the time to include me in their conversations.....
.....The week ended with "Pajama Day" and "Mystery Reader Day" to celebrate our Read Across America Program. Even though it was a bit of a silly and crazy day it was fun! I was able to visit every classroom to take pictures during the Mystery Reader activity to see different adults reading to students. Fifth grade teachers read to kindergarten students, a third grade teacher came to the gymnasium to read to my fourth grade class, and kindergarten teachers were reading to third grade students! Students were so engaged in listening to the book being read and every adult was having a great time!
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
