The Best Parts of My Week - 10/26/15--10/30/15

Hi everyone,
     Those of you who have had experience in an elementary setting know that the week of Halloween is exciting, busy and somewhat chaotic all at once!  While challenges abound during this week the "best parts" were not hard to find!

.....Fitness Frankie to Go came back on Monday morning after having a terrific healthy adventure with his second grade friend!  The journal entry included an amazing picture of him flying through the air while jumping in a pile of leaves!  He had on a sweatshirt that I did not recognize that I imagine he borrowed from his host family!

.....Muscle Missy and Physical Eddie are having so much fun in their host classrooms!  I had fun taking pictures this week and posting them on their slide show!

.....We spent the beginning of the week putting together a thank you project for our student teacher who had finished the week before.  Students were very thoughtful in their list of thank yous and I explained to the students how I was going to compile the list and make it a gift for our former student teacher.  One of the students remembered that we did a similar activity with last year's student teacher.  I explained to the students that this thank you gift would mean so much to Miss K and that I still have a thank you gift I received from a group I worked with when I student taught over 33 years ago!  Not only were they impressed but they understood on a deeper level how important this project truly is........ 

.....We began a unit on cooperative activities this week and I asked my students about what challenges they faced in completing a particular activity.  It was a Tangram puzzle challenge and students mentioned communication, solving the puzzle, and working together as challenges.  The discussion led to the topic of frustration and I asked students what they did when they got frustrated.  Students had amazing and mature responses!  One student said that when he got frustrated he took a break, another said that she walked away for a bit, and still another said that he took a deep breath!  Sounds like some good advice for all!

.....One of the beginning cooperative activities we do involves making puzzles out of these words:  Show Respect, Courage, Play Fair, Play Hard, Play Safe, Cooperate.  After the puzzles are completed, I ask students to discuss what each phrase means.  I enjoyed listening to their discussions and felt good about what they already know about each word or phrase!  

.....I had great fun being silly to make a point during a Puzzle Buddy activity with my second grade students!  Giggles could be heard out into the hallway!

.....I wear a Fitbit to keep track of my steps, heart rate, etc. and regularly share my step counts with my students to show that I exercise and make healthy choices and to lead by example.  This week two of my students showed me that they were wearing Fitbits too!

.....I had a great discussion with a parent regarding healthy snacks this week.  Wednesday is Wellness Wednesday and classes earn miles if everyone has a healthy snack.  The parent let me know that she remembered the healthy snack because last week she forgot and her child made a point of letting her know that she needed to remember this week!  

.....We have many students in our school who are learning English as a new language.  A few of our students speak very little English and this week a new student arrived whose primary language is Spanish.  I can speak a little bit of Spanish based on my high school Spanish class education and so I greeted the child in Spanish and explained that I spoke a little bit of Spanish.  The smile that spread across her face was heartwarming and reminded me that sometimes all it takes to make a child's day is a little bit of effort, not perfection......

.....After finishing a cooperative activity with a third grade class a student came up to me and said:  "That was the funnest gym class ever!

.....I co-teach a few of my classes with another PE teacher and when we co-teach we have two classes in the gym at the same time.  We divide the teaching duties and this week my teaching partner was teaching the main lesson and I was facilitating.  The students were doing a partner activity and there was an odd number of students.  Oftentimes we make groups of three when this happens but for this activity partners worked better so I asked if I could be her partner.  We had so much fun!  It was great just to play!

.....At the end of the week we celebrated the upcoming holiday with Pumpkin Fitness!  This is a simple warm-up that uses foam pumpkin cut-outs with exercises that I wrote on the back.  Students move to the music around the pumpkins and stop at the closest one when the music stops.  Next, they turn over the pumpkin and complete the exercise.  The students were so excited!  It was great to acknowledge the excitement of the holiday but channel it into some great exercise!  

 I hope you enjoyed the "Best Parts of My Week"!  Visit my website:  North Park Physical Education to find out more about our Physical Education program.