The Best Parts of My Week - 11/2/15--11/6/15

Hi everyone,
     How did we get to November already!  This school year is moving quickly!  It was a great week with so many different events and "Best Parts!'

.....All of my students are learning about cooperation in many different ways.  I love this unit and even though I have done the lessons before, there is always a new twist!  My fourth grade students were using "Co-oper Bands", which are like giant hair scrunchies.  The idea is that students take turns moving across the middle while in the band based on a particular color.  The message is that we are all connected and an action of one student affects all the others in the group as the band moves.  I was passing this message on when one student said that it was just like the Internet - we are all connected!

.....My primary students are cooperating by doing an activity called Train Tracks.  I learned this activity from the US Games OPEN curriculum.  The idea is that students make their human train move by taking turns passing a ball and then moving to the end of the train.  I thought it would be fun to have the students pick a pretend destination for the train.  They were very creative!  Some wanted to go to the beach and others wanted to go to Disneyland!  They were proud to tell their teacher where they traveled when they were picked up to go back to class!

.....On Tuesday students were off and teachers were participating in professional development.  I am a proud member of the Southeastern Zone of NYS AHPERD and our group hosts a conference on this day each year.  It was an amazing conference with national speakers like JD Hughes, John Jones, Mackenzie Mushel-Ellis, Irene Cucina and more!  I learned so much!  I have presented at this conference in the past but this year I was helping with the event.  During the day a teacher came up to me to tell me that she had recently used a lesson that I had presented last year.  She was being observed and both she and the administrator were so happy with the result!  It was great to hear that something I shared had such a positive impact and I appreciated so much her willingness to share!

.....Physical Eddie is being taken care of by a fourth grade class and they are enjoying his visit!  They are taking pictures along the way and I received them by email.  They were having fun outside and wanted to share the healthy activity!  

.....I am beginning to have students use video to assess their progress.  While I am just in the experimentation stage I had a student who was excused video tape a group while they were participating in a cooperative activity.  I showed the video at the end of class and students were able to pick out all of the acts of cooperation.  They also had some suggestions for improvement!  What a powerful tool to have students reflect on their learning!

.....I received an email this week from a former student teacher who is beginning his first job.  It was so great to hear how well he is doing!  It was kind of him to think of me and share the news.  It feels great to be connected to the next generation of PE professionals!

.....Our current PE Password is "Strategy".  Students were asked to talk about strategies that they use.  It was wonderful to hear the strategies that they use in games and sports but they also know that strategies are also necessary for reading, math, and more!

.....Our next Healthy Highway assembly was scheduled for Friday of this past week and on Thursday afternoon during bus duty I was talking with students about the assembly.  They were excited to know that a new road was planned and wanted to know what it was.  I told them it would be revealed the next day but asked them to guess what they thought it was.  They guessed "Honest Road".  While that is not the next road it is a great suggestion and tells me that they know that honesty is important! 

.....The actual next road is Kindness Way. Our assembly was wonderful!  We always relate the road to Physical Education, Nutrition Education, and Character Education.  We talked about being kind to our bodies by exercising and staying safe and eating good food to help us stay healthy.  Students had great responses when asked about ways to achieve these kindnesses!  Our principal found a video about a first grade class that decided to create projects around the theme of kindness and showed this video to our students.  Our school was then challenged to come up with kindness projects that could be simple or more involved.  As students were leaving the assembly and later in the day they were already talking about what they would do to show kindness and what kind of projects they wanted to do!  One third grade student was talking about it while waiting to be picked up and he said that it was the best Healthy Highway assembly that we have had since he was a kindergarten student!  I asked him why he thought that and he said that we talked about so much in the same amount of time and we accomplished more!  I can't wait to see what kindness projects students create!  

 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.