Sunday, April 29, 2012

The end has come


     This week was my last week at St. Mary’s after school program. I have to say I am upset to say goodbye. However I am so thankful for this opportunity and experience. It has been wonderful for my teaching experience, I have learned a lot about teaching techniques and the way age groups differ. At St. Mary's I have working in the PRE K program and worked with students all the way up to 5th grade. The younger and older students are very different. I have learned that the younger student enjoy games with a story to it and enjoy very much tag games, they love to chase someone or be chased. The older students like to just play games the whole time. When I worked with the older students all they wanted to do was play basketball or the girls wanted to jump rope. So I split my time and did both. I enjoyed working at St. Mary's very much I have learned a lot about myself. I learned what teaching techniques I am comfortable with. I have learned that I enjoy working with any age group and in the future I will be happy with whatever job I receive. My last lab was very fun. In the beginning we played with the parachute. All the kids enjoyed it very much; they did not want to stop. After that we broke up into our groups. My group was in the cafeteria and then the gym. In the cafeteria the students ate snacks and played board games. When they went to the gym all the wanted to do was play games. The students I worked with were the older children. 





      The boys wanted to play basketball and the girls either wanted to talk or jump rope. One of the members of my group and I decide to play jump rope with the girls. This went out for almost he entire time. The girls knew many roping games and rhythms. I learned a lot! I had a lot of fun and I enjoyed my last lab very much. I cannot wait for my future classes were I interact with students so I can improve my teaching ability more and more.

       I believe my experience at St. Mary's will be my foundation of teaching and I believe in the future it will have been the reason I use the type of teaching techniques I choose to use. Thank you again St. Mary's for a wonderful time!
Check out my last lab write up (Lab 6)

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

I can play like a pro!


Lab #5 at St. Mary's

This week at St. Mary's my group worked with the cafeteria group. At first we were outside playing in the playground and then we went into the gym. In the playground we were with the younger children. Let me tell you how creative these children are. Their imagination is very amazing and they have fun wherever they are. At first they were shy but after a little while they were talking up a storm. Many of the children wanted to play hide and seek and wanted me to be the seeker! I believe they like the idea of hiding and being found. Then we played a tag game and they sure do love chasing you! They chased me all around the playground and never got tired. After this I began playing princesses with two little girls. Their imagination with quite amazing, I could not believe the things they came up with. We went to a ball, had a tea party, and played princess tag. While having a tea party with these young girls they were very talkative and talked about anything and everything. They asked a million and one questions and were very funny. After the play ground my group went into the gym to play games with the older children. Older children do not want to play the games you planned they rather just play a sport the whole time. 

So my group decide we will just play basketball for the entire time. There were only a hand full of older children and there were only boys, so we decide to play the boys against the girl teachers. The students loved this idea. Getting involved in the games and being excited to play helps the students want to play and actually enjoy the game. My group and myself were very surprised that these boys were amazingly good at playing basketball. They all know the basics and more and it was a great game. This week I had the privilege to work with the older students and understand what they like to do in the physical education setting. Throughout my past labs I have learned a lot about the game choice you decide for each age group. When working with older children you want to focus on a game where there is some type of competition. This causes the students to want to do their best and play the game they’re hardest. 

When working with the younger children you want to play a game that has a story behind it. This keeps the younger children interested in your game and it makes them want to continue the story. When working with a mixed age group you want your game to be easy and have a lot of physical activity. Tag games are the best to play with mixed aged groups because everyone likes a good game of tag. Next week is my last lab at St. Mary's it is sad to say this but I know that this experience has been amazing and will help me to be a better educator. 
 


ExerGame Lab: Learning through technology!




Technology Can Be Fun!


Last Monday instead of going to St. Mary's we had an ExerGame Lab! It was SO much fun! We played a bunch of games that anyone could play at home however it was a little different. We played dance dance revolution. At first I was confused on how this could be affective in the physical education classroom but after we went through all the games it was quick clear to me that these games were perfect for physical education! The dance dance revolution can be used to stimulus coordination, reaction time, agility, and ability to move to a pattern and also help on focusing. While playing the game I thought about all the educational areas I was working on, I was really shocked that a still game can do so much. Another game that I played was NBA on Xbox however the only way to power the game to play was to run in place on a machine. This was such a great idea it focuses physical activity in a usually non-physical game. I believe if this was brought into the physical education room many children would enjoy this because it is a common game the only difference is physical activity is added into it. There was another game that was a racecar video game but to power the game you had to pedal on a stationary bike. This game caused a lot of physical activity by the end of the game I most of sweat tons of calories. Fun and interesting games like this will cause children to want to be physically active and want to do what it takes to achieve success in the game. Lastly we were told to play with a bunch of small toys and thing of ways how they could be used in the physical education classroom. Some of the toys we played with were foam object shaped as an animal and a letter was cut in the middle of the foam object. These foam letter animals could be used to help young children learn the alphabet Also they can be used in fun ways like hiding the foam objects in certain areas and once the children find the object they most recite the letter and make the sound the animal made that the foam is shaped as. I believe technology will create a new way of teaching in the future and phyical educators today should begin to get used to this idea! WE ARE THE FUTURE!


Thursday, April 12, 2012

Learning can be fun!

Learning through Technology and Music

Check out the music video my group made! The song lyrics are about what we are learning in my PED 201 class from chapter 7 in our books. At first I thought it was silly to be doing this but when it is all said and done I know all the material from the chapter. Fun and different ways like this motivate people to want to learn more!