Olympic Torch; St. Mary's

3rd Lab at St. Mary's

This week was my 3rd time at St. Mary's working with the students.  I have to say this week went very well. My group this week worked in the gym.  We had to lead the first games and make sure the students used specific locomotor skills. The skills that we used were leaping, sliding, and vertical jumping. My game was called Olympic Torch.  The equipment I needed was two hula hoops, two cones, and two holdable items that can be seen as "torches." The students line up in about 4 different teams with the first person from each team standing inside a starting hula hoop. I gave the students in the hula hoop a "torch." On the signal to begin, the students had to run to the cone and run back. They will hand the torch to the next student in line who will then run to the cone and back. This continued until i have the signal to stop. Some modifications I made was instead of having the children run I interacted them to leap, slid, and vertical jump. The students played the game very well and seemed to like it. I believe the teaching strategies I used helped me capture the students attention. Some teaching strategies I used are getting down to eye level with the students, getting excited about the activities, having the students sit in a corner when I speak to them so they do not get distracted by anything, and modifying games if I have to so the students understand the goal better. I believe these strategies were very effected. The one strategy I feel worked the best was being excited about the activities. I’ve noticed that if I am excited and pumped to play the activities the students feed off my excitement and what to play the game as well. This is a great way to have the student do what you want because I guarantee it will work 90% of the time. Going to St. Mary's and working with the student have helped me to feel more comfortable and more confident that I will be a great teacher candidate. Being a PE teacher it is your job to keep the children active and by having great teaching strategies I believe you can be successful. I can not wait to go back to St. Mary's and work with the children again.

Check out my refelction on my 3rd lab at St. Mary's!! Lab 3 write-up

Hall of Shame Games

I looked over the Physical Education Hall of Shame and was very shocked at what I saw. I saw games that I have actually played when I was younger in my physical education classes. As a child I didn’t see these games has being bad I thought they were fun and so did most of my classmates. As a future physical educator I now see this games to show there truly colors. These games I speak of are Line Soccer, Red Rover, Simon Says, Spud, Tag and Messy Back Yard.  One thing that seemed odd to me was that the game dodgeball was not on the hall of shame. Although these games do demand physical active of the students they do not benefit the students. There are ways that these games could be used in the classroom to benefit the student’s development of motor, cognitive and affective skills. For example the game Tag can be structured correctly and could be a great game in a physical education curriculum. If you structured so no student get illuminated it is a great game. This game could even teach motor skills, locomotor patterns, teamwork, strategy, honesty and sportsmanship, and they can help enhance anaerobic fitness levels. An example of great tag game is a game called Aerobic Walk tag. This game is a great was for the student to develop many skills. Today physical education isn’t the whole roll out a bag of balls type of job instead we are there to teach and help the student develop their motor, cognitive and affective skills. As a teacher one should remember we are the ones that help guide students so why not guide them in a healthy and better direction.

One topic I have some opinion about is the negative affect of dodgeball in the PE classroom. I am personally against dodgeball because I believe it is very dangerous and could make bulling easier in a classroom. When watching a game of dodgeball the first students who are hit are the less active kids. Also you see the athletes of the class ganging together to attack the other students. This should not me encouraged in the classroom. However, dodgeball does include many motor skills and could be used if properly to benefit students. Dodgeball consists of running, throwing, and catching. If you as the physical educator modify the game so that students are not being the targets this game could be a great way to keep the students active.

Rocking out in Phsycial Education!!

Lip sync video to Party in the U.S.A. by Miley Cyrus

In PED 201 we were required to make a lip sync video with our lab group. My group decided to do a song we all new. We had a lot of fun doing this assignment it helped us work on your ability to be in front of a camera and our choreography ability's. Our video is below check it out and tell us what you think!! Rocking out in Phsycial Education!!

Dizzy Cupid

Dizzy Cupid 

Last Monday was my second time at St. Mary's school. I have to say I was a little nervous. Not to sure what I should of expected. I questioned if the children would like my games, would they want to play my game and would I do a good job catching the children's attention. Since my lab group was assigned special project we did not work with the children until the end of lab. The theme for lab was Valentines Days. Almost all of the groups played games that represented Valentines day. I saw one group playing a game called "the circle of love" the kids seemed to like it a lot. Watching the other groups play their games with the kids really calmed my nerves. Watching made me excited to show my game to the kids because I was sure the would like it. In the mean time before my group presented our game to the kids since with were special projects we had to made a bulletin board based on saying active. We choose the saying "be active" to be the title of our bulletin. Then we added sports and loco-motor skills to the bulletin and draw pictures showing the certain activities. My group hopes that the children can look at our bulletin and be encouraged to "be active." After we finished the bulletin we were told to go interact with the kids we all spread out and played whatever the kids were playing. I played some "knock out" and played some soccer. I noticed a little girl sitting by herself so I introduced myself to her and we colored pictures together. She was such a smart and artistic little girl. We drew flowers and hearts. It was finally time for my group to present our games to the children. My games was called "dizzy cupid." It is a tag game the kids get a partner. One is cupid and the other is running away from cupid. Before child that is cupid runs after his/her partner they have to spin around three times as fast as the can. Once they tag their partner with their "arrow" the partner becomes cupid and has to spin around three times before going after their partner. I was very surprise how interested the children were in my game. I have to say I think my game was very successful. This lab helped me see what to expect when working at St. Marys and it also helped me to realize there is nothing to be nervous about if your believe and are really into your own game the children will have the same attitude. I can not wait to go back and work with the children again. Until then lets all try to make the world a better place through physical education. WE ARE THE FUTURE! 

Check out my write up for Lab 2

Stopping Child Abuse; Virtus Workshop

Last week during class we had to take part of a workshop call Virtus. To be able to work with the children at St. Mary's it is required to take this workshop. This workshop was not a common one. The topic was children abuse mostly focusing on sexual abuse. We watch two films that explained real life situations spoken by either the abuser or the child that was abused. These poor people, it was heartbreaking to watch. Throughout the film we were taught warning signs of abuse and how to report an abuse. As I watched this film all I could think about was how could someone do something like this! But guess what it happens and by watching these films I learned signs to look out for as I work with children. Even though it was an emotional and disturbing workshop I am beyond glad I took it because now I know what to do to help a child that I believe is going through abuse and I could even stop the abuse from happening to that child. Knowing that I could save a child from being abused because I am now aware of signs makes me glab that there are workshops such as these. I believe that it is crucial to report an abuse if you notice a child displaying signs of abuse. It personally drives me crazy to thing about the scandal at Penn State. If someone just called the hot line and reported the abuse they could of stayed anonymous but they would of stop the abuse sooner and could have avoided many children being abused. What were they thinking not reporting this? How could someone know about a situation like this and not get help? Another scandal that has recently been brought to public attention is at Syracuse University. Even though the abuse happened many years ago it is now being revealed. If someone would have reported this abuse when the signs were being shown this man would have not been able to abuse any more children. As a future educator I will be spending majority of my time with children. It is my job to keep them safe when they are under my responsibility and thanks to the Virtus workshop I will be able to try protect my students from abuse by being aware of the warning signs. Also I have learned the proper way to report an abuse and I will not hesitate to do so. Being a teacher parents and guardians look to you to protect their children as well as educate them I believe every educator should be educated on abuse warning signs and the proper way to report an abuse.

First time at St. Mary's

Monday was my first lab at St. Mary's school. I have to say I was a little over whelmed at at first, but after observing the students and seeing what we are excepted to do it seemed alittle easier. When we first got there all the children were running around, it seemed to be very wild but as the teacher assistants started to take control and the children started to playing activities everything seem in great control. It surprised me how almost all of the students were interested in playing the activities. When we were finally allowed to interact with the children it made my nerves settle completely. Working with the children made me so happy and it helped me realize why I want to be a physical educator. I can not wait to go back to St. Mary's and work with the children again. I know I'll be nervous my first time teaching the kids but it is all worth it in the end! This is going to be a great experience and I am certain that this will help me become a better educator in my future. Lets change the future through physical education!

First Lab at St. Mary's

Learn though the physical and the impacts physical activity has on affective growth

Learn through the physical...What does this mean? It took a while for me to break this down and figure out the over all meaning. This statement could be seen in many different ways. However, as for me, I looked at the meaning of the words "learn" and "physical"; learn: to acquire knowledge of or skill in by study, instruction, or experience and physical: involving or characterized by vigorous bodily activity.  By looking at these two meanings I believe the statement means to acquire knowledge about a skill by using bodily activities. This statement can explain why many people say, "Seeing something be done helps me learn better. " By seeing an instructor physically do what you are learning your body tries to teach itself by repeating what the instructor does. Repeating physical activities to help learn something makes it easier to memorize and learn.


How physical activity impacts affective growth.
Affective growth is learning that increases the ability of children to act, interact, and react effectively with other people as well as with themselves. A child will determine how he/she see their would their environment and the people surrounding them. As a physical educator, one can use physical activities that all children win and there in no student that is the over all winner. By doing this you can help your students affective growth by helping their self-esteem. Once a student feels like he/she are in control of the out come of their life affective growth is taken place. Physical activities cant either help or damage affective growth of a child. As an physical educator is it ones job to choose the right activities that will give each child confidence and allows them to have the sense of control over the game. No child should play games that make them feel bad about themselves. It is the physical educators job to make sure the physical activities impact affective growth of the children.