Saving the day at St. Mary's Elementary!

For this weeks PED 201 LAB, our class provided a series of games and activities for the students with the theme being SUPERHEROES! This was by far my favorite theme for the semester because as soon as the children saw us in our costumes, their imaginations began firing away, constantly asking "who are you?!" or desperatly pleading for us to tell them what games we would be playing. Perhaps what was most inspiring was at the end of our lab during our debriefing, one of the assistants for St. Mary's applauded our enthusiasm and efforts for dressing up and getting into character. She explained to us that by doing so, we were able to get children, who had never participated before, to become excited and run over to the games we were setting up. Knowing that we had the ability to do that was one of the best feelings I have expereinced thus far in my career as a future Physical Educator.
Our games for the day began with an instant activity that I created myself which I named "Bank Robbery." For this game I placed a "bank" on one side of the gym and a jail on the other. Students were told they were the robbers and had to steal as much money as they could without being caught by the Superheroes(Cortland students) and if they were caught they had to go to jail and give the superheroes back the money they stole and could only be freed by another robber who had to give them some of their money. The students really enjoyed this game and loved the fake money I used. We played the game for quite a bit because none of the children seemed to get bored form it, all of them just wanted to keep stealing the money and see if they could avoid being captured. After this game, we moved into parachute games which the children were very excited about. We played games such as "JAWS" and "Popcorn" and both the children and Cortland students had a lot of fun, and I felt like a little kid again!

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Although we had a wonderful time during this lab, it was a little sad knowing that it was our last one. The work we had to put in was lengthy and tedious, however, I feel that the experiences we each took from St. Mary's was worth every second of it. I have adapted a number of teaching methods form this class and learned a lot about working with children, which I reflect on in my LAB 6 WRITE UP if you would like to see more. So its good bye for now to St. Mary's Elementary, but I will be returning in the Fall Semester to help as a lab assisstant for Professor Yang because I feel that through my ups and downs, I too can help shape the progress of up and coming PED 201 students just like my lab assisstants did.

St. Mary's got a friend in me!

LAB 5 was a great success at St. Mary's last Wednesday! Our class assessed students on their abilility to kick and bounce a ball. We started with some fun variations of soccer which really got the students to elevate their heart rates while having fun, which was great to see. Afterwards it was my groups turn to work with the Pre-K students outside which was a blast!

I brought the students together and read a short story called "The Shadow Game" which was about Woody and his friends who go camping and make shadow puppets alongside the campfire. The students liked it so much that they made me read it again! After the story we helped move them inside for snack time. Right after snack time we then moved them down to the cafeteria where my partner and I prepared various Toy Story characters for them to color as well as sheriff badge and rocketship name badges for them to wear. Then came the fun part, my game! I created a Mr. Potato Head relay which not only interested the Pre K students, but also brought some older students over to participate as well! Students would dribble a ball down to the Mr. Potato Head pieces, place the ball down, stick the piece in the correct spot and then roll the ball down to the next member in their line who would complete the same task. It was a very close race between Team Woody and Team Buzz which helped the students to really get into the game and try their best, which made all of my preparations and efforts well worth it. We closed the day with a shouting contest set up by another group, between the brown eyed team woody and the blue eyed team buzz, which was a lot of fun too. Reflecting on LAB 5 I feel very accomplished and proud of the work I have done. I have come a long way from our first few LABs and I look foward to improving even more as my experience grows too.

Here are some other photos from our Toy Story theme at St. Marys that day!

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Egg-stravaganza at St. Mary's Elementary!

Just in time for Easter we went to St. Marys with plenty of games, eggs, and bunny ears to play with the students as well as observe their motor skills for how they overhand throw an object and how they catch something when its tossed to them. Opening up the lab was my group with a game that really let the students have fun and throw plastic and paper eggs around, which allowed us a chance to assist them with how they threw the objects. The lab was a lot of fun, its egg-zactly what the Easter Bunny would have wanted and it was quite funny seeing a lot of us in those bunny ears, and it just wouldnt be right if I didnt share the pictures of me wearing them hahaha enjoy!

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Olympic Dinosaurs

Better late than never I suppose, catching up on earlier labs from this year... Our Second Lab at St. Mary's Elementary school was Olympic themed being that the winter olympics were under way at the time. For this lab we observed the students doing locomotor skills such as running, galloping, and hopping through the activities that our PED 201 class created. It was a great opportunity to see how well the students could perform the tasks at their young age, as well as get our first experiences working with the children.





Our Third Lab at St. Mary's had a dinosaur theme to it. The gymnasium group did a great job running their activity considering their limited space and large number of children. When it came to my group I was down a member and attempted to try to run my activities on my own, but that proved to be more difficult than I thought! However, with the help of Dr. Yangs sub for the day Nicole, I was able to regain control and run through the activities much smoother.

My PREZI for Childhood Development

PED 201 Prezi Assignment on Prezi

On the Defense for Relays!

Ahh the good old fashioned relay race, an event that was placed into the Hall of Shame for Physical Educators. From a future educator's perspective, one can see why it was selected into that catergory. The relay race, although does raise the individuals heart rate and teach a sense of teamwork, also possesses the opportunity to single out and embarrass the less skilled students of the group. So, after some thinking, I have re-vamped the traditional relay race to something that is more stimulating to the students. Instead of just running down a set track with no variation to it, students would have to perform different movements, encountering various obstacles along the way. After completing a lap, the teacher would give the student a "special word" or "special phrase" that he or she would have to whisper to the student in the back of the line. The phrase would have to be "telephoned" up to the front of the line, and upon recieving the word or phrase the student in the front of the line would go down the course to repeat the process.


This variation would allow students to utilize different skills they have learned and testing them on different environments and obstacles. It also adds another component of listening and communication to the relay race as well as a more teamwork than a regular relay.

Another variation to this would be to set up two identical tracks with different stations around the gymnasium. Each station has a task card and a number attatched to it. Place a student at each station. For an example of two teams: each team has a starter who has a task of their own (ex. crab walking to the next station). When the starter reaches the next station, he or she performs the task with the student occupying the station, the starter cannot advance until both complete the task. Once the starter has returned to the start, it is known as a full cycle, and then repeats, only this time the students hustle to the station that was one number higher than the last one they were at, with the last station becomming the starter. ( station 1 goes to 2, 2 goes to 3, etc.) The objective is to see either how many cycles a group can achieve in X amount of time or to make it a contest to see which group can complete it with everyone being a starter first.

By using this variation students are much more involved with the relay race doing many different activities throughout the course. Also a stronger sense of teamwork is present because students have more to complete as well as they need to finish tasks together.

PED 201

And so begins my official career path towards becoming a Physical Educator! It is very exciting to be part of Dr. Yang's class and I am looking foward to everything we will be experiencing and learning in both class and at St. Mary's Elementary School. From the first day of class I knew I was in the right class with the right professor. Not only is Dr. Yang passionate about what he does, he also creates an environment that stimulates the true meaning of what it is to be an effective Physical Educator. His expertise in using technology to help stimulate movement among individuals will help me to explore new ideas and concepts in the field of physical education, ultimately leading to more involvement from participants, which is a key component to any curriculum. I know I will do well in this class and I cant wait to see whats in store for the remainder of the semester!