Day 2

Today was my second day helping out at the after school program. I got to the school earlier this time so I was there for the portion of the program in the cafeteria before heading out to the playground. While inside, some students work on and get help with their homework, with others color, play board games or draw. There is also a snack time while the students are inside and today they had graham crackers and milk. My participant did not have any homework to do so we played games and drew pictures while we were inside. The first game that we played was Uno. I remember playing this game all the time when I was younger, but there were many rules that have been changed since then so it was interesting to see how they played. After this game, we drew pictures and colored with crayons until snack time. After snack time it was time to head outside. We had lots of fun on the play ground and played lots of the same games as last week. I also learned that my students like to pretend to run a restaurant, and takes peoples orders through a "window" in the play ground. I thought this was very entertaining and was impressed by his creativity. He takes peoples orders, tells them how much they owe for the food and then serves them rocks off of the ground. We did this for a long time today. Towards the end, my student started getting a little restless and was anxious to be picked up. This is when he started acting up and threw a little bit of a fit. He took his socks, shoes and glasses off and laid at the bottom of the slide, not letting anyone else pass. This was frustrating because me and one other aids tried everything to get him to put his stuff back on and move. We ended up having to carry him off of the slide, and do more convincing to finally get him to cooperate. We bribed him with letting him go back inside to the warm and play a game in their if he followed our directions. Once he finally put his socks, shoes and glasses back on we went inside and colored until his ride got there. His ride was a little later than usual so I was there for two and a half hours today. After seeing him get to restless and troublesome when he got bored, I will be sure to have more activities planned for next time to try and prevent this from happening again.

Day 1!

10/21/13

Today was my first day at my placement for PED 447. I am helping out at the after school program, specifically with one student with various developmental delays. I was only at my placement for an hour and a half today because of a slight miscommunication but I had a good time and a great first session getting to know my student. We played outside on the play ground the entire time I was there. We played tag, duck-duck-goose, kicked a ball back and forth and just ran around playing on the playground equipment. I think my student liked being able to do whatever activities he wanted to and having me there just to hangout with him. But it was a little strange for me to just be there doing more observing than planning and leading activities. That is what makes this experience so different from experiences that I have had in other classes. For future sessions, I will continue to play games and activities that he wants to do, but will also try suggesting some other games that can help him work on things that may not be so easy for him. I think this will be a good time for him to indirectly get some extra skill practice in. I will try and do this in one-on-one games and group games with other students at the after school program. It will be good for him to get this interaction with the other kids and have his time to be one his own because he seems to like to have a balance of both.

Best/Worst Moments in Movement!

Check out this link to the new Best/Worst moments in movement video I made!

Always Have A Back-up Plan!

For this weeks lab my group worked with the cafeteria group, which was all the older boys. This week was much different than the other weeks when we worked with younger groups because every other time we got the students to play our games and for the most part, things basically went as planned. However, this week trying to teach these students games was basically useless. They had no interest in playing the games we had planned and wanted to just hangout and play basketball with their friends. After realizing that that was all they wanted to do, we decided to just start a pick up game, girls against boys and they ended up having a lot of fun trying to beat all the TA's. I always knew that it was important to go into classes with a back-up plan, but this week just ensured that for me and proved that I will also always have to respect what the students want to do and be willing to do that. To see more about what we did this week, check out my Lab Reflection!

Technology in P.E.

This week in lab we got the chance to experiment with the different games available in the exergame lab. I think that this was a very good experience for us because it made me understand a lot better how many different ways you can incorporate technology as a Physical Educator. My favorite part of this lab was playing the Dance game, similar to DDR. I liked this because it was a fun challenge for me, and also a great workout at the same time. I would love to be able to use this for my classes in the future, however I do realize that this is quite expensive and depending on where I am teaching may not be possible. During this lab though, we also played many small games that would be rather inexpensive. Some of these games were not only fun, but also educational. One that I found potentially helpful was a simple letter game, with the foam pieces we were playing with. While thinking of a game I could make with them. I thought it would be easy enough to simply scramble the letters and outlines around the gym, and have students put the pieces together, and also have them put the alphabet in order. This would benefit them in the phsychomotor domain by making them run around to get the scrambled pieces, and also cognitively by making them put the pieces in order. 

This photo is an example of Ryan and myself playing with the foam pieces I mentioned earlier and a representation of small, inexpensive technology I would definitely consider using in my classes! 

Go Baby Move!

In this remix of Tyga's "Rack City", Shannon, Amanda, Liz and I discuss infant reflexes and movement in children. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Easter Time Special!

This week at St. Mary's my group got to work with the Pre-K students, doing crafts, reading stories and playing games. I actually had a lot of fun with this and enjoyed it even more than I thought I would. I have always loved working with young children, but wasn't sure how it would go with such a big group of them. However, they seemed to really enjoy everything that we planned and it went very smooth. My group decided that since Easter is coming up, we should do something fun and related to that. So we started off with our craft of making Easter eggs. The kids seemed to have a blast with this and also enjoyed the book that we read to them after. Following the story time, they had a snack then came into the gym with us for game time. This is when I got my chance to teach the game that I prepared. I was nervous for this because I thought that it would be very difficult to hold their attention, however it went surprisingly well and they really enjoyed it. The reason I think it was so successful was because in the beginning, they had to hop and slide around, getting out all of their built up energy, and then worked into the more relaxed part of the game and since they had blown off some steam they were then ready to listen. I was overall very happy with how this lab went and am excited for when we get to go back! Also, don't forget to check out this weeks Lab Refelction!