Project Vacation: Superhero Training Camp

On Monday March 2, 2009, we had our third motor development lab at St. Mary's School Cortland. This week, we were incorporating the slide, horizontal jump, and leap skills into the lesson for us to observe. The theme of the day was 'superheroes' and the kids seemed very excited to begin the day. Our group had the task of putting together and presenting the lead off lesson activity. And after last week, we were prepared with an activity that the kids would love!

Our group, 'Jumping Jack and the Thriving Five,' taught an activity called endless bucket. In order to correct the mistakes from last lab, we met Sunday afternoon to layout what we were going to do and assign tasks to each group member. We eventually agreed on a theme where we would use the game as a 'superhero training camp.' The story behind it is that Batman, Superman and all the other heroes were going on vacation next week and asked us for help. So we were trained to be superheroes by them and had to find new recruits. We would ask the kids for their help and keep the world safe. For the activity, students picked a task from the buckets in the middle and go to the assigned station. The stations included a bat cave crawl, subway chase on scooters, building slide around some mats, flying like superhero, fighting villians, and much more! Between the buckets and the stations, we would ask the kids to either leap, jump, or slide so we could assess these skills.

When we go to the school and began setting up, we immeditely caught the kids' attention. As props, we all wore capes and some wore the logos of Batman and Superman. I had the respoinsibility of explaining the game and each station. The kids remained quiet and listened to all directions. The activity went great! Everyone followed directions and we had all the kids participating with no one sitting out. Each student had a great time and all became superheroes at the end! Our group truly came together and worked hard to achieve their task. Everything went like clockwork and I couldn't be more proud of the job we had done!

After we finished in the gym, we went downstairs into the cafeteria and played games with the kids after their snack. Games ranged from legos to jenga, and checkers to connect four. With the kids I was with, everything had to do with superheroes still! They took legos and the jenga blocks to make Batman and the batcave. After this, we went back up to the gym for open recreation where the kids played what they wanted including one little girl making a 'jail cell' out of hula hoops and pretending to be a lion! We closed with the 'Cha-Cha Slide' and thus ended a great day.


After this experience, I had realized why I wanted to be a Physical Education teacher. Seeing the kids having so much fun and having them listen to you is very rewarding. It confirmed my belief that can have an impact in the lives of anyone and keep them educated and physically active. Next week we lead off again with another activity and I cannot wait to tackle this task once more!