Environmental Excitement!!

On Monday March 30, 2009, we had our fifth motor development lab at St. Mary's School Cortland. This week, we were assessing the student's motor skills of kicking a ball and dribbling a ball which were incorporated into the activities demonstrated today. This week's theme was the environment. Our group did not give a presentation in the gymnasium today for we were with the pre-kindergarten students. However, were we still excited to see how our classmates performed when they taught!

In the gym, the first group give their presentation. Their activity was called 'zig-zag zoccer'. Using the whole gym, they broke the kids up into six groups. Three groups stood on either side of the room in a line directly across from another group on the other side of the gym. Their first objective was to kick the soccer ball down the gym. They would dribble it around the cones and obsticles laid down and once they got to the middle, the children would kick it as hard and far as they were able to. This activity would continue for a few more rounds until each child had gone about twice. After this, the game was then altered switching out the soccer ball for a basket ball. The students would now dribble the basketball down the court halfway and back around the obsticles that laid before them. After this, the activity was over. The children then played another activity that implemented these same motor skills. While evaluating, I noticed that more students were at the inital stage rather than the elementary stage. Some had a handful of components that they fulfilled for each skill but otherwise, there wasn't much there.

Following the activities in the gym, our group, Jumpin' Jack and the Thrive Five, went into the pre-kindergarten classrooms. Here, we played games with them and activites they wanted to. I was playing Legos with the boys one minute and playing with dolls with the girls another! After they had their snack, we read them books that they chose from the bookshelf. As soon as I would get done with one book, another would be waiting. There was a stack of books sitting next to me ready to get read!

After this, we went into the gym again and it was crazy! With a long day of being kooked up in the classroom behind them, the pre-kindergarteners were ready to play. We set up different stations in the area we had available that involved in some way or another, the environment. There was a cave crawl (through the tunnel tube), hopping on top of mountains (in a circle of hula hoops), meteor shower (bouncing basketballs), an island leap (from poly-spot to poly-spot), and trash pickup recycling (putting beanbags in a bucket). This activity proved to be a hit and the kids throughly enjoyed it. Following cleanup, we all participating in the YMCA and had a great time doing it to end the day.

After this experience, I realized how much I enjoy being up in front of the kids teaching. Since we had the pre-kindergarten today, we did not teach a lesson at the beginning in the gym. This whole time I was restless and wanted bored because I wanted to be up there teaching again. While we did get an opportunity in the end to engage the kids in physcal activity, I would love to teach more often. I cannot wait until our last lab next week so that I can end our lab experience on a great note!