Happy New Year!

Welcome back to the Blog - hope you had a restful and enjoyable break!
Senior Kindergarten
This week the children got back into the swing of things by doing an activity with the alphabet. This was done in a relay style fashion. I would give the children two words that started with the same letter and then the children would tell me the letter and they would move to the other end of the gym, find the letter flash card and bring it back to their team. When all twenty-six cards were collected by the team, the children were then asked to get the letters in order. YEAH! Great work by the children and what team work!!!
On "B" days all the senior kindergarten children come to PE, this week on "B" day we had our first day in the gymnastic gym. Our focus was jumping and landing making sure that knees were bent and bodies were in control. We also worked on rolling in a long body position - log rolls. Once the skills had been practiced the children moved around the gym in an obstacle format to practice jumping and rolling. Lots of good practice and fun were had be all.

1st & 2nd Grade
Our first unit for the new year is gymnastics. In both first and second grades the children will be working on tumbling skills, balance skills, jumping and landing skills and changing body positions from upright to upside down and back to upright (weight transfer.) During this week we have been practicing and learning proper technique of the skills. Skills the children will be working on in both grades will be, mounting and dismounting the beam,jumping and landing with rotation (1/4, 1/2 and full turns), supporting and rolling over a bar, taking weight onto the hands and returning to the feet (1st grade - tip over the mailbox mat and returning to feet and mule kicks taking weight onto hands and then coming back onto feet). In the second grade the children are working on going to a handstand against a wedge mat that is placed against the wall. Children in second grade are also working on cartwheels. All the children are encouraged to try the various skills and as they become more proficient at the skill I will "invite" students to challenge themselves by changing the skills a bit so that they can try new skills that they are ready to perform. All the children are encouraged to try their best and ask for help when they need it. Keeping the skills safe and challenging for the children will ensure success and enjoyment during this unit.
At the end of the week 1st graders will have their first health lesson about teeth. We will talk about the parts of the tooth, the different kinds of teeth and how to keep our teeth healthy. In second grade the students will have their first lesson on the eyes. We will learn the parts of the eye along with their jobs that they perform to help us see, we will talk about eye safety and learn how important our eyes are for us to learn, be entertained and keep us safe.

3rd and 4th Grade
A busy first week back. Monday the students participated in a fitness workout where the students measured heart rate and wore the pedometers to measure the number of steps taken during the lesson. It is difficult to measure heart rate accurately by counting beats, however it is the simplest way for the students to understand that raising their heart rate during physical activity and keeping it there for 20 minutes or longer makes a stronger muscle. The children would do an activity for one minute - stop and then take their heart rate for six seconds and then multiplied this number by ten. What was really neat was the number of steps that the students were able to accumulate during the activity time - many of the students were over 1,200 steps - not bad for a little over twenty minutes of activity!
Tuesday was team building and the students played a game called Immovable Chop Sticks where they had to work together to move small balls by using tongs and pool noodles and get them to a container in the center of the gym. Lots of team work and cooperation was taking place, this wasn't an easy activity, however the children had to work through some problems and they did pretty well.
Wednesday and Thursday were our fist two days of skating. Both Mrs. Herbst and I are just so pleased with the students skating ability. Third graders will focus on refining basic skating skills and playing various games on the ice. The fourth grade will take these basic skills and create a routine that they will have a chance to share with their classmates.