January Chill

It's been a busy month in PE for all the students. We have had lots of fun and worked hard to learn new skills and refine old skills.

Senior Kindergarten
Do we have some skaters!!! All the children have had two lessons on the ice with myself and our skating pro Mrs. Jill Herbst. We both have been so pleased with the skating abilities of our students. Even with our skaters who are new or are renewing their skills on the ice, they are all working hard to become good skaters! So far we have worked on how to get up after a fall, balancing on skates, marching and gliding, skating forward, balancing beanie babies while skating forward and swizzles. I am sure the first family skate will be fun and you will enjoy the time skating with your children.

When we are back in the gym we are doing gymnastics. Balancing plays an important part of our skills. The children have learned to properly mount the beam and walk carefully across all by themselves. We will work toward moving to the high beam with assistance in our upcoming lessons. We are also building upper body strength by using our star bar, three single bars that can be adjusted for our younger students for all of them to be able to jump up and support their body weight, swinging and jumping and finally, moving across the bar like a monkey (this takes muscle!!) We are doing forward rolls on a wedge mat which assists the students complete a roll with ease along with teaching proper technique. Jumping and landing from various heights is also important as the children work on keeping their balance to land on their feet with bent knees.

1st & 2nd Graders
Gymnastics was the primary focus for the first and second graders during the first three weeks of January. 1st graders built on the skills they learned in Senior Kindergarten (see above.) Students furthered their tumbling skills on the mat by working on the backward roll, refining their forward rolls and tipping backward over our mailbox (a giant mailbox shaped mat that is cushioned)to transfer weight from feet to hands and back to the feet again. Keeping arms straight and strong to move backward over this mat was a tough challenge however, many of the children were able to perform this skill by the end of our unit. We also started to work on cartwheels (again a weight transfer skill) and mule kicks (a lead up skill to doing handstands). Being able to change the body position and maintaining balance when coming back to the floor is a good skill for the children to learn when they are young, they sometimes fall and being able to maintain balance and control will help them avoid some injuries. On the star bar, the children were challenged to roll over the bar and come to a stand on the floor. We also did a bat hang where they worked on their flexibility to bring feet up to the bar between their hands. Once this was secured the children were introduced to the "bat flying away." This is like doing a backward roll coming to a balance position on the floor. On the beam, both high and low the children worked on maintaining balance. Sometimes on the low beam I would place beanbags or a large cube of foam (fondly named by the 1st graders as the big cheese)for the children to step over and maintain balance. Finally using the spring board to jump from the board and land in a squat position on top of the vaulting block. We also worked on jumping and landing from the vault, the beam and the vaulting block. It was a fun filled couple of weeks in the gymnastic gym.

In the 2nd grade we worked on refining the first grade skills and focused on learning and developing taking the weight onto our hands. Primarily the children learned and worked on kicking up to a handstand using a wedge mat placed against the wall that helped assist the children get up into a handstand while being spotted until they got to the stage where they could do the skill on their own. Cartwheels were worked on as well. It is fun to see how the children refine and develop their skills from first grade. Rolls come easier, balance is basically good and jumping and landing shows more control.

This past week we started our basketball unit. Our primary focus in 1st grade
is becoming good dribblers with our dominant hand. Our key elements are using finger pads, ball kept below the waist and starting to look up as they move. The second graders take their dribbling to the next level by trying to be proficient dribblers using both hands, using their non dribbling hand up and in a position to block their opponent and trying to get those eyes up more than they did in the first grade. We have been playing some fun little games that allow for continued practice and development of their dribbling skills. We will do some work on passing the ball and of course we find some time each day to do a little shooting. It's not easy shooting at a 10' basket, however there is real excitment when a ball goes through the hoop. We use age appropriate sized basketballs which helps shooting at the "big baskets." In our new gym we will have adjustable hoops that will be more age appropriate for our young shooters.

3rd & 4th Grade
Ice skating was a blast with these two grades. Both Mrs. Herbst (our skating pro) were so pleased with the hard work the students put into skating. Our skaters continue to really improve. We worked a little bit on cardio training by doing mileage work - doing laps around the rink. What is nice about this is that each student works at his or her own ability level to try and increase the number of laps they can complete in the available time we have to do this activity.
Skills worked on were, forward and backward skating, swizzles forward and backward, stopping, scooters, slalom, jumps, dips and finally forward cross-overs.

The third graders were assessed on the above skills as they performed them in an obstacle course that incorporated the skills. This provided the students a non-stop activity to demonstrate their skills and again work on their cardio. The fourth graders took all the skills they did and then performed either a partner or single skating routine that they created, memorized and performed for their classmates. Many of the children chose to use music for their presentation - it felt like a bit of our own USM Winter Olympics.

This week was the start of our gymnastics unit. Our third grade is focusing on learning the compulsory routine which combines skills in a short routine that they will perform to demonstrate their ability to learn and perform a pattern of set skills. The fourth grade is working on creating their own two tumbling passes using skills they feel comfortable performing. The routines must contain a forward and backward tumbling skill, a balance, a jump and a turn. It will be fun to see these patterns that they create.

Upcoming project for the third graders is the "Flat Stanley Project." We talk about the importance of exercising throughout our lives. Then it will be up to our students to create a flat version of themselves and then bring in an address of someone they would like to mail their flat self to so that they can go on a "fitness adventure" to see how others keep their body healthy and active.

Our fourth graders will begin their work on Friday 1/29 to help create a wiki page on an event from the Winter Olympics. Not only will this help the children learn about the Olympics, their contributions will be used by the 3rd graders to learn about the winter games as they will be assigned simple and fun games to complete using the wiki created by the fourth graders.

Finally - it was so nice to see so many families at the Show and Share Night - "Blasting off to a New Space." I know we are all real excited to get into our new space!!!