Parachute Fitness and Yoga

1. Find information on the history of the parachute and how a parachute works.

• Parachutes work by creating air drag. They use air to slow a person down to a safe speed. The history of a parachute is very long with a lot of people making their own tweaks through out the years. Da Vinci sketched his idea of parachute in 1495. Almost two hundred years later Veranzio made a device that used Da Vinci's sketch as a starting point and used it to jump off the tower of Venice. 

2. Create a parachute routine composed of various parachute activities learned in class.

• I would first start by having students creative ripples, waves, storm to imitate the way the sea moves. From here I would ask students what happens to the water in the sea? I would explain how water is soaked up by clouds and have the students make a cloud. Then I would ask what comes from clouds? Students can answer with rain, snow, sleet, etc. I would then ask what happens what you get caught under a cloud? At this point I would have them make a could and step under and pretend that they are being rained or snowed on. 

3. Practice the yoga routine for a week and keep a journal of how you feel.

• I'm not really a fan of yoga. I know that it is used to relax and relive stress, but I rather going running to relax and relive stress. I get bored easily and sitting around stretching does not sound fun to me.

4. Use stick figures to diagram each pose in the Salute to the Sun yoga routine.

Improving Teaching

1. Reflect upon your lab teaching experience. Describe your teaching strengths and weaknesses for teaching in this lab.

• My strength in this lab was my lead in. It made the lesson interesting and relate able to the students. Although we learned in 255 that we do not always need a hook for a lesson, when teaching younger students it is better to have one because it makes them more interested. My weakness in this lab was teaching a small group. The lesson plan that I designed would have been more affective for an entire class and not just two students and I had a hard time adapting to that. 

2.Identify one of your most effective teachers. What teaching behaviors did you admire in the way he/she taught?

• My most effective teacher was my 10th grade english teacher. She just made class fun and entertaining and not boring. We had to read Shakespeare as part of the curriculum, and after every scene she has us act it out as it would happen in today's society. It made you learn and understand the material better, and it was also a ton of fun. This is what I aim to do when I write my hook's and my lesson plans. 

3. What goals will you set for yourself as you prepare to teach in the Education 300 Field Experience?

• My main goal is to make my students have fun while they are learning. You have can have the best lesson in the world,filled with information and relative material, but if it's boring and dry, students are not going to remember it very well and they are not going to want to learn it. Also, one of my goals is to not be afraid to be firm with students. Being a lab assistant has definitely made me improve in that area since the mentors themselves are to timid to tell children to stop mis-behaving, but I am not consistent with it and I would like to improve upon that. 

Field Experience Day Three

Today in field experience was the first real day that we got to work with the kids and really started learning their names. The students were again continuing with the hand-eye coordination stations, but we saw a different class today instead of the other class we had worked with the last two days.

The area of reflection today is students with special needs. In the other class we originally worked with, the skill level around the class was pretty even. There were some stand-outs whether they stood out as being really good, or needing work, but over-all the skills were on the same page. This class was different. The skill ranges were incredible. There were some students that played pickle ball extremely, there were some middle of the road students, and then were students who struggled to serve the ball correctly. I was working on a court where there were students who were lower skilled. One of the students was really far behind the other students and I worked with him the most. I inadvertently brought science into the lesson by talking to him about how angles work, so he would see that he was hitting the ball at too high of an angle.

I did not have the students pay attention to the rules of the game of pickle ball, the only rule I made sure they followed was the switching of the servers so that every student got a turn practicing the serve and I made sure they stayed in the boundaries. After my master teacher took aside the student I was originally working with I worked with another student who had trouble with returning the ball. The student seemed more content to serve the ball and let his partner hit it back and I had to explain to him that was not how it worked. He had good form he just had the problem of hitting it to far so that the ball did not land in bounds, so I worked with him on hitting the ball more lightly and just trying to get in bounds, and not worry about over bearing his opponents.

Carpet Sample Fitness

1.What signs could students use to replace the traditional signs used in Rock, Paper, Scissors?

• This would be an excellent time to maybe tie in teaching students sign language. Instead of using the typical fist, open head, and "peace" sign to represent rock, paper, scissors, you could use the sign for r, p, and s. When students become more advanced then you could move on to the actual signs for rock, paper, and scissors. 

2. Design three new carpet sample fitness activities for your students.

• Magic Carpet Ride-students have to sit on the carpet and use the inch worm technique to get the carpet to move around obstacles. 
• Lava Flow!-carpet samples are spread around the gym floor and students have to move around by moving from carpet to carpet. Students can leap, jump, skip, etc. in order to move. 
• Flying Carpet Relay Races-students have to move from one end of the gym to the other only using the carpets. In order to move to the next carpet they have to do the fitness component that is assigned to that carpet. 

3. How would you assess student understand of the friction principles?

• I would assess them by having them take turns explaining the principles to each other. At the end of the unit, I would have them take a small quiz asking about the principles. 

4. Explain how muscular strength and cardiovascular endurance are important aspects of this lesson.

• In this lesson we worked on ab muscles, and leg muscles, and also added in running. They were important because they are things that you need to work on with students but this lesson should the proper way to do. You shouldn't make your students run laps, and do sit ups and push ups to work on muscular strength and cardiovascular endurance, you need to incorporate them in your lessons so that students do not concentrate on the fact that they are working on these things. 

5. Conduct a search on the internet to gain bird fact information. What is our state bird? What is the smallest bird? What is the largest bird? What is unique about bird anatomy that enables them to fly? Add interesting information that you find through your search.

• Our state bird is the Easter Bluebird. The smallest bird in the world is the Bee Hummingbird, which is no bigger then a bee and only a high speed camera can capture this bird. Bird's anatomy make it so that instead of arms they have wings, and the bones in their wings are like our cartilage, very light and hollow. 

Field Experience-Day Two

Today was our second day of field experience where we actually got to meet our host teacher. She was very nice and vverrryy organized which I love since it helps keep me on track. We went through the schedule for her classes and when she expects us to teach. She also went through a different way to write objectives, which I think her way of writing them is easier to assess. She says that instead of writing: In today's lesson, students will be able to successfully bump the volleyball successfully 7 out of 10 times over the net, we should say: In today's lesson, students will demonstrate correct technique when bumping by staying low, forming a platform with arms, having hands together, and lifting with legs. The reason I side with her way of writing objectives is because it's easier to assess them, and it gives the students a detailed description of what you are actually looking for.

On to the lesson. Today they were continuing with the hand-eye coordination stations and I worked with the students who were playing pickle ball. The first thing I noticed with the students that I was working with, is that when they picked sides, the partner that they picked went across from them. So they ended up playing AGAINST their partner, which I found interesting. When we got into the class lesson, I began to see why. Kids tend to pick partners based on who they are friends with, and a lot of times, who they know can play the game. This way, if you were playing on the same court as a weaker team, there ended up being one weaker player and one stronger player on each team. Which is exactly what we want to do when teaching skills in physical education.

I got more involved with the students than I did the first day. I helped explained to them why the ball was going so high when they hit it instead of straight so I got to demonstrate my knowledge of racquet ball activities which was pretty cool. I also got to practice with intertwining cognitive assessments in the lesson but periodically asking what the score was, to make sure they were actually keeping score, and asking them to tell me the rules. I felt that I was actually teaching the students instead of just standing there observing them for once.

Lab 8 Hula Hoops

1. Explain three important benefits of hoop play.

• Hula-hoop activities can aid the development of hand-eye coordination, foot-eye coordination, and body awareness.

2. Give an example of how hoops can be used to reinforce a cognitive concept linked with classroom learning.

• When students are younger they might have trouble learning a clock, so you could make a hula hoop a clock and have students point to different times. You can also do what we did in lab and incorporate a physical component such as jump to 12 o'clock, leap to two o'clock, etc. Also, you could turn it into a stretching component  by having the students arms and legs the minute and hour hands and give them a time and have them move their body to that time. 

3. Describe how hoops can be utilized to promote growth in the affective domain.

• The activity we did in class shows how hula-hoops can utilized to promote the affective domain. The activity where we were given when we were given a skill and then a colored hula hoop to fit into where with other people is affective. You had to work with other students in order to fit inside the hula hoop. The activity at the end of the lab was also heavy in the affective domain. Students had to cooperate with each other in order to avoid bumping into each other to get to the other side of the hula hoops. 

4.  Utilize the internet to gather information about ponds and related ecology to use in your field experience teaching or future teaching.

• You could pretend the hula hoops are lily pads and that the general space around them is the pond and that you cannot go into the pond or else you can drown. You can also switch it around and have the hula hoops be the pond and the general space be the forest and you have to jump over the ponds because if you fall in you can drown. The general space can shrink until it is most pond water which keeps the kids moving. 

Make a chart of Mosston's Teaching Styles and keep a record of how many of the styles you use in your teaching.

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EDU 355 Field Experience-February 10th-First Day!

Today was my first day of field experience at Homer Jr. High where I will be observing 6th graders. I was a littler nervous when walking in, which is to be expected since I did not know what was going to happen or what my host teachers would be like, anything. However, once I was there I settled in.

The first day was pretty laid back. The students came up and said hi and it was definitely weird introducing myself as Ms. Turner. The students seemed excited to be there and all of them were dressed and ready to go. My host teacher was absent that day so I did not get to meet her but the guys host teacher talked to us about what what our master teacher would expect of us, and what they were doing in class. He said that they were currently in a dance unit, but since dance was not a favorite subject they were breaking it up with different activities so that the children did not become disinterested.

The students were having a co-ed class today, and they were split up by colored groups, which I thought was a creative way of breaking down a class, instead of using the typical squads. It also lead to easier classroom management since handling three separate groups instead of one huge class is a lot easier to handle. The teacher then assigned each group to a station. This was also a great example of classroom management since in other classrooms I have been in, teachers say okay which group wants to go here? Then the class erupts into arguments about who should go where. By telling the students where to go, the teacher saves a lot of time and effort. The students also stayed at that station the entire class, which gave them a change to have actually play the game. The stations were ladder ball, table tennis/foozeball, and pickle ball. All these games take time, and if they students were rotating the entire time, they would lose out on playing a real game, and really learning the game.

The master teacher said that the next class we would be seeing is completely different then the class we went to today. He said that this class (the class we went to today) had really good behavior, that they rarely acted up and really enjoyed the class. He said the next class there are some special need students and behavioral students that need watching.

Jump Roping

Can a child in a wheelchair enter the front door and the back door? What modifications would you make?

• This would be a very difficult task for a student in a wheelchair to accomplish.When entering the front/back door the rope is at a very low point and they student may not have time to get out of the rope before it comes down, especially if they are a younger student and do not have a lot of speed with the wheelchair. To modify this so the student does not feel left out, have the student enter the jump rope from the center.This way the rope is higher up when the student enters and it will give them more time to get out before the rope comes down. 

How would you apple a goal setting to this lesson?

• You could have the students set themselves a goal such as I can move the jump ropes this far apart and jump them and make it to the other side say 7 out of 10 times. The student this way is setting a personal goal but is also practicing the basic motor movement of jumping.  Having a goal set this way also means that they do not have to be perfect. They can miss the jump three times and still make their goal. 

Design a long rope jumping routing for a pair of students jumping at the same time.

• In this class, I would pair students up based on the timing (i.e. I would place a student who's timing is off with a student who can time the jump correctly) and have them hold hands while trying to jump into the rope. This way the student who has good timing have help the other student get their sense of timing down. At first I would have them let go of each others hands once they were in so that they can jump at their own pace, but as they get more comfortable I would have them keep holding hands and jump together. I would then let the students come up with their own routines so that the cognitive domain is active in the class.

Create a checklist of critical elements to look for and use in teaching basic, two foot rope jumping.

• The student lands on both feet.
• The rope is hitting the ground when it is being swung down
• The student isn't touching the rope with another body part while jumping
• Arms are extended

Describe how you would go about organizing a rope jumping club for your elementary school.

• First, I would make sure that I have students who are interested in participating in such a club, since forming a club where students are not interested would not be beneficial. I would make sure that the students understand that it is open to any grade, and any student who is interested in practicing their jump roping, or even learning on how to jump rope if they haven't yet. Then I would go to the principal/board of education and get permission in order to form the club.  I would send a letter home with every student so that parents understand what is being done, such as what safety measures are being taken, where the club is taking place and when. I would keep the parents involve by having Parent Nights, where they can come jump rope with their kids so it keeps parents active too. 

Stimulus Variation

• Stimulus variation is when the teacher changes the way a lesson is presented, and changes the way that they teach the lesson in order to keep the kids interested. 

Ball Handling Skills

Use the internet to search for information about turtles and how they live.
    Turtles live almost everywhere in the planet,  minus the Arctic and Antarctic. Turtles cannot take off their shells, ever, since they are used for protection but they can hear, and they do have ears. However it is the outer ear that humans have, but the inner ear that most animals possess. Turtles can live for an extremely long time. There is one kind of turtle that can live for over 200 years. Turtles can also survive on land and water, and they do take care of their young. They lay their eggs and walk away.

Identify the fitness components being addressed  in squad square fitness. Where are these components located on the New York State Conceptual Framework for K-12 Physical Education?
  The squads worked on step-ups, ski jumps, and hand walks. They worked on agility during step-ups, and almost cardiovascular endurance for all of them since every physical component included getting your heart rate up. Although there is no specific spot for agility on the New York State framework, cardiovascular endurance is found under health related fitness.



Prescribe series of ball handling skills for second grade boy or girl that is afraid of catching a ball. What kind of objects might you prescribe for throwing and catching.
    I would start with completely taking the ball away. Since most balls are hard, and even the softee versions of balls are not that soft. I would start with using a foam ball, or even a bean bag like we did depending on the comfort level of the student. I first spend time having the student throw the ball to themselves just about head level. In my coaching experience I have found that most kids fear of the ball is because someone else is throwing it and they are scared to get hit. I would increase the height of the ball depending on the students comfort level. This can be modified using many objects such as a balloon, a softee ball, a plastic play ball, all depending on their comfort level. Eventually I would work up to tossing the ball to them from a kneeling position to see if they are more comfortable.

What are some of the guidelines you would follow in pairing students for throwing and catching?
   This one is tricky because usually you don't want to pair a lower skill student with a lower skill student, but in the case of throwing and catching I believe that you should at least start off this way, just to introduce the skill and the uncomfortable feeling that is first associated with having something thrown at your face. However, as the students get better I would split them and put them with students with lower skilled students, just so they lower skilled students could get used to seeing the proper technique of throwing and catching. I would monitor them to make sure the higher skill students are not over powering the other student. Also, this makes sure that the lower skilled students are not being left behind and will not learn to hate throwing and catching.

How would you help a special needs student learn to catch that displays delayed motor control and lack of fine motor control dexterity?
     I would work with them on doing the "alligator". By this I mean that the student practices catching the ball with two hands, but without the ball. This work on his fine motor skills with his hands and still relates to the skill so they won't feel out. When I introduce a ball, I will say the alligator wants to get the ball in his mouth and I will practice, without throwing the ball yet, his timing to catch the alligators food. After they have this done, I will start actually throwing the ball, slowly so that it arcs. Progressing to faster throws, and eventually throwing a full fledged ball. This is a cue that the student will remember for the rest of their lives, so even after they can full catch a ball they will still use the alligator to remind them to watch with two hands.