Lets keep it moving!

Cortland doing it's part to Keep the movement going!

All good things must come to an end, Good-bye St. Mary's!

Our Final day at St. Mary's has come, and needless to say the time has flown by. I can honestly say that working with the St. Mary's students has been a great experience and one that I will miss dearly. To start off our final day at St. Mary's we didn't have any skill assessments. So all our the Cortland groups went with the students right away. My group once again was with the Pre-K students. Our theme for this week was Star Wars so to start off our day with the Pre-K students we did a craft where students made Yoda on a stick. When we entered the room the students were all involved in their own activities; Lego's, coloring, and other toys. We asked the students if they would like to participate in the craft. We only had a few students say yes at first. This quickly made me realize that we never should have asked the students if they wanted to do the craft but rather state that we are going to do a craft now. Quite quickly the other students got into the craft and before we knew it everyone wanted to make Yoda. The only problem was that we lost track on who had already made a Yoda because the number of students, so there were several students that made more than one Yoda. This caused problems towards the end when there was a few students that had not made a Yoda yet. We need to borrow some supplies from the other classroom, thankfully that still had supplies left, and in the end every student was able to make a Yoda. This brought to our attention that in the future we need to pay attention to the number of students making a craft and making sure that everyone had made one before there are multiples made by other students. Because our craft was so long we didn't get to read a book to the students although I was able to read to a few students while Brittney was finishing up the craft with a few students. Eventually we moved into the gymnasium where we switched and from Pre-K to special projects but because there was nothing to do we helped out with the Pre-K students in playing parachute activities. The Pre-K were not very good at listening during these activities. Thankfully the group was smaller because the Cortland Students had a difficult time keeping them under control with these activities. The students kept wanting to walk on the parachute as well as go underneath during every game. There were several attempts to get the students to follow directions and not go under the parachute for example during one activity students were suppose to around the parachute in a circle. Cortland students including myself would run around showing the students what the proper thing to do was. This technique of demonstration helped a little bit and got most of the students running around the parachute but there were still a few students that were not listening to directions. The special projects group led the whole group after the games into a song and dance. This involved Beyonce's new song, Lets move it. They had created a dance to the song which I feel was very successful and went very well. It was very impressive to come up with the dance so quickly to the song and the whole group of St. Mary's students seemed to enjoy it. Now St. Mary's is over and I'm exactly sure what to do with my Monday's. I do know that I have learned a lot with working with the St. Mary's students. I would like to say thank you to all of the St. Mary's students and staff for the experience to work as future physical educator and improve my teaching style as a teacher. My teacher style was definitely changed and formed with my experience at St. Mary's; there is no doubt that my teaching ability has grew greatly with this experience!

Here are a few moments of myself in motion. During the presentation you will see my Most positive and worst moments of motion. Being state champions of NYS was my most positive moment in motion. This was my final year of playing club soccer and we were able to take home the state title. You will see what emotions came to me as I became state champs. On the other hand you will see one of my worst moments in motion. I was playing my high school rivals in soccer. Our school had not beaten them in over 15 years. This was the year or so everyone thought. I was defending their number one striker and had him on lock all game long. It wasn't till 15 minutes left in the game where I slipped up and the striker scored. I immediately felt the pressure and weight of my team being that I was captain and my senior year. You will learn more about how I felt. With this presentation I hope you learn how students can be affected by both positive and negative moments and motion, I know i have and plan on using this information and my own experience to better the experience of future students and children.

Moments in Motion on Prezi

Happy Easter St. Mary's!

For our fifth lab at St. Mary's we had an Easter theme. Easter was the previous Sunday, the day before our lab on Monday. The students at St. Mary's were very excited to tell us about their Easter Sunday's and how they went. All of the students seemed to have a great Easter and loved the fact that they got to eat candy. You could tell they had plenty from all their energy at lab on Monday. Before we went into our groups we observed two students perform the dribbling and kicking skills. We assessed these students with a rubric from our motor development class. Both a female student and male student were being assessed by the Cortland students during the activity. Erica and Jason the two students being assessed were both able to complete and perform the required skills. The only difference between the two students was the ability to perform the skill correctly with the right cues. Jason was able to perform the dribbling of a basketball skill better in terms of following the cues compared to Erica. Her ability to do the proper cues while dribbling needed a little help and technique. Once she was properly shown she was able to perform the skill better but still needed more practice time to better her performance. When it came to the kicking of a ball Erica had great form and technique. Her ability to kick the ball correctly with all the cues was outstanding. Every kick she took had all the necessary cues that are needed to properly kick a ball. Jason was very impressive as well, the only improvement Jason needed to do was working on his follow through as well as inclining his trunk backward during contact of the ball. Both students did a great job with the skill assessment today all around. After the skill assessment we went into our groups. My group was working with the pre-k today. This was my first time working with the pre-k students, needless to say i was pretty excited. Our group split up and Brittney and I went into one classroom while Rob and Austin went into the other classroom. Brittney had planned a great craft for them. The craft was a brown paper bag easter bunny. This involved coloring the easter bunny, gluing him to the paper bag and putting cotton on the Easter bunny. The students loved the craft. Right away we had students wanting to participate in the craft just by showing them a finished project and very quickly we got more and more students participating in the craft. Because we had the whole class doing the craft, it too a little longer and before we knew it, it was time for snack for the kids so we all helped clean up including the students, they went and washed their hands and came back for snack. We still had a few minutes left once the kids had the snack so I was able to read the students a book which I feel the students enjoyed very much. Now onto the gymnasium where the physical activity begins. We started our group out with a game by Rob. I thought Rob did a phenomenal job this week with getting the students enthusiastic about the game and ready to play. You could tell that Rob had all of their attention and the students were all wanting to play his game. The next activity we played was mine. I had a little more trouble getting the students to listen to me at first. The students were still following Rob instead of listening to me. Once i got the students settled down and sitting in front of i was able to quickly explain what we would be doing and started the game right away. My game used more cognitive domain aspect as the students need to match up the same color eggs as well as the same sizes before doing a locomotor movement back to their bunny holes. Overall i feel that my activity went well. This week's lab I would have to say was one of the best one's so far. There was so much enthusiasm and energy from all of the Cortland students which in return had the St. Mary's students very enthusiastic about the activities. I didn't see every group but the ones I did see, I have to applaud everyone and say Great Job!

St. Mary's Lab 4

I was not able to attend the assigned date for Lab 4 at St. Mary's but i made up this lab by going to another lab date. I am part of the Monday lab group but for my make up lab i attended the Wednesday lab. This was a very good experience for me. It was a chance for me to be able to observe different groups in my class and learn from their experiences as well. The lab that i attended was during the Easter theme. I had participated in the Easter theme lab two days prior with my normal lab group and had a great experience. My experience on Wednesday was just as important for my learning experience. To start off i want to talk about the motor development skill i observed while at the lab. I observed two students, a male and a female perform the overhand throw and catch. Both students were able to perform both skills quite well. The young girl was a little more skilled on performed the overhand throw and catch with the proper cues. I feel this might have been because the young girl was listening to our instructions and following them correctly. She was having a controlled through to her partner but the young boy on the other hand was just throwing the ball as high and hard as he could. This caused problems on his control as well as using the proper cues during the skills. Next onto the rest of the lab. Because I was part of the special project group during the lab date I was not able to attend i joined in with the special project group on this day as well. We were to clean all the closets were the equipment went which didn't take very long at all. Once the closets were clean we joined in with other activities and helped out where we could. In my opinion I wasn't very impressed with the amount of participation and interaction between the students and the Cortland students. I felt that there were a lot of Cortland students that were just standing around and trying to pass the time. I feel that is the completely wrong thing to do. We as Cortland students have been given a great opportunity to participate and learn first hand with students, and it just seemed like there were several Cortland students that didn't want to be there. As a future physical educator you should enjoy every moment with the St. Mary's students, which I feel I do. So compared to my regular lab day on Monday I was surprised with the amount of effort from Wednesdays lab groups. Not to say that no one was participating, because there were plenty of Cortland students that were. I just feel that there were many Cortland students that were wasting their experience with the St. Mary's students. This was a good experience for me because I feel that in my Monday lab, there is 100% enthusiasm and participation by the Cortland students and that is the kind of attitude and activity that will not only help the St. Mary's students but get them motivated for activity.

Shiminey Crickets rockin' the mic!

My lab group for motor development made a video for one of the chapters in our book for the class. Our chapter was on Rudimentary manipulative abilities. Watch this video to learn plenty of information on development of movement in children and to get a good laugh. Hope you enjoy the video as much as our group did to make it!

A picture is worth a thousand words

Here's a little bit of my experience with the student's at St. Mary's school. You can see the collage of my experience or watch my video of my experiences through and with physical activity!

Yee haaa! Western theme Lab at St. Mary's

We participated in our lab three at St. Mary's this past week. This week we had a western theme that went very well. The lab started off great with the students really getting involved in the theme and the Cortland students costumes. Everyone did a great job this week with dressing up. There was almost an 100% rate of Cortland students that dressed up this week for the lab. This is very important to get the students involved in the activities that they are about to participate in. Especially for the younger students in Pre-K and Kindergarten. Dressing up only gets the students more involved in the activities to come.
I would have to say that today's lab was a great success. I started off in the cafeteria with my lab group working with grades 2-5. I noticed that this week the students were much more willing to engage in conversation with the Cortland students. The St. Mary's students are much more comfortable and didn't hesitate to ask a Cortland student to do an activity with them. I was playing lego's with a few young boys. The boys that i worked with while playing lego's were a little hyper and not exactly following directions. I needed to point out some rules and manors for the couple students but after stating them the students were very understanding and followed directions. I think that this is a good step in the right direction with connecting with the students.
Eventually we moved up to the gym where it was our turn to set up activities for the students. The students were very excited to play the activities. But it seemed that there were a few students that just wanted to play basketball or other activities than the ones we had planned. It was a little difficult at first to get all the students rounded up when we got them in the gym. But after a few minutes of setting up we got the students attention and started the activities. One difficulty we had was with the students attention at first. I feel that this was more difficult because we needed to set up or activities which took a few minutes to do. It would have been easier if we already had the activities set up but because we were in the cafe, we were not able to do so. Once we got into the activities i feel the students really were having fun. The students really responded to Rob's activity with the poly spots. The students were very interested in finding what poly spots had the treasure underneath it. I thought that Brittney did a great job with connecting with the students and getting their attention. She got down at the students level and the students really appreciated that. You could tell because they were very interested in her activity, all of the students were sitting quietly and waiting for her instructions. When it came to my activity i was very pleased with the students attention. There were a few outburst from the students but when it came time for me to check for understanding the students responded quickly and correctly. Overall i was very pleased with lab three at St. Mary's. The students really enjoyed the activities that they participated in. I was very pleased with the fact that when it came time for free time the student's didn't just flock to playing basketball. We were able to get the students to play other games such as four-square as i did with a couple students. I was very pleased with this because it gave a chance to connect with the students. It let me know that the students trusted our knowledge of the activity and were willing to try different things than what they normally do.

Physical Activity and Fitness Enhancement Presentation

To help learn the material better for future use and knowledge our class was split up into our lab groups and designated a chapter to present to the class. This presentation not only helped myself learn the information better but it also is a tool for the rest of the class to use.

St Mary's Lab 2

We recently had our second lab at St. Mary's school. I feel that this lab went very well. You could see the increased amount of confidence in the Cortland students from already be their once and getting to know the surroundings as well as some of the children better. The St. Mary's students were very excited for us to be there, especially when they noticed the good group of Cortland students that dressed up for the Cartoon theme. The Cortland students that dressed up immediately had a great connection with the students. They were asking about our costumes and the brought a bond and a way to connect with the students as well. It was very noisy in the gymnasium today, their was a lot of energy being released by all of the students. This increased the challenge of having the students participate in the activity's safely. It was very important during this lab to get the students settled down, quickly give instructions, check for understanding and get the students moving. If you had them sit down for too long you were going to lose them because of the amount of energy they had. While working with the older students i noticed their attention spands today were even shorter than i thought they would be. Each game you introduced you needed to add a flare to it or else the students didn't want to play it and thought it was boring. But once you got the game started the student were having a lot of fun and getting a good work out in through the activity. During the beginning of lab today we were able to assess a couple of St. Mary's students on a few of their Loco-motor skills. The student assessment went well and was a great start to the day. From the beginning with student assessments to the end where we were able to get the older students to participate in an large game of ultimate Frisbee instead of playing basketball; i'd say the whole day was a great success and am very happy with the days outcome.

A group of four, or four groups of one?

As an assignment in my PED 201 class I and my lab group were assigned to do a power-point presentation on a chapter in our book. There is myself and three other lab partners. We all decided to read the chapter and split the objectives up so we all got an even amount of the work. The only problem was that we all did just our objectives. The power-point was online and therefore we did not meet outside of class to talk about the presentation. We all put up our slides, and the necessary information. When all of our slides were finally done, i went back and looked at the presentation. I was not happy with what we had done to say the least. Doing a presentation is like telling a story, you need to have a certain rhythm and flow to the presentation and ours from my eyes was the complete opposite. You can tell the four people put their own ideas in each slide and did not talk about making a comparison or rhythm to each slide. After watching a presentation go today in class, I along with my group members decided we needed to change up our presentation. We all decided on a date this weekend where we can get together and make our presentation better as a group and not individuals. When working with a group of people it is important that you cooperate and work off each other rather than everyone giving their own ideas. Combining and building off each others ideas is a much more successful situation and for the most part the group as a whole will be happier. While i am talking about a presentation with my lab partners, this message goes out to all activities, events, sports, etc. Taking criticism from your peers as well as giving positive feedback can truly make the difference in something that is just okay and something that is great. Teamwork is the best option!

St. Mary's Lab 1 assessment

Lab 1 questions

Putting a SPARK in your day

This past weekend i attended a SPARK program that was held at SUNY Cortland. If you haven't heard of it you should look into it. It's a great program that gets you certified in SPARK, an up and coming program in the world of physical education. The course wen't from 830-330 and was a lot of fun all around. We learned several new techniques of teaching students. As well as several new games. There is plenty more information that i now have at my disposal through online websites provided by SPARK. http://www.sparkpe.org/

Tagtastic!

Today was our first day at St. Mary's school. To be blunt, it couldn't have gone any better. Today was an all around success. We started off by jumping right into games with the kids by playing several different versions of tag. Needless to say the kids had a great time and it wore them out as well. I have to give a congratulations to all of my peers and myself for doing a great job getting involved right off the bat with the kids and running their own activities. This past weekend i learned about the 80-20 rule and today was a perfect example of using it. While most of the kids understood what they were suppose to do in each tag game a few of them didn't so instead of standing around and explaining it better we got right into the activities and better explained it to the kids that didn't understand what they were suppose to do. I had a blast today with the kids. They all were very excited for each activity as they could barely wait for instructions to start to the games. Getting them under control was a challenge at some points but that was to be expected and i feel we all did a great job with handling the situation. Can't wait to have the next lab at St. Mary's. I know the kids as well as my fellow peers will have a great time as we did today!

Creating exercise through movement

Today we had lab and  I didn't really know what to expect. But when we were done i  completely understood the importance of basic movement skills. After only a few minutes of doing physical activities through obscure games i was sweating and my heart beat was up. I realized how with just a few different types of equipment, space and enthusiasm you can create physical fitness to its best. Especially with a large group of people you might have trouble finding a way to get everyone's heart rate up and giving them a good workout. But with the use of your imagination and creativity you can create unlimited number of physical activities that will give you great physical fitness in return. Not only did i feel like i got a great workout during the activities but i know that i was learning and using my brain during the activities. Which is an important concept that we are learning as future physical educators. I had a blast during the lab today and can't wait for the next time when we get to work with the kids from St. Mary's! Hope everyone had as good of a time as i did.

Importance of fundamental skills summary!

In today’s world a high quality physical education program can do a major difference in children’s life all the way through their adult years. It’s these quality education programs that create the physically educated people today. During these programs it is of great significance that the development and assessment of skill is of top notch. With the proper education of these skills we are helping these children build into their adult lives with the right skills to perform a variety of physical activities. Not only are we giving the children the ability to learn skills but we are giving them the knowledge to lead a life full of physical activity. The children will be able to understand the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle. Children are born as regular movers and as they keep growing it is necessary for them to learn the basic skills so when they progressively get older they can participate in the sport specific drills and have confidence when they do so. Learning these basic skills will not only benefit them physically in the future but it creates a feeling of belonging. They can develop great self-concept and positive socialization skills through these skills. So having a high quality education program that has a high priority on the development and assessment of these skills does so much more for a child than just physical fitness. This is why the assessment and development of children’s basic skills so important to their overall related health. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.the-parenting-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/free-hidden-object-games-6.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.the-parenting-magazine.com/tag/school/&usg=__d3u6LKUluRr5cBMijm8jQzBTbCw=&h=1000&w=1504&sz=113&hl=en&start=0&sig2=voJkiOea6DggCZqhpyVKZA&zoom=1&tbnid=nOeF3ehgpKlU8M:&tbnh=102&tbnw=154&ei=H5dHTZ5xhIKUB7jDnNAE&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dphysically%2Beducated%2Bchildren%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D667%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10,27&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=761&vpy=50&dur=4988&hovh=183&hovw=275&tx=75&ty=204&oei=C5dHTfffFYGClAeEjc2mBA&esq=4&page=1&ndsp=33&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0&biw=1366&bih=667

Lets get started!

Getting started with a blog was not as easy as i thought it was going to be. I am not too big on technology and as a consequence i am not very good at navigating the technological world. Creating this blog was a difficult task for me. Now that i got the blog started, hopefully I can improve my skills using technology. I just started in the P.E major after changing majors from athletic training. I am still new to the P.E world and wasn't able to do much over break about improving my teaching ability. Also because i wasn't able to get into this class till mid-week of drop/add period i was unfortunate to attend the first class and lab. But my plan is get back on track with the class this coming week.