October 4 - October 8

I hope that you found the step challenge for the last two weeks enjoyable. The purpose of that activity was to work on setting a goal and then working to surpass that goal. Setting goals can be helpful in school in many subject areas. Make a plan to reach your goals and then come up with the steps in order to achieve it.

This week for the younger students I would like you to continue to practice locomotor skills and challenge yourself to do the following locomotor skills as you move around your house, like going back and forth to your bedroom or doing a lap around your yard. I will challenge you with a different locomotor skill for each day. Changing the way you move through out your day will help you to improve your balance and body awareness as you will have to think about the way you are moving.

Locomotor challenge: Try to move about your house or a lap or two around your house of the following locomotor skills.

Monday: Skipping

Tuesday: Sliding (moving sideways, not on your belly)

Wednesday: Walk backwards (carefully)

Thursday: Gallop

Friday: Jump like a frog or run and Leap

We also are going to focus this week on throwing. In my class we practiced throwing with a "T - L - Step and Throw" technique. This means holding a ball in your hands, you turn sideways to a target (object or person), holding the ball in one hand (the hand away from the target), Stretch your arms out to make your body into a "T" position. Next, bend your throwing hand (hand with the ball in it at the elbow). Point with your other hand toward your target. This makes your arms into an "L" shape. Then step with the same foot as your pointing hand toward your target and throw the ball. This technique will maximize the distance you can throw.

Activity: Set up a target in your yard and throw a ball toward it. It could be a large target or a small target. If you hit the target, take a step back and repeat. If you miss, try again and work on aiming with that non-throwing hand. The further away you get you may have to raise that non-throwing hand to aim higher than the object. You may also need to use a marker for where you are throwing from if you are getting further back. you could use a cone, a bucket, a stick, or a baby brother if they sit still long enough. :) Challenge a sibling or a parent to see if they can take more steps than you hitting that target.

Variation: You can repeat this with rolling a ball toward the same target or continue to practice your soccer skills by kicking a ball in between two objects that can serve as a "goal". Again challenge yourself to a further distance if you are successful.

Activity: Sidewalk Chalk Obstacle Course: Below you will find a video of an example of an obstacle course. The weather looks like it will be nice this week so get outside and get some exercise. Get creative and make your own course. You can just tell someone on the course how many of a particular exercise to do, or put a simple math problem that they have to solve in order to know how many jumping jacks to do. (example: Jumping Jacks 2 + 4 = ? or Quick feet for 5 x 2 = ? ) Challenge a sibling to complete your course or a parent. Time yourself to see how long it takes. Perform it backwards, or add a new challenge each day and see what your course looks like by the end of the week. If you live in town and don't have a driveway, add some activities to the sidewalk. (get your parent's permission first).

My classes also continued to work on catching a football. We worked on playing a game called 500 up.

Activity: 500 Up - To play this game, you have a thrower and that person throws the ball up in the air toward the other players. You can do this with just one other person, or with a few. Just make sure to be safe when trying to catch the ball so you don't hit someone else with your arms. The thrower will toss the ball and if someone catches the ball, they receive 100 points. If the ball is not caught, then the person who touches it first gets 50 points. After each catch or touch, return the ball to the thrower. Once someone gets 500 points, then they become the thrower and they switch places. If you don't have a football at home, you can play this with any type of ball or even a balled up pair of socks.