September

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Lower Grades:

The lower grades started the year focused on moving safely throughout the gym. They moved at different speeds, different levels, using different parts of their bodies, and by using different locomotors. They explored their creativity while using scarves, bean bags, and hula hoops.

What SHAPE America standards are we working on?

-Performs locomotor skills (hopping, galloping, running, sliding, skipping) while maintaining balance [S1.E1.K]

-Differentiates between movement in personal (self-space) and general space [S2.E1.Ka]

-Travels in general space with different speeds [S2.E3.K]

What activities are we doing?

Traffic Time: Students pretend to drive a car in order to practice moving around the gym with control and return to their "home base" spots. They practice using awareness in order to avoid crashes and listen for the start and stop signal.

Animal Junction: The instructor calls out an animal and students move across the area like it. This activity allows us to explore animals that move fast or slow, are big or small, and move on 2 feet or 4.

Airplane Pilots: In this activity, we hold our arms out to the side like airplane wings. Being aware that now we take up more room, we use our awareness to fly safely around the gym and stop on the signals.

Zoo Keepers: Different stuffed animals are hidden under buckets. Each round, we flip over a bucket and move as that animal. This allows us to practice different levels and speeds.

4 Corners: This activity practices decision making and provides an introduction to fair play. A cone is placed at each corner of the playing area. When the music stops, students should choose a cone to stand next to. If the color they choose matches the color that is rolled by the dice, they enter the middle for a quick dance party.

Hula Hoop Road Trip: This activity practices locomotor movements, various pathways, and listening skills. Students hold a hula hoop around their body as a "car" and follow different instructions (ex: "bumpy road," "school crossing," "stuck in the mud," "out of gas")

River Bank: This is a physically active brain teaser. Students stand on a line on the floor. When the instructor says "River," they jump on the line. When the instructor says "On the Bank," they jump behind it. Once students are comfortable, we add more commands and get tricky.

Scarves: Scarves are one of the first pieces of equipment that kindergarteners used this year. We practiced following along to the movements in a song ("Rhythm in the Scarves"), creating shapes to different tempos of music, and an introduction to tossing.

Bean Bags: After scarves, we applied our skills to bean bags. We practiced following along to the movements in a song ("Bean Bag Bop"), different balance options, and started exploring manipulating the beanbag as we stretched & curled our bodies

Warmups:

"Let's Go Swimming": This warmup practices differentiating and moving in personal vs. general space. This has become a favorite video where students pretend to be goldfish and follow along to silly actions in their personal space. When it is time for the goldfish to go swimming, they move around general space.

"Stop & Go": This warmup song has us practicing the movements of walking, jumping, galloping, skating, and tiptoeing as well as listening for the "freeze" signal.

"Baby Shark": A well-known song that we have added to to create an upper body warmup.

What SHAPE America standards are we working on?

1st Grade:

-Hops, gallops, jogs and slides using a mature pattern [S1.E1.1]

-Travels demonstrating low, middle and high levels [S2.E2.1a]

-Travels demonstrating a variety of relationships with objects (over, under, around, through) [S2.E2.1b]

-Differentiates between fast and slow speeds [S2.E3.1a]

2nd Grade:

-Runs with a mature pattern [S1.E2.2a]

-Travels showing differentiation between jogging and sprinting [S1.E2.2b]

-Varies time and force with gradual increases and decreases [S2.E3.2]

What activities are we doing?

*Sometimes you may see the same activity listed for multiple grade groups. While the objective of the activity may be similar, it is modified to fit the skill level of that group.

Traffic Time: Students pretend to drive a car in order to practice moving around the gym with control and return to their "home base" spots. They practice using awareness in order to avoid crashes and listen for the start and stop signal.

Airplane Pilots: In this activity, we hold our arms out to the side like airplane wings. Being aware that now we take up more room, we use our awareness to fly safely around the gym and stop on the signals.

Magician Tag: This activity reviews both locomotor skills and acceptable tagging practices. Each pool noodle represents a different locomotor. If a noodle tags you, that is the locomotor you do until tagged again by someone else.

4 Corners: This activity practices decision making and provides an introduction to fair play. A cone is placed at each corner of the playing area. When the music stops, students should choose a cone to stand next to. If the color they choose matches the color that is rolled by the dice, they enter the middle for a quick dance party.

Hula Hoop Road Trip: This activity practices locomotor movements, various pathways, and listening skills. Students hold a hula hoop around their body as a "car" and follow different instructions (ex: "bumpy road," "school crossing," "stuck in the mud," "out of gas")

Zoo Keepers: Different stuffed animals are hidden under buckets. Each round, we flip over a bucket and move as that animal. This allows us to practice different levels, speeds, and weight transfers

Locomotor Colors: Each pool noodle slice represents a different locomotor. Students come to the middle, select their color, and do the corresponding movement to put their piece into the corresponding bucket

Plank Tag: In our first tagging game of the year, there were 3 roles to play: tagger, runner, hula hoop person. If tagged, students form a pushup position. Any one with a hula hoop can run over to help. After crawling through the hoop, the student is back in the game. This game focused on turn-taking, fair play, and helping classmates

Hula Hoops: These grades have begun to manipulate equipment with hula hoops. They've taken an opportunity to explore what tricks hula hoops are capable of and practiced rolling for accuracy

Mindfulness: We end many classes with a mindfulness moment to allow our bodies to take a breath and transition to classroom-ready

Upper Grades:

The upper grades started the year with cooperative and problem solving activities. These activities promote collaboration, communication, and cooperation--skills necessary for physical activities, games, and sports. Some of these activities are partnered, some are small teams, and some are with the entire class.

What SHAPE America standards are we working on?

3rd Grade:

-Recognizes the concept of open spaces in a movement context [S2.E1.3]

-Exhibits personal responsibility in teacher-directed activities [S4.E1.3]

-Works cooperatively with others [S4.E4.3a]

4th Grade:

-Exhibits responsible behavior in independent group situations [S4.E1.4]

-Accepts players of all skill levels into the physical activity [S4.E4.4b]

What activities are we doing?

*Sometimes you may see the same activity listed for multiple grade groups. While the objective of the activity may be similar, it is modified to fit the skill level of that group.

Partner Mixer: Students travel along the outside of the gym. When the music stops, they head to the middle, find a partner and perform the handshake of that round (ex: air high five, air low five). To interact with many members of their class, each round, students are challenged to find a different partner

Rock, Paper, Scissors Knockout: Students have the opportunity to interact with many classmates in this warmup game as they try to win 3 rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors

Pass the Chicken: In this cooperative challenges, groups try to progress through 3 levels as they pass a rubber chicken around using just their hands, then their elbows, then their feet.

Line Your Manners: In this warm-up game, students practice playing fair and their reactions to winning and losing.

Tobble Tubes: With this new piece of equipment, students played many games involving agility, strategy, and teamwork

Robotic Lab: One partner is a robot while the other is the engineer. Engineers work to safely steer their robots around the gym by tapping them with a pool noodle.

Noodle Pass: In this cooperative challenge, small groups strategize to pass pool noodles around the circle in various ways.

Mastermind: Based on the board game, this is a small team problem solving activity involving best guesses, memory, and communication.

What SHAPE America standards are we working on?

5th Grade:

-Accepts, recognizes and actively involves others with both higher and lower skill abilities into physical activities and group projects [S4.E4.5]

-Engages in physical activity with responsible interpersonal behavior [S4.E1.5]

6th Grade:

-Cooperates with a small group of classmates during adventure activities, game play, or team-building activities [S4.MS.G6]

What activities are we doing?

*Sometimes you may see the same activity listed for multiple grade groups. While the objective of the activity may be similar, it is modified to fit the skill level of that group.

Partner Mixer: Students travel along the outside of the gym. When the music stops, they head to the middle, find a partner and perform the handshake of that round (ex: air high five, air low five). To interact with many members of their class, each round, students are challenged to find a different partner

Rock, Paper, Scissors Knockout: Students have the opportunity to interact with many classmates in this warmup game as they try to win 3 rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors

Noodle Slices: Small groups work together to stack noodle slices between their hands in a relay race and then to balance as many as possible on a group member.

Chicken Taco Tag: This is a tag game where no one is ever out.

Line Your Manners: In this warm-up game, students practice playing fair and their reactions to winning and losing.

Mass Pass: Students pass a ball to each other in a pattern and add in a new ball after each successful attempt.

Two Person Parachute: Part of the group holds and moves the partner parachute as they try to catch the objects thrown by the rest of the team.

Stations (Noodle Run, Color Match, Topple Tube Tic Tac Toe): Students participated in a variety of stations requiring cooperative play.

Omnikin: What fun to play with a ball that is taller than us!

Shipwrecked: In this finale activity to our Cooperative Unit, an entire class tried to progress from one side of the gym to the other using only "lifeboats" and "shipwrecked" objects. It was incredible to watch all the teamwork opportunities!