Reflection on St. Mary's Day 3

For Day 3 all of us decided on a theme to give the kids a little excitement. The theme was "Sports." I was extremely excited for this theme because I love sports, especially football, and I was getting the opportunity to represent my favorite team. When I arrived to the school and walked in the gym, not only did I see every single Cortland student wearing a jersey, but also saw a smile on every kids face.

 Most of them are old enough to understand sports teams and even know specific players. I was wearing a Ladanian Tomlinson jersey, a runningback for the New York Jets, and when we were having a catch with the football as the kids were sitting down, they were yellin out "Tomlinson, throw it here!" The kids were even being negative to some other Cortland students who were wearing jerseys of players they did not like. For example, Eric was wearing a Mark Sanchez jersey, the new quarterback for the New York Jets, and the kids said things like, "You have a terrible arm!" Beside the fun from the jerseys, we played some really fun games too.

"Speed Ball" was a fan favorite. It consisted of soccer, basketball and handball so there was three different ways to score. Shotting the ball in the hoop was 3 points, kicking the ball in the soccer net was 2 points, and throwing the ball in the sovver net was 1 point. The kids really got into this game and we even had some trickle over to it from other activities because they saw how much fun everyone was having. Some of them are very talented and I was taken back by a few of them. The goalie for my team made a save, walked up about three steps and punted the ball. It went soaring across the gym and directly into the opposing basketball hoop. I could not believe that this young boy had just accomplished that. I most likely could not achieve that task. Anyway, everyone that witnessed this happen went absolutely crazy, a kid on the other team actually ran over and gave the goalie a high-five. It was pretty cool to witness sportsmanship like that at such a young age. I havent seen a bigger smile on a kids face in a while and it was a great end to my day at St. Mary's.

Reflection of St. Mary's Day 2

On this day I was presenting a game to a very young group of kids, the 1st and 2nd graders. I had a solid lessson plan and a pretty fun and adventurous game. The name of the game was called "animals and machines." the concept of the game was to establish a partner where on of them was an "animal" and the other a "machine." After figuring out who was each aspect of the game, they then had to pick an animal and a machine to be. So if the animal decided to be a cow then the sound that child had to make was "Mooo." on the machine side, if the child chose to be a clock, the sound they had to make was "tick-tock."Tthe point of the game was to the animals seperate from their partner and make the sound of the animal that they had chosen. the machines would then be blind-folded and have to try and locate their partner by only listening to the sound of the animal that their partner had chosen.

Once the partner was found they had to "hop" back to me and they would be finished. Then the animals and machines would switch roles and play again. Going into the introduction I had the kids full attention and they seemed really excited to play my game. Unfortunately I struggled with explaining the game because the children just did not understand the cioncept. One child even started crying because he wanted to be a machine instead of an animal. It started going downhill and I finally through a curveball and just said everyone hop around and make the sound of your animal or machine.  What I learned from this occasion was that as a teacher, if the activity is not explained to young children quickly and easily, they will be lost and not understand anything. I'm glad that this happenned to me because even though I was instructed about this possibly happenning, I now know with my own experience.

Lab B

Teaching today did not feel weird at all. I felt like I have been doing it for twenty years because it was just so natural and fluent. In Lab A2 I was still studdering my words and pausing to think about what I wanted to say but for Lab B everything I said came out smooth. I think I was finally comfortable being in front of my peers and instructing them on performing a task. Even though the cross-over was a pretty difficult skill, the majority of the class conquered it. That made me feel even better because I feel that I was a factor in them learning the skill. All-in-all I'de say Lab B was a success.

I'm the Jump-Rope specialist!

BIG

HUG

"Snorkle Monster on 3... 1-2-3 SNORKLE MONSTER!"

To Dodge or Not To Dodge?

Dodge ball is looked at like the "devil" of physical education activities. I personaly do not believe that because there are plenty of positives from the activity. Teamwork, sportsmanship, hand-eye skill, and agility are all fundamental aspects of dodge ball. Yes there are some controversial parts of the game, but as physical educators it is our responsibility to adapt and eliminate those threats.

Reflection on Lab A2

This second time around, unfortunately, I don't feel that I improved much. I still used "um" and paused even more in between words and sentences. Although I did know that I was being timed, I still did not get to finish my intended plan. There were a few points that I knew what i wanted to say but the words came out slow because I was trying to words them to sound better. I did not like that I was over analyzing things. To credit myself now, I feel that I spoke louder and somewhat clearer. I interacted with the students a bit more by giving them the chance to have a competition and see if they could use me as their target to roll and throw the ball at to work on the skill they had just learned.

Reflection on St. Mary's Day 1

Going to St. Mary's Elementary School for the first time was an absolute blast. I walked into the building not knowing what to expect and what I got was great. The kids just had so much energy to give. Even if I was tired and didn't want to be there, those kids would have changed my attitude within minutes with all of their spunk and liveliness. The groups were split up and I was pared with the 1st and 2nd grade students. We stayed in the gymnasium and played different games with them. I ended up walking around the entire gym standing on two buckets attached to strings. I honestly do not know how they didn't collapse under my feet. Then we all went outside and the amount of tag that we played with the students was more than I have played in the past 10 years combined. I was sweating and out of breathe but every moment was worth it to keep a smile on all those students face. Having them see all of us college students running around and laughing gave them even more of a reason to be young and fun. I can not wait to go back for another adventure.

First Day Teaching of EDU 255 Lab A1

For Lab A1 I was nervous because I did not have anything prepared and was a bit surprised that we were actually teaching on the first day. We were given equipment to teach whatever we thought was appropriate so I decided to teach the proper technique to throw, roll, and punt the soccer ball back into play as the goal keeper. I chose this because I had previously taught a session about these techniques at my prior university and had retained the knowledge of the lesson plan. The only downfall I had with making that choice was that the first time I taught these skills, I was given up to 45 minutes to teach. This time around I was only allowed 4 minutes total. Then on top of that, i came in a minute late so I did not hear the initial instructions of what we were to be doing that day, so I did not even hear that we were only allowed to have 4 minutes to teach our seminar. Critiquing my performance I would say that I definitely need to work on my pauses and saying "um." Also, working on communicating with the students while they are performing the task would be beneficial.