January Physical Education activities

This month we covered Basketball skills and fun games. The Basketball skills taught were: dribbling using the finger pads of the hand, double and single hand dribbling depending upon age and skill level, bounce and chest pass practice, shooting styles, and dribbling practice for short periods of time. Backyard game instruction in which the children can play at home with family and friends are: Around The World, 21, and Horse. We also played tag games in which children had to shoot a basket if tagged and they got the ball in the basket they got free as did everyone else in line and they got back into the game. The Pacer test for cardiovascular fitness was again administered. We administered this test in the Fall to get a baseline of performance for each child and determine class averages.. We then set a goal based upon a 12 % gain for this winter performance for all children. In the winter test we will again set a goal for a 13% goal and thus a 25% overall gain for the year ending in June. So far, all grades improved their overall class performance. Although not all children made a personal gain, it gives us something to work on for the final Spring score. Some children had a hard time understanding the concept of a goal and how to achieve a goal which is an important concept for us to work on for this last quarter, along with improved fitness. In the Kindergarten class we worked again on locomotor developmental skills and with these skills we have seen huge grade level improvements. Towards the end of this month we introduced pillo polo as a lead up skill to our floor hockey unit. We introduced the various ways in which to control a puck/ball, such as: carrying the puck, dribbling and stick handling. All three techniques will be carried on as we move to floor hockey skills. Overall, a terrific month in which children demonstrated improvements in their personal efforts to improve their own skill level.