Native American Unit

We will be wrapping up our Native American Unit next week with the first grade classes. During this unit, students worked on attributes such as agility, co-ordination, balance and speed. The activities and games that were played illustrated how Native Americans got their food. Obstacle courses were set up using hurdles, hoops, cones, and mats to resemble hills, rivers, trees, and rocks. Students carried foam noodles through the course crawling and jumping under/over the obstacles.
Students also worked on throwing for accuracy towards a moving target and were taught to step forward towards their target with their opposite foot of their throwing hand. Students worked together in groups and tried to throw their noodle through a rolling hula hoop. Students practiced important concepts like teamwork and helping others. The unit was very exciting and students had lots of fun participating in the games and activities while learning cross cultural ideas

1st Term Grades and P.E

We have completed our grading for the first term and although hard at times to give the grades we do, we feel it important to grade the children according to what we feel they earned within the context of other children's capabilities at each grade level. We looked at skill levels, attitudes, effort, cooperation with others and class behaviors within each grade. We have talked with the children in general and sometimes specifically about their need to work with others, and/or try to perform always at their personal best, but sometimes words don't seem to convey the personal effort required and that children find it hard to do things which are not easy to do at times.
We talk about grading with the children throughout the year and they are aware that if they talked too much and/or had to sit out a game or fooled around with friends or did not try their hardest or did not play games according to the rules that their grades would be lower because of these issues.
We enjoy all of the children and hope that by trying to convey the value of their need to work hard and that to persevere when things are not always easy, that these life long skills are valuable and important to learn and will help them throughtout their lives and eventually, be much more important to learn than looking just at a grade.
We are always happy to talk with you and you are always invited to sit in on any class to see all of the important learning concepts, skills and sportsmanship issues that we try to incorporate in every class we teach.
Best wishes and hope that you talk with your children about their effort to do their very best at everything they try! It's not just be being the best althlete that is important and graded, its more about a child's effort to do their very best regardless of the task before them.

Fall Theme Stations!

Here are some of our 12 stations, all stressing various body skills, ie jumping, throwing, balance, upper and lower body coordination and strength, group cooperation and just allot of fun and excitement! The children learn to transition as they rotate stations, re-set their stations and work cooperatively to control their excitement.


The Bat Cave



The Witches Broom Ride


Spiders Web

Jumping spiders


Pumpkin bowling



Rattle those bones

New Studies show Fitness improves memory!!

Read the article on the Hippocampus part of the brain. The implications could be that with the fitness testing done at the Baker school using the Pacer test, could we identify children who have learning problems with memory. If so, could fitness training thus increase the size of the hippocampus and thus improve academic skills in the area of cognitive memory skills???? Just thinking our loud!

P.E Chatter!

Well the school year is off to a fun start. The children have been working on cooperative game skills, with the focus on soccer skills ( dribbling, trapping, passing, punting and throw-ins along with some basic soccer rules.) Along with soccer we have played various tag games and movement games with the younger children to help them with cardiovascular development and to learn movement patterns in a large, open space. The tag games also are important in helping children to listen to game rules, play by the rules and follow the rules when they are tagged, which can be hard for some of the children.

Along with the games we have tested all of the children for the cardiovascular endurance capability using the fitness gram. In this test the children run approx. 40ft. according to the pattern of music which prompts them when to run. This test is valuable because it provides us with a child's current physical condition level among their class peers, looks at their motivation and frustration capabilities, and thus giving us a snapshot in observing their ability to work thru being tired. At the end of the year we will again give the test to look at whether children did improve by a % after participating in a varied P.E program over the year.

Their performance is only one small aspect when we consider grading. The other factors are the children's attitude to try everything, their sportsmanship skills in playing games, their sense of fair play and their participation skills of good listening, not arguing, following directions and trying their personal best in all activities presented. Many children have asthma and for those children, it is valuable in observing their ability, attitude and progress in performing this task and over the course of the year.

BMI levels of children are done at the school by the school nurse. We feel this too is an important indicator for you to use as a tool in managing your children's health. The BMI scale can provide you with a picture of where your child is at in this point of time. Realizing that BMI does not account for muscle mass, nor cardiovascular conditioning. Both of those factors, should be considered along with BMI score to give you a more balanced picture of your child.

Please feel to call or inquire about any concerns, questions that you may have and we look forward to working with the children over the year.

We need sneakers!!!!

We have many children who come to physical education class without sneakers due to family budget constraints. Participation in physical education is thus affected and children cannot do their best without the proper foot ware.

If you have used children's sneakers that still have some life to them would you please consider donating them to our school to benefit our children. If you are in the position of purchasing or donating new sneakers that too would be terrific for "our kids".

Thanks so much for your consideration.

Bob and Kevin
Physical Education Staff @ Ezra Baker School

Do YOU Believe in ME!

This video was popular last year but very worth showing again! In Physical Education, we believe in every child's potential to reach healthy goals for a life time practice of good health strategies!