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Professional Lecture Series@Baker Elementary

Professional Lecture Series January 16th, 2013 6 to 7 Pm In the Baker Gym Sponsored by the Ezra H. Baker Elementary Innovation school Possible topics for discussion which could be your own questions or about some of the following topics: P.E at the elementary level and basic purpose Health concepts Goal setting and skill building P.E. Class structure, injuries, R&R etc. Sportsmanship issues Understanding self esteem and the emotions of games Testing and goal setting within P.E Special Education considerations Medical considerations in P.E.: asthma, brain injury, concussions, children in wheelchairs. Disability awareness in P.E. Learning strategies within P.E. Executive functions and academic relationships within the P.E setting The positive side in looking at BMI as a health tool. Please return this bottom portion by MONDAY Jan. 14th, if you plan on coming and list any particular discussion topics that would be of interest to you: Yes....NAME:________________________ Topics of Interest: Thank You and looking forward to our discussion: Robert Fantaroni Kevin Raudonaitis P.E Staff @ Ezra H. Baker

Physical Education in December

This has been such a fun month, with so many exciting events scheduled for the children. The focus this month in our P.E classes has been the assessment and skill development of teaching hula hoop skills. The ability to rotate and jump through a hula hoop repetitively, while learning how to integrate the 2 bounce hop in-between jumps is an important coordination skill. While many of the children have difficulty with learning this skill, it is amazing and rewarding personally, to observe their growth in performing this complicated lead up skill. The importance of learning this basic skill is that it reinforces their skill of practicing to learn something hard and to learn that with a practice “attitude” of patience that they can improve which, they so need in learning anything that is difficult. The basic 2 bounce skill is also important in learning to coordinate and control your body in space while using other body parts in a coordinated manner and also for advanced jump roping skills later on as we introduce jump roping later on in Jan and Feb. They also had opportunities for hula hoop exploration to practice other fun hoop movements. We also play tag games related to the hula hoop use which all of the children found to be fun and everyone could find a level of success in playing their “game strategy”. Towards the end of the month we got to play some holiday theme games and please ask your child about ice skating on Baker Pond and the “snowball fight” that we had, and just sit back and observe the smile that is on their face as they tell you about it and you will get a small sense of their joy that they had when they were actually throwing those snowballs. Happy holidays Mr. Fantaroni Mr. Raudonaitis

Executive Functions In PE?

The latest link (look to left on page) helps to explain the importance of this process in learning new motor patterns and thus hopefully helps in academics. Let's talk more about this important process and how we can maximize the opportunities for children to learn and grow. I know some things about this and can learn from a sharing of ideas, so lets talk! Give a call to the P.E staff and together we can help our kids develop this important cognitive skill. People suffering Brain injuries sustain a significant deficit in this area and it becomes more obvious as to just how important this cognitive process is to lead a normal and productive life.

November Excitement @ Baker P.E. Program!

What’s happening in Physical Education in November? This month is going by quickly and we are in our football unit and will be through the month of November. The children have been introduced to the skills of: football grip and throwing techniques along with accurately throwing to a receiver for a short distance; how to place kick with proper kicking approach and techniques to kick straight with some height; punting a ball demonstrating proper punting techniques; three point stance and how to hold a football while running and having some fun in simulating diving over a bar to for a goal line touchdown dive. The laughter and smiles and thrill of scoring a touchdown without fumbling is just very thrilling for the kids and the smiles say it all!!!!!! The tag games introduced are fun and have also been designed to incorporate some aspects of football skills to reinforce learning. Introducing the children to these skills is seen as a part of a learning curve with the understanding that we are setting a baseline of knowledge upon which children can grow and improve their skills so that by the time they enter 4th grade, that they will have a good foundation for these skills. Many of the skills in this unit are common to other sports as well and so there is a commonality of skill learning that will transfer to other sports.

Measuring Physical Education against DRA scores

Physical Education at the elementary grade level has always been a difficult task to measure the benefits of growth. Sure we all know that: physical Education is important for good health, kids needing active time to play and be physically engaged and to learn good social skill developement. But how do you track it to monitor growth over a school year? To really know if physical education classes are keeping pace on a growth curve over the whole school year. At EHB we have developed a system of monitoring children's growth in Physical Edcuation over the course of the school year by tracking specific performance standards keyed to monitoring children's growth in P.E. We use the schools accepted educational standard of DRA scores to look at academic growth and will compare the academic growth with the data we accummulate to look at growth in physical education. If the DRA standard of children reaching their benchmark level is presently at 65% and their goal is to reach 80% by the end of the school year, then should we not expect the children receiving physical edcuation to also show comparable growth over the year in P.E.? So, this year will be our first year to measure the relationship and to assess children to ensure that children are demonstrating growth in P.E to ensure that children have a balance in their development....growth in the academic and physical aspects of their lives. Initial testing of this has noticed that 60% of the children who score high or low also score within those same parameters on our P.E. testing! The children who do not fall within the 60% have been looked at and some obvious opinions come forth: EEI students who have difficulty with language and score low on DRA can find success in their physical skills and thus score high, a discrepancy noted. Other children who score high on the DRA but low on our P.E. Test are children that do not appear to engage in much physical activity outside of school and who might have more arts/music interst and the factor of obesity, appears to be noted by the eyeball test (no specific data to support). But we, in P.E., can measure growth over the course of the year and so regardless of where students score in their fall P.E testing baseline, we should be able to motivate them to improve minimally by 25% in their performance over the course of a school year. You don't have to be an athlete to improve, just need students to work hard, have the understanding of the why and desire to improve and to have teacher support to guide students to try.! If you would like to know more, contact the P.E staff at the Ezra Baker School for more details and the implications for your child. Physical Education is important, and now we are making those connections that show just how important it is for children's success in order for academic performance to improve and make them successful.

Here are two images that show the path of the possible locations of the Baker Bear Path!