HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I have to say I'm so excited about the future of our P.E. program and I will share some of the reasons why in just a second. BUT FIRST... one of MY New Years Resolutions is to do a better job with updating this blog!! :) Therefore, let me give you a brief re-cap of what we did during the first semester and then I will give you a glance on what's to come! Here we go....

First Semester Units
Cooperative Games (3-5), Spatial Awareness/Locomotor Skills (K-2), Throwing/Tossing/Catching (K-5), Fitness I (K-5), Striking (K-5)

*Prior to our holiday break, we finished up a 6 week unit on striking skills (hitting). Students were able to practice the various ways to hit a ball, while also using different types of equipment. In elementary physical education, especially with the earlier grades, instruction is not designed to be sport specific. However, we relate these skills to various sports and take it a little further with grades 3-5. Students had fun practicing skills related to the following sports: hockey, golf (K-2, putting), tennis and volleyball skills. We will re-visit striking skills in the spring.

We were so excited to incorporate tennis into our lessons for the students this year. Jane Trinkle from the USTA, assisted us with some of our classes. She also provided our program with all the developmentally appropriate equipment that was needed to ensure student success.  The students excitement for learning tennis was so fun to watch and they were very well behaved. Due to the success of this particular portion of our stirking skills unit, we plan on purchasing our own equipment and perhaps take the lessons further in the future.

Check out some of our students in action below!
 

Mrs. Shine and Mrs. Trinkle (USTA Coordinator-Southeast) tossing balls to students. This activity was called the "Lobster Catch" which was a good hand/eye coordination activity. Students had to catch the ball using two racquets.





Katie gets ready to peform a Lobster Catch!



4th grade students working on forehand volleys.

 

Way to go 5th grade!!



LOOKING AHEAD...CWE P.E. 2013 GETS INTERACTIVE!

I mentioned earlier in this post, that I was so excited for what lies ahead for our P.E program. We are in the process of getting a projector for our gym, which will be used in conjunction with our lap tops and/or IPads. We are waiting on approval by the county regarding the IPads (fingers crossed!). The classrooms have interactive white boards, but having one of those in P.E. would not be suitable for our environment in the gym. However, the projector is designed specifically for a gym and will be protected from all the balls that "fly" around from time to time in the gym. There are so many apps for the IPad created for P.E. programs and when used with the projector it would create one INTERACTIVE and FUN learning environment in P.E!  Oh..don't worry...students will be moving...that is a must..there will be no sitting and watching a screen for a long period of time. We will be active!! As you can tell, Coach Brown and I are really looking forward to using technology to support our mission of teaching our students to be active and healthy over a LIFETIME!! You do not have to be a star athlete to do this either!! Hopefully, everything will be installed and ready to go within the next month or two, so we will keep you posted on the details!!

UPCOMING EVENTS...SAVE THE DATES!!

JUMP ROPE FOR HEART CELEBRATIONS- February 11th & 12th  
*All money that your child raises is due on this day. Look for JRFH packets to come home the week of January 28th.

Field Day T-Shirts: Look for order forms to go home prior to spring break.

Field Day: May 15th *We will need parent volunteers for this event!!