Football and Fitness

        Do you ever have one of those days where a lesson just comes together?  I had that today, as recently as an hour ago.  I would say my weakness as a PE teacher is teaching the younger grades (K-1).  It's my fault, not theirs.  I lack patience to get my point across, often I have to set back and take a few deep breaths, and remind myself that these are someone's babies....my babies didn't/don't know how to do everything they are asked, and these babies (kids) are no different.  Fast forward to today.  We are working on throwing a football (catching too, but...not yet...one thing at a time).  We had a great game for the older kids, but I knew it simply would not work for the younger kiddos.  No way.   Time to improvise.  We tried several things (Thanks Adam), some worked...some not.  The kids never knew if it was "working" or not, but I SURE DID!  Finally this afternoon it came together.....

Keeping in mind that we have already worked on T-L-Step and throw I gave the kids the following directions. 
1.   You must throw from a RED LINE only...any red line that was around the cones.
2.  You are trying to knock the ball off the cone (throwing with a purpose).
3.  If you knock the ball off you get a point, and you must put the ball back on the cone.
4.  You can only throw from the red line, any RED LINE!
5.  You must RUN to get your ball. 
6.  You may ONLY throw from a RED LINE!

     So, you get my point!  Guess what, it worked!  Sure there were a few kids who struggled with that RED LINE thing, but generally speaking, it was great.  Everyone got to throw the ball several times, we were doing some math, we were moving our bodies, and of course we were HAVING FUN!  Nothing fancy about this lesson, but it worked! It worked well enough that I think I am going to add some elements and make it work for older grades as well. 

    Last night I took part in the first every Dodge City Elementary twitter chat #DCelem...join us every second Monday of the month from 7:30-8:30! It was awesome to get on twitter and chat away.  Such a great/simple way to network/learn/grow/etc.  This made me think about our ipads, and how I seriously CANNOT WAIT for our kids to get them back!  I am just about to explode at the thought of using Augmented Reality in my classroom!  Sounds crazy right?  Look up an app call AURASMA.  There is another one called DAQRI that will be great as well.  Imagine your students scanning (not the word I am looking for but it will work) over a basketball, and a video about basketball pops up on their ipad screen....yep, that cool!  This #PEGEEK cannot wait to check it out!

I gotta go!  Activities committee meeting and watching some volleyball are on the agenda!

Go make a difference, and a twitter account.

AB