Phew....the assessment world!

     It's been too long since I have been able to blog!  Busy, very very very BUSY!  Like every teacher out there, the months of April and May are jammed full of stuff for me to do.  It also tends to be such an exciting time of the year. This has certainly been the case at Linn!
       We hosted the Body Venture walk last week.  This is a pretty cool interactive exhibit.  I am lucky enough to have a PTO that is willing to pay for this to come to our school every three years.  There is a bit of work involved in the set up and take down, as well as finding volunteers to work inside the exhibit. Despite this, it's awesome.  The kids love it, and they do not even realize how much they are learning while they are doing it.  The day after I asked for three facts about the Body Venture.  They gave me like 15 facts without a problem! Here is a link to check out Body Venture if you are not familier with it! Body Venture
     Our district hosted a Student Growth Measure workshop put on my KAHPERD this month.  I was thrilled when I learned I would not have to travel out of town to get this knowledge.  Basically this means that in the very near future, as a group (Elementary PE teachers in our district), we will have to decided a grade level of students that we agree on, to assess in three or four different skills.  Like the name says, we will have to show GROWTH.  This kind of put everyone in a frenzy (including myself).   After this workshop, I felt a lot better about this.   I have said before assessing is my weakness.  But, I am learning, and I can see myself getting better at it.  So, after this workshop, I felt a little spark to get the ball rolling. 
   We are currently working on our fitness gram fitness tests.   This is something our district choose to take part in a few years ago.  We are required to test our 3rd-5th graders twice a year.  Fitness skills such as push ups, curl ups, PACER, trunk life and sit and reach are assessed.  In addition, we also check height and weight at this time.  I am not going to lie, this is not one on my favorites parts of my job.  BUT, I approached with a new perspective this time.   Again, I should have been approaching it this way for a long time, but ALAS, I haven't!  (I can't believe I just used the word ALAS)???  I decided that rather than cramming it in two weeks, we were going to spread it out.  And, we were going to learn ALOT about each part of the fitness tests.    Example, for each test we are learning what physical fitness component we are working on when we take the test.  What is being measured?  That's the question we are asking each and every day.  While waiting to have our push up test administered, we are working on cardio vascular endurance while completing and obstacle course.  While  waiting to take our trunk lift test (measuring flexibility), we are doing a cross fit type AMRAP workout, focusing on muscular strength and endurance.  Yes, my gym is a BUSY place these days.   But, you know what?  It's awesome!  The kids are LEARNING SO MUCH! How does all of this tie into assessment?  I am assessing as we go.  A couple of days ago, we were working on our push ups.   I had the students bring their ipads.  Right before class, I created a ONE question exit ticket on SOCRATIVE asking  "What is being measured when we take the PACER test?"  It had been a few days since we worked on PACER, so I knew this would be a great way to check their learning.  Monday, we will do the same thing with Push Ups, then Trunk Lift.  SOCRATIVE makes it so easy, with just one little top of my finger, all of the answers are saved to my GOOGLE DRIVE for me to view at my convienence! PERFECT!  When we complete the fitness tests, we will do a TEST on all of the exit ticket questions.  So, here is the low down. 

1.  I do not have 250 pieces of paper stacked on my desk for each question. Instead I have them stored on my ipad. 
2.  Socrative tells me if they got it right or wrong, no "GRADING" needed.
3.  My kids are learning about fitness by physically doing it AND by thinking about it.....ENOUGH SAID!
4.  I didn't have to spend ANY extra time to accomplish all of this!
5.  I should get paid by SOCRATIVE....or APPLE! Kidding of course!


 Added Bonus: PE VOCABULARY is GROWING!!!

Get connected.  I'm a better teacher because of my PLN. 

Enjoy your weekend!
AB

 Check out this 5th Graders awesome push ups....if only they could all do them like this.  (Me included).

My PE world?

     Fresh off of spring break, I dove head first into a new world!  This past Monday, I did my first paid in-service for another school district.  I have presented ipads in PE to my fellow PE teachers, as well as through KAHPERD. I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous.  I say a "little", not to be cocky, but I just love the stuff I get to share.  I also happen to love to share! :)  It was awesome.  I loved it.  As part of my intro., I talked about how I got to this point in my career.  I'm guessing that a majority of the people who read my blog already know this, so if you do, skip the next paragraph!
   Rewind my book of life about 7 1/2 years and you would find me in the career I initially went to college for.  I was serving as the Sports Director for my local parks and recreation department.  I had just entered my 5th year in this job.  It was a job I loved.  After all, I got my degree in Recreation management.  I was an intern for the sports director before me, and viewed the job as my dream job.  I was decent at what I did, but man did I work a lot.  ALOT!  In addition to working a lot, I was stressed.  ALOT! My oldest son was 4 1/2 years old.  My husband and I wanted a sibling for him.  We wanted one badly.  In the three years leading up to this point, we experienced two miscarriages, my father was diagnosed with cancer and died four months later, and my hometown (where my mom, brother and family all lived) was wiped off the map as a result of a F5 tornado.  Stressed, oh you cannot imagine.  While setting at my desk one day, I got a phone call.  On the other end of the line was an administrator asking if I had ever considered teaching PE.  Fast forward a few weeks, and BAM, I was getting ready for the first day of school, as a PE teacher.  As a child, my father told me multiple times, that I should be a teacher.  I ignored him for 27 years.
   I happen to be blessed with an great co-teacher who got me through the first year or two.  She moved on, but I was able to build my foundation from the lessons I learned, right along with the students. 
    Monday, March 23rd, 2015 was my first (I hoping there is more) "job" as a Physical Education consultant.  I guess that's what you call it?  That sounds a little "professional."  I spent my morning with middle/high school PE teachers, and my afternoon with Elementary PE teachers.  This was a very large school district....30 elementary schools?!  Wow! Their PE coordinator had came to my ipad in PE presentation at KAHPERD in October, and asked if I would come do an in-service for them.  As I drove home (I road home, my awesome husband drove me home) I reflected on the day.  I realized not only do I LOVE teaching kids to be healthy (I do LOVE those little's), I also love to share with adults.  Am I the best?  Absolutly not.  There are MANY amazing Physical Education teachers in the world (Have you looked on Twitter....holy moly, they are the BEST)! I am surrounded by several AMAZING physical education teachers right here in my district!   I feel like a pretty lucky
girl.  Doors are opening, that I didn't even know existed. 

Lesson from this blog?  Listen to your parents.  My dad knew exactly what I should do "when I grew up." 

Get connected.  There are so many #physed T's out there who are more than willing to network, share, and help. 

If you want to check out some of these awesome PE teachers (+ me) stuff, check out this link
 http://www.superstarsofpe.com/

 

 

 

Have a great week!

AB 

Speed and Agility!

     Last time I wrote (it's been awhile) about visiting the countries that are students are from.  Well, we reached our first destination yesterday!  Mexico! The kids were so excited.  Even staff members were excited.  I used Google earth on my ipad to show the kids (with the projector) how far we had traveled.  They were amazed.  On Monday, we are going to play an traditional Mexican physical education game, and hopefully sometime soon we are going to SKYPE with a physical education class in Mexico! Exciting stuff.



     This week we worked on Speed and Agility.  We have fitness tests coming up after spring break, and I thought this would be a great lead in.  With the help of @CapnPetesPE,  (he is a good follow on TWITTER, and has awesome resources in Teachers Pay Teachers) the kids learned a TON.  Of course they moved a TON as well.  We started the mini-unit by having talking about the definitions of speed and agility.  We also talked about how they apply to our health and well being.  Then the kids tried out two of Capn-Petes awesome drills.  Both drills involved speed and agility.  The kids were moving and had a blast.  These drills were fantastic. 

 

 

 

 

 

        I did the drills with all grades.  I was a little concerned that it would be a little difficult for my Kinder's, but they did awesome!  I decided on the second day, we would have the students time the drills.  I used ipads (stopwatches  would work too).   I asked the teachers (2nd-5th) to send four ipads down with their class.  We divided the kids into "teams."  I instructed them to time everybody on their team one time, then the next person in line would time everyone.  By the end of class, there were 4 or 5 times recorded for each student.  There were two separate drills, so we did this over two days of PE. With the help of my co-teacher, I came up with an additional assignment to further their thinking of speed and agility.  The next day, I asked all students to bring their ipads.  I came up with three questions, that required the students to "reflect" on the drills.  Example: Which was your favorite drill? Why?  I created the assignment in Google drive, then sent it to SHOWBIE to assignment folder I had created.  Instead of received 200 emails from students, it put their answers in a folder on SHOWBIE!  After this lesson, I felt like my students may have learned more than they had in any other unit.  But we are not done!  We are going to do two more days of speed/agility activity, then take a short quiz using SOCRATIVE. 

 

           Below is a picture of my new projector!  I am so excited to not have to push a cart out to the middle of the court, and beg the students to go around the 10 yards of extension cord I have out.  This eliminates all of that.  In addition, the quality of the picture is so good, I can even leave all of my lights on! 

 

 

   Get connected.  It changed me as a teacher.  Sounds crazy, but I promise IT'S THE TRUTH!

 

 

AB

 



 

 



 

 

 

 

Oh, the places you'll go in my world!

Oh so much to talk about! 
              Last week I attended the 2015 KAHPHERD Winter Workshop in Olathe.  A lady by the name of Jo Bailey (@LovePhyEd) was the keynote speaker.  She is a Google certified teacher, and did quite well explaining Google EVERYTHING!  That lady knows her stuff.  In addition to learning new stuff, one of the highlights of the workshop was meeting people!  I finally got to meet face to face with Jo and another awesome KS PE Teacher named Mike Bohannon (@mikebohannon4).  Both of these were people I had connected with on Twitter.  Mike is the Author of a book called "No, we do not play dodge ball in PE.  His tweets had caught my eye several times, so I asked him to bring a book for me to purchase.  Good stuff for sure!  Also, I got to meet Vicki Worrell (@KAHPERD) who is the Executive Director for KAHPHERD and also a professor at Emporia State University.  She and I are collaborating to have me Skype into her ESU Phys Ed. classes to talk about my usage of technology in PE!  When I arrived at the workshop, I quickly found a seat and begin looking at the people to see who I recognized.  Quickly I realized I was setting among several Shawnee Mission School District PE teachers.  In March, I am going to present "imove, icreate, ilearn in PE" to all of the PE teachers in this district.  It was exciting to meet a few of them and share a few things with them. 
   Also last week, I received an email telling me I had been selected to receive a Container Garden grant through KSDE.  So, my 4th graders are going to grow a garden this spring.  I'm pretty excited to connect this to our PBL project (SUGAR.....IT's EVERYWHERE)! We are going to grow and eat our own produce!  Exciting stuff!
   Last week on my way home from the workshop, (my awesome hubby was driving) I participated in a #1to1ipadchat, that was being moderated by our districts awesome Tech Coach- @ksujayne (don't worry, I don't hold the KSU part against her).  While chatting along, I came across tweets about google maps.  Light bulb's went off in my head.  Fast forward to last Friday/Today and we are on a journey at Linn!  Our awesome secretary created this array of flags and a globe in front of our office.  We are celebrating cultures/heritage across our district. 

 

 

     Starting today, my kids are going to visit (virtually of course) each country that we represent at Linn.  We are going to "walk" to each country.  This will be done during our warm up time and if the students choose, at recess.  When we "arrive" at our destination, we will participate in a game that is native to that country.  In addition, we will track our progress using Google maps, my ipad, the air server, and the NEW projector that was mounted in my gym.  The students can add miles at recess and drop them in a class I created using the SHOWBIE app.  The kids were pretty excited today, as I introduced the concept.  We are going on a journey, and it's going to be an good one!

 

 

All those twitter accounts I mentioned in this blog, yeah, you should make sure you are following them! 

 

 

Have a great week!!! 

What a world!

   It's been too long since I checked in!  Can you tell I've been a little busy?  It's good thought, truthfully I think I work better when I am busy.  I have to be more efficient, therefor I am.... :)
Last Friday we had a Winter Sports Clinic for my students.  In the past I have switched up my schedule and only offered this for 3rd-5th grade.  This year, I decided to give it a try for all grade levels.  It was fantastic.  I really feel like these clinics are so much more than a "sports clinic." Sure, these positive role models (they get up early on their day OFF of school) come out to the school and teach their sport.  They also come out and show my students what it takes to be part of team, what kind of attitude you have to have, and of course the amount of work you need to do.  I think this is so important as these kids grow up.  In addition, many of my students are simply not exposed to the variety of activities that are available.  You know, things that will keep them healthy as they grow older.  This year the high school Cheerleaders, bowling team, and wrestling team came out.  This kids were fantastic with my Linn Lions.  I couldn't have asked for an better student/athletes.  I am so happy I teach in a school where my principal allows me to continue to have these type of opportunities for my students.
 

 

 

       Also this week, we begin our Jump Rope unit.  I enjoy I teaching this unit, and the students love it!  We conclude this unit at the end of the month with our Jump Rope For Heart Celebration.  Lot's of fun for all, and of course it does our body good! One of my favorite activities so far has been Jump Rope 4-square. (That's what these awesome 2nd graders are doing in this picture).  It's played just like regular 4-square, only you jump rope.  Our focus word on this day (key word) was endurance.  *Disclaimer: I did not make this game up, I found it on....wait for it.....TWITTER! Because I have the best PLN ever, and you can too.  Sorry, a little off task!  The kids make a square, with the 5th and sometimes 6th person in their group standing outside of the square.  The person in the designated "square" was in charge of saying "start."   When this person said this, everyone on the square begin jumping rope.  The first person who messed up, was "out." and then everyone rotates.  The person who is out, always rotates to the #1 position.  Kids loved it.  So did I!  I have talked about allowing my students to "chat," this was no exception.  You see, I want them to improve their reading skills, and language skills have to improve for that to happen.  (A very wise lady once told me that).  Why not help out in PE, not to mention they are going to have an overall better grasp of what is being taught.  So, we did the activity for about 5 minutes, then I had them drop their ropes and chat with their team.  The question to chat about "What are you working on when your doing this jump rope activity?"  Answers varied, teamwork, jumping, rhythm.  All great answers, but I was looking for endurance.  Eventually I got the answer (or helped them out).  This lead them to a NEW focus word.  We pointed to the all and talked briefly about what endurance meant.  Success.  They moved, their hearts were racing, they laughed, they used a new word, they saw a new word in action, you may even say they felt a new word.   

 

 

New exciting things happening in my world.  They are installing a cordless (ha, ha) projector in my gym.  No more dragging out an extension cord and cart!  Excited.....you cannot imagine! 

 

 

Twitter.  Do it.

 

AB 

 

A Differnt world!

    Our district has been working had on Academic Vocabulary, and the importance of our students talking and using those vocabulary words.  In addition to this, I am also in my second semester of ESL course work to complete my endorsement.  So, you combine these two idea's together, and boy is my PE world different!  It's good.....mostly good anyway!  Warning: This is a pretty serious blog post!
    What I'm realizing quickly is how little attention I gave my ELL students.  This was definitely not intentional, I just didn't realize the importance of helping them.  All students, regardless if they are ELL or not, need to have academic vocabulary.  After shadowing our district ESL instructional coach for a day, I had my eyes opened to the importance of this.  A statement that stuck with me was "the students language must grow, so that their reading skills can grow."  Wow.  This is powerful, and true! 
   So, my thought process has shifted a little bit.  Never, ever, ever will I think that movement is not important in PE.  After all, PE=Physical Education!  But, I'm starting to see how we as PE teachers, need to not only teach our students TO move, but we also need to teach them WHY we move the way we do, and HOW we move the way we do.  I believe there is a fine line between movement without purpose, and movement with learning.  It's hard to find that line, at least for me.  To "toot" my own horn just a little bit, a couple of weeks ago and instructional coach from our district came into my gym.  After a discussion she said, your TEACHING your students, not just COACHING them.  That has stuck with me, and motivated me even more.  I want to make sure when we are working on our basketball skills that we are learning EVERYTHING we can about it.  After all, who wants to play basketball, but not able to explain what it means to dribble or shoot?  Facts are important too. Right?  But, if we are teaching the facts, we are taking away from movement.  But, by teaching these facts are we encouraging future movement?  Maybe? Probably?  I think we are.  In addition, we are making these students better.  Better physically, better cognitively, and better communicators.  All of these three things are pretty darn important.  I guess the tricky part for me is figuring out how to get all of this done.  I have worked pretty hard at accomplishing this in the last couple of weeks.
   We are almost done with our basketball unit.  I am confident my students (most) can not only show you HOW to dribble, pass, and shoot, but they also can tell you WHY.  They also can define and describe these words.  They also can use them in sentences.   We have worked hard on having little "chats" where I ask them to talk to their team about different parts of the game. I also make them answer using the vocabulary word in their sentence.  Finally, I think they can tell you a little bit of history about basketball (see examples below).  In the future, they can hopefully be confident in their knowledge of basketball, and hopefully use it as a way to stay healthy!  If this happens, then I did my job.
    I decided to dig deep into our basketball knowledge.  I found an article about basketball online that was kid friendly.
 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pQJ6BPrCdSlz70lMDbfruYRcWK6gmT10j1-nWBhvpsg/edit?usp=sharing 
      I selected a paragraph and made it a google doc.  I projected it on the wall, and allowed my students about 5-8 minutes to read it over and take notes, using their ipads.  There were exceptions made, and I had to read the article a few times to some students.  I reminded them the importance of what good notes look like.  Then, I had them bring their ipads back to class.  Their assignment, using only their notes, they needed to describe what they had read.  I have a couple ELL students in 4th grade, whom I made sentence starters for.  I also allowed a couple lower level readers the option of using my sentence starters.   I quickly found, that most of the students could have benefited from the sentence starters.  Overall, this assignment went well.  Did we miss out on some minutes of movement, yes we did.  But, did we learn a little bit more about basketball? Yes.  Did we see, hear, read, write and DO?  Yep, we did. 
    I still have some work to do, but I am okay with this "different" PE world.  It's tough.  I still believe in movement, it HAS to happen for our students to be successful and healthy.  But, we can "teach" them a little more as well.

A few examples of my amazing students work!

 

4th Grader

     Basketball is the only major sport that is completely American in origin.the

first professional league was the national basketball league,which formed

in 1898.the first teams emerged in the northeast in the turn of the 20th

century.these teams were instrumental in developing the game.

introducing key elements such as the bounce pass and the free throw

following a foul.basketball was invented in 1891 by Naismith.

5th Grader
 Basketball is a amazing sport. It is the only major sport that is completely American origin. A smart man named Naismith invented basketball in 1891. They have basketball court every were even out side. Chicken wire and rope was placed around the courts to separate the players and fans. The first pro teams emerged in the turn of the 20th century. Nowadays the pro teams are named the NBA which stands for national basketball asoshuets (association).

4th Grader

First, I learned that the only sport that was completely American in Oigin was

basketball. Second, basketball was invented in 1891 by Naismith. Third, in the 20th

century the first professional teams came from the northeast. Next, the professional

teams introduced the bounce pass and the chess pass as well. Finally, back then in the

basketball games the basketball teams had to put a fence to keep the fans and the teams

sepreacted probably so the fans won't get hurt with the ball.


Ell Students using sentence starters.  They are also working with a student who can speak Spanish and English fluently.

 

 


Get connected.  Check out Google Drive.  Keep on making a difference!

AB

Chatter world!

     It's Saturday, and I'm blogging!  I managed to use every spare minute I had this week to do things other than blogging!  So here I am.  My older son is at basketball practice, so I decided this was the perfect time.  Watching College Game Day (rock chalk) and reflecting on a great week of teaching!
  
   The last time I blogged, I talked about opening up our Basketball unit, with focus on dribbling!  We continued and wrapped up this part of our unit this week.  I have worked really hard on having my kids "talk."  I have touched on this in a few other blogs, but it's a game changer.  I was skeptical at first, but it's changing my world.  When I combine this "talking" with technology, my PE world is expanding.....and I like it.  I'm honestly seeing my students learn more.  Seems crazy to me, talking=learning more? Now if I can just conquer assessments!  Eeek....still struggling with that, it's a little blurry to me...but I'm seeing it a little more clear each day!
   Okay, so our last lesson on dribbling the basketball.  It was a two day lesson, including the use of ipads (shocking, right). 
Wednesday and Thursday: Today I am using my ipad to assess my dribbling skills, so that I can see what I know.  I'll know I've got when I score at least a 3 on all of the assessment questions.  This was the objective I gave my students.  This lesson was for 1st-5th grade.  I'll explain how I watered it down a bit for 1st grade.  Everyone brought their ipads to PE starting on Wednesday.  After a quick warm up, I asked the students to find a partner.  Their assignment for day one was simple, have your partner record you for 20 seconds dribbling with your right hand and left hand.  In addition, they needed three pictures dribbling with each hand.  1st-5th grade all were able to do this.  Something happens when the students know they are on camera, they seem to concentrate a little bit more on what they are doing. 

 

1st grade students working hard!

       Day two of the lesson, the students returned with their ipads.  There were a few students who had not been there the day before, so I quickly caught them up by making quick videos with them.   I prepared for this unit by using Google docs and QRstuff.com.  I knew I wanted the students to have access to the questions they had to answer, without giving them a worksheet!  Google Docs allows you to type a document and create a link.   This is a VERY easy process, if you haven't checked out Google Docs, do it now.  It's a game changer.  When you have a link, you have what you need to make a QR code.  Simple.  Useful.  Makes everything a little easier.  I also wanted my kids to be able to have the scoring rubric at their finger tips.  I wanted to them to self assess after all!  (By the way, I will attach the Google docs at the bottom of this. Feel free to use them).  So I made the questions and the rubric into a QR code.  This means that when they walk in the gym, they can quickly scan them and BOOM they have them on their device to use when they need.  I was impressed how some of the Students used them, you'll see in a minute.  When they walked into the gym, here is what they saw projected on the wall:

Dribbling Assessment

1.  Answer the questions about dribbling using an app of your choice.  You must include a video or picture of yourself dribbling.

2.  You are working ON YOUR OWN

3.  When you are done, you must show your work to Mrs. Baugh or Mr. Castillo

 



I quickly read the questions out loud, and then told them to get work! Every five minutes, I had the students stand up and do jumping jacks or burpees' for 45 seconds -1 minute!  Brain Breaks! :)

      Before I show you some of the awesome, creative work my students turned in, I want to share what I did with first grade!  I still had them bring their ipads back.  While setting on their homebase, I instructed them to watch their video three times.  Then, the same questions that the older students got from the QR code, were displayed on the wall.  I asked the question, then had them view their video looking for that particular item.  Example: Where your eyes up most of the time? Never? All the time?  Would you give yourself a 1?  2?  3?  4?

Here are the links to my rubric and to the questions the students had to answer.  Notice I threw in the question about how they "feel" when they are dribbling.  This was a great reflective tool for me, this allows me to see what students are confident, and who needs extra attention.
Rubric
Dribbling Questions

     When reflecting on this lesson, I should have set this up on Showbie, so that I didn't get so many emails with assignments. 

Check out this students work!  I love that he recorded his voice!  He was so upset he forgot to record his score!  He decided on a 3, because he had some trouble with control, but he did do what was asked.  Adobe Voice 

 

      Throughout the next week, I will ask all the students to show me their work.  Then I will be giving them a grade (1-4) based on their dribbling skills and effort to complete the assignment!

 

   This week we have a Elementary PE all day inservice.   It's always good to meet with my colleagues.  We have some big time work ahead of us, but I am ready to tackle it! 

 

AB

 

P.S.  Get connected.  Get involved.  Twitter is a fantastic place to start!