September 17, 2012 Lesson 2 - Travel/Stop

Welcome back! WOW, Week two was just as fun and amazing as week 1!

The first thing I do when I get to school is set my gym up. Setting up the equipment for this lesson took about 10 minutes, if you are using a PowerPoint or projector add another 10 minutes for the technology set up.  I use PowerPoint in my lessons to provide examples for the visual learners in my class.  Studies show us that 85% of our children are kinesthetic learners. (Hannaford)  That means they learn best by moving their bodies.  The next most relied on sense for learning is visual, followed by a small group, 3% of learners who rely mainly on auditory to learn. Follow this link to some great information and facts regarding exercise and the brain.
Does Exercise Improve Learning in Children?

Set-Up for Lesson 2 - Travel/Stop 

Today, I only put boundary signs up on half the cones, every other one.  I want the children to begin associating the cone with the boundary.  When it did come up with the children that the signs were not on all the cones,  I explained that the cones marked our boundary, whether it had a sign or not.  Most of the children understood that.

I put out the all the equipment we would use for the day.  I explained to the class the week before that the equipment will be out around the boundary lines, and they should only play with it when they are given the directions to use it.  As I reviewed the lesson, I noticed the only time children touched the equipment before our game was in the event they crossed out of bounds and accidentally kicked the equipment.

After I finished setting up, I went into the classroom to check in with the classroom teachers.  I found out that they used the boundary signs during the fire drills and on the playground to mark areas that were out of bounds!  The teachers also taught lesson 1 on Thursday and Friday again.  The children at school don't all attend full time, so teaching the lesson on three days of the week insures that all the children got the basic movement experience and new vocabulary.  The ones that participated all three times seemed to have as much fun each time they came to the gym for movement, regardless of the fact that they did the lesson before.  It is a great idea to repeat a lesson a couple times during the week.  You can even teach it each day, changing the song for follow the leader, or changing the concept from "Mess-up/Clean-up" to "Rainbow/Tornado" or even "Rain/Evaporation"!  It's OK to repeat activities and information.  We know from brain science that it is important to;  Repeat to Remember - Brain Rule #5  check out John Medina's book Brain Rules for more brain facts.

When the children began moving, it was obvious that they had practiced moving inside the boundaries, there were only a handful of times that anyone went out of the boundaries during our lesson.  I didn't ask children specifically to come back into the boundaries.  I was able to use positive behavior cues to demonstrate the behavior I wanted. By choosing the children following the directions or demonstrating the skill or concept, you can give specific  compliments to those students which will also provide a visual and verbal example for those who are not on task.  Catch the children doing what you want!

My time goal, getting the class to move within a minute of coming into the gym was almost met!  Last week it was almost 4 minutes before we started moving, this week we were up and moving within 2 minutes!  Next week I'm going to begin the class with the children standing.  During lessons one and two, the children only sat two times, in the beginning of the class and during stretching/review.  Frankly, after reviewing the video, the children were focused for everything except the review, which we did seated!  Check out this article; ADHD Students: Get on the Ball, for more information about engaging the core and focus.  Next week, I'll begin the lesson standing, and finish the lesson standing for the review.  I'll let you know how it goes. :)

We began with a seated review of the concepts and words from last week; Boundary, My name, The Safe Rule, and equipment (cones, spots, bean bags and teddy balls).  Within 2 and half minutes we were up walking around to the boundaries.  We stopped at cones and spots, identifying the equipment and the boundaries.  I was really excited that as the children moved around the boundaries, they did NOT touch the equipment on the spots!  We finished moving around the boundaries in about 3 minutes.  We traveled as a class around, inside the boundaries to a song from the curriculum called "Leader in the Boundaries".  The children followed me around inside the boundaries as we all pretended to fly, move in the ocean and travel like forest creatures!

Color Matching during "Clean-Up/Mess-Up

When the song ended, the children stayed in their space and listened as I explained that they were going to play clean-up/mess-up.  Today I added the element of matching the color.  I asked the children to match the garbage to the spot by color as they cleaned up.  The teachers and I were able to formatively assess the children's ability to match color and, by asking them questions, to identify color!  After playing clean-up/mess-up for about 4 minutes, I introduced the activity, "Rainbow/Tornado".  I took an extra minute to talk about rainbows and tornado's because the class had not been introduced to the two concepts.  During our discussion, one of the children commented that when tornado's travel, they spin!  We had few spinning tornadoes after that! We continued, playing Rainbow/Tornado for about 5 minutes.  The children were engaged and active the entire time.  Again, we did NOT sit for new directions, I asked the children to stop where they were and listen.  I noticed one child who was perpetually in motion, even when I spoke.  He followed the directions and stayed on task during the activities.  I decided not to insist he stay still, because it wasn't distracting other children and he was clearly listening, even though he was moving!  We actually practiced the skill of listening while moving when we played the final version of "Rainbow/Tornado".  As the children were assuming the role of either rainbow or tornado, I called out, without stopping the class first, the opposite role.  The children stopped what they were doing and switched roles.  They did an amazing job listening while they played.  I told them so!  Make sure you point out when the children do what you expect.  This gives them a "Warm-Fuzzie" a happy feeling of knowing you've done something great! A boost of self-esteem. It also shows the other children what you are expecting.

Watching the Travel/Stop animation

 We moved onto the "Instruction" portion of the lesson after about 15 minutes of review and warm-up.  With everyone standing near the screen, I introduced Travel/Stop.  First with a verbal description accompanied by a visual animated demonstration of children traveling and stopping within the boundaries. 

You can watch the animation I created for the PowerPoint, the same one the children are watching. Just click the play button.  They are easy to make, email me and I'll send you instructions.

 

I showed the children two visual symbols; a stop sign to represent stop or freeze and a round green spot with the word "go" inside to represent go.  I use a computer remote to advance my PowerPoint slides.  I switch back and forth between stop and go to match my command.  This provides a visual cue for my visual learners.  We also discussed watching other people in the boundaries.  Looking to avoid them and as a cue to know whether to go or stop!

Scaffold in prior experiences and knowledge to help teach new concepts. 

We discussed the idea of traveling in the boundaries and stopping on cue and then looking at me, for about one and a half minutes.

As the children traveled around, I encouraged them to look for "open spaces" and places where "no one else was traveling" inside the boundaries.  After the class had been traveling for about a minute and a half, with my verbal cues and visual cues to travel and stop or freeze, the children were traveling spread out and staying in the boundaries.  I was really impressed with how quickly they grasped the stopping and looking at me.  I did reinforce it as much as possible, to keep the focus on the importance of stopping when I said stop or freeze.  I know that my verbal cues; look for open spaces, or travel where no one else is, and the teachers participating, helped provide an example for the children to mimic or emulate.Next week we will practice traveling and stopping with equipment!

I continued to give them more responsibility by challenging them to find different ways to travel each time they began traveling after freezing.  I described the different ways I saw the children moving as they moved around inside the boundaries.  Sometimes I described traveling that I wanted to see, but no one had tried yet.  :)

Traveling to open spaces, away from other people.

Three minutes after we began traveling and stopping, I differentiated the task by using music as the cue to move and freeze with.  When the music was playing, the children moved; when the music stopped, the children froze and looked for me.  I used music notes to symbolize music and an x through it to symbolize no music.  I realize now, that I can use the symbol for no, a circle with a line through it, which would be closer to their real life experience.  I'll fix that for next week.  For 5 minutes they traveled and stopped to music, stopping when the music stopped and moving when it played again.  They did such a great job listening, I told them they were going to have to listen that good all the time now that we know they can!

I differentiated the activity one more time, using only the stop sign and the go sign to indicate when the children were to travel or freeze.  I have to say, they did a marvelous job for another two minutes. I was so excited that they were able to focus for the whole lesson and demonstrate traveling safely and move to open spaces.  The used a variety of ways to travel and verbally described the words and concepts that we worked on for the day; Tornado/Rainbow, Travel/Stop, Boundaries, Cones, Spots, Bean Bags, and Teddy Balls. The children were ready to stretch and review! 

We sat down to stretch, and one of the children commented that we had done the stretches last week!  I was so happy they remembered.  We did the same three stretches as the first week.  After we finished stretching, I reviewed the basic concepts with the children.

1. What did you do you heard stop or saw the stop sign? Stop.
2. Where is it safe to travel in movement class?  Inside the boundaries.  

A couple of the children answered the questions out loud.  In order to use this as a formative assessment tool, I need all the children to respond.  I would like to incorporate some pair share during the review, encouraging everyone to verbalize the concepts. I'll try that next week during the review.

Like I said earlier, the only time, it seemed, that the children were not focusing as well was during the review while they were all seated.  I am going to do the review standing up next week.  I think it will be a way to get them ready to go back to the classroom.  

At the conclusion of the lesson and review, I asked the children to help me clean up the equipment we used for the day.  They did, safely and quickly.  I can see that giving them tasks and problems to solve, having clear expectations of behavior,  helps instill personal and social responsibility.  They did a fabulous job helping me put away the equipment!

Below is my complete power point as a movie.You can watch it to get an idea of how I present the concepts to the children.  The music I use in my lessons and the animations are all in tact.  If you put the slide show on full screen, you could pause and play to use it as a visual and audio resource for your children. 

Next Up: Lesson 2.5

More practice with Travel/Stop and Boundaries.  We will practice stopping and moving with and around equipment.