September 24, 2012 Lesson 2.5 - Travel/Stop Review with Equipment

Welcome back, and thank you for your patience.  It's taking me a little longer than I thought it would, to get my thoughts together and review the video to get the blog up. I did find out today that my presentation proposal for the 2013 National AAHPERD Conference was accepted.  Yahoo!  Movement across the Curriculum; Putting the Physical back in Education.  The 2013 AAHPERD National Convention and Exposition will take place in Charlotte, NC, April 23-27, 2013.  You can read more about the conference and AAHPERD here: American Alliance for Health Physical Education and Dance.

I will also be presenting "Movement Across the Curriculum; Teaching early learning standards through movement", at the National NAEYC conference November 9, 2012 at 3p.  The 2012 NAEYC; National Association for the Education of Young Children, Annual Conference & Expo will be in Atlanta, GA on November 7-10.

As I find out about the different places I'll be, I'll let you know.  If your ever at a conference I'm at, be sure to say hi, even if you don't get to my session!  I'd love to hear about how you and your kids are moving through the day.

Boundary signs on corners.  Hoops around cones. Bean bags in hoops

Set up for today's lesson was, again, about 10 minutes.  I didn't put out teddy balls, but I did use hoops this week. The kids enjoyed playing with them.

Our main focus with the equipment was to practice moving safely with it and putting it on the ground when it was time to stop or freeze.  My expectation is that the children  put the equipment down when they are listening because equipment can be so much more interesting than me; it's easier to get rid of the distraction.  This seems to be true for adults too!  If they are playing with balls that roll easily, the children hold the ball between their two ankles/feet while they listen, so the ball won't roll away.

Everybody "Stopped" and put their hoop on the ground at the same time, so we gave ourselves a High Five!

As soon as the class entered the gym, someone said "It's different!".  I was so excited, the signs were only on four cones, the hoops were out for the first time and the screen for the visuals was on the opposite side of the gym!  "Good observation" I said.

We didn't sit down today unless the activity required it.  During instruction, I had the children stand or stay where they were when I stopped them, even during the class introduction.  I was able to use Positive Behavior Management Cues (PBMC) to demonstrate to the children the behavior I expected.  I complimented the children who were walking safely into the gym and finding a spot to stand near me.  Once they were all in a group, I said Hello.  The first slide I show them is a greeting.  I said hello, and then they said it back.  I also told them the word up on the screen was Hello.  The second slide is my name.  I asked them if they remembered my name, just about the whole class came back with a resounding "SHARON".  I told them them they had amazing memories and that the screen now had my name on it.

Last week I noted that not everyone was verbalizing during the opportunities that I had for group shout out.  I wanted to create opportunities for all the children to verbalize the concepts and communicate with each other.  Because of that, during the review of being safe, I had the children high five someone near them and say "Be Safe".  The plan was to quickly high five and say some characteristics of being safe, like "look where you are going".  The initial act of learning the high five took a little longer to get across than the talking part!  We spent a little while, practicing high fives with each other and saying "Be Safe".  I think it was effective, and now that they can do the high five, I'll infuse the characteristics of being safe starting next week.

From the time the children got into the gym and we reviewed, then practiced high fives, about 2-1/2 minutes had passed.  We reviewed Boundaries and Travel/Stop and started moving our large muscles within 4 minutes from the children getting into the gym.  The children did move while they were giving high fives and I feel the time spent working on them will pay off.  We can use high fives as a way to encourage our friends cultivating compassionate or caring behavior.  We can also use high fives as a way to "Repeat to Remember", Brain Rule #5. Saying the attributes of being safe will help the children remember themselves, and the 3% of the auditory learners will hear it over and over again!

Traveling to open spaces, staying inside the boundaries

I showed the children the PowerPoint slide with the boundary cones and the word "boundary". I pointed out the boundaries, asking them to name the different equipment or the color.  We discussed the fact that there were only four boundary signs today.   After one time around the boundaries I brought up the "Travel" slide.  As soon as the slide came up, one of the children read out loud, "Travel!".  I gave them a high five for reading the sign.  I don't mind that they call out the words they read in class.  I like that they are reading and want to encourage it.  I did notice after reinforcing the behavior of calling out what they read, that there was a little more calling out when the word would change on slide.  Most of the time they were not calling out the correct word!  That showed me two things; 1. who can read the word!  and 2. reinforcing the behavior you want really works!  I will keep encouraging them to call out words they read.  I'll just have to figure how to reinforce reading the word and not just the calling out part!

Scaffolding Strategy: Symbol for NO

Today I introduced the symbol for NO that is commonly used in our society.  Last week I used an "X" over the item and realized that the children will see signs with the Circle/slash that mean NO, so this week I used the symbol above to represent no.  This is a effective scaffolding strategy; introducing new concepts with prior life experiences.

Some Cool Frozen Shapes

We reviewed travel/stop with three activities, first using my voice, then with music and finally with the drum!  While the children were traveling I was calling out cues; look for open spaces to travel to and watch out for each other. I used PBMCs, complimenting them on staying in the boundaries and freezing when the were cued.  I also encouraged them to try different ways of traveling.  While they were traveling and stopping to the drum, one of the children froze in a really awesome shape, so for the next few times they stopped, I gave them a problem; make a cool shape to freeze in.  By using the student's idea, I differentiated this activity into a creative, problem solving experience with the emphasis still on traveling safely and stopping on cue.  We spent about 12 minutes on the three activities, each one transitioned into the next without more than 20 seconds of talking, if that.  The main focus of this lesson is to reinforce traveling to open spaces using a variety of ways to travel and stopping on cue.

Here is a good place to discuss the cues you use for STOP.  It's important to be consistent in the use of the word.  For instance; Stop, Freeze and (outdoor only) Whistle all mean STOP.  I don't use those three cues for anything but stop.  There is no ambiguity in what they mean.  Stop NOW, put down whatever is in your hand and look at me.  I don't use any other words for stop either.  The cue is mainly used to stop the children for instruction. If there is an emergency, I can also use one of my cues to quickly stop the children and get their attention.  I don't want there to be any confusion about what Stop means.On the other hand, I don't often, but for fun I will change the GO cue.  Mainly to work on listening. 

This is a great book with easy to implement ideas.

I gathered the children to introduce the hoops.  One of the children was talking and disrupting another student, so I explained, to the class, the consequences  for not being safe.  They sit out by a boundary cone until I talk with them.  I explained to the boy sitting out, that when he talks while the teacher is giving directions, it is not safe. "You won't know what you to do cause your weren't listening, and you might get hurt or hurt someone else."  I ask the children who sit out if they are willing to play safely and in this case, listen while I give instructions?  If they agree, I let them go back in.  No one disagrees!  I ask them to agree so that they acknowledge their part in staying safe.  AND, Brain Rule #5 - Repeat to Remember.

The intention of traveling and stopping with equipment is to practice traveling and stopping.  The children will use a variety of equipment throughout the year and no matter what it is, they will put it on the ground and look at me when it's time to stop.  What they do with the hoops and bean bags while they travel is not important, as long as it's safe.   The children played with the hoops, while I called out Stop or Freeze periodically.  We spent about 6 minutes on the hoop activity.  

I had the children put away their hoops, back over the  cone that matched the hoop.  I asked the children to get a bean bag from the same cone they put their hoop over.  The children transitioned within 15 seconds putting away the hoop and getting a bean bag.  Again the emphasis was on safety, and following directions; stopping on cue.  The children played with their bean bag, practicing the stop/go cues.  When I was sure they were all stopping on cue and playing safely I moved onto the next activity. 

I found some fun bean bag songs that focused on the body parts and listening.  Within the next 4 lessons I will introduce more and more activities that have a focus on identifying and naming the body parts.  The 4th lesson from now will focus on Spacial Directions; Forward travel, Backward travel and Sideways travel.  I will scaffold their prior knowledge of body parts and where they are on the body to teach them the surfaces of the body, front, back and side.  This is a great time to be working on body parts in class.  You can make the connections from movement class to the school classroom.  You can also use bean bag and body part activities to get in some of your 60 minutes of structured movement!

The children followed the directions beautifully and we did two whole songs.  After the second song finished, the children put away the bean bags and then found a spot inside the boundaries to stretch.  I introduced a new stretch today and we did two of the same stretches from the previous lessons.  We all practiced counting to ten out loud while we did each stretch.

The review was done standing and I incorporated some partner sharing to encourage the children to verbalize the concepts. When I asked them "what do you do with your equipment when you hear the signal to stop?", I told them to tell the answer to someone by giving them a high five and say to them, "Put the equipment on the ground!"

We finished our lesson with everyone helping to put away our equipment. Giving the students responsibility to take care of the equipment is a first step to independent learning.

Here's my lesson PowerPoint as a video.  You can use it by pausing on the slide you want to show, the slides will go 5 seconds, except for animations and audio.  Those will run their course.  The audio is preserved in the video, so you can use the bean bag songs toward the end with your children as they review and work on body part identification.

My children are definitely ready to go on to Lesson 3 - Near/Far.