I went to a very informative Physical Education workshop during our Pro-D Day. Dr. Joanna Sheppard gave a really interesting key note lecture on physical literacy, which was a great addition to what we have learned in PE class. During the yoga workshop I learned about a really amazing app called coaches eye and iyoga. With these apps you can edit an instructional video and add lines and circles to demonstrate proper posture on the yoga poses, or other sports. With the app you can review the student’s movement and use the lines and circles to show the correct positioning throughout the movement. Some great tips I learned about teaching yoga to children are to relate the positions to animals, as well as the use of stories during yoga to work through a sequence of yoga positions and to make them fun and interactive.

I also went to a dance class and I learned some really fun and interactive ways to get students moving. Similar to the yoga, there was a game that involved acting out the movements of a story. The instructor starts to describe a story, while suggesting movements such as running away from a bear, hiding behind a tree, ducking under a branch, jumping over logs, swatting bugs and other memorable and fun movements. Another fun story is acting out a skit, such as waking up in the morning, jumping out of bed, turning off the alarm, brushing teeth, dressing, running to school etc. For older children an idea is to recreate a historical event through movements and dance. Another unique game was Dance Tetris, although it sounded a bit difficult to act out the Tetris pieces, interlock and switch places with a team mate. The last game we tried was the Mirror Game, where two people stand facing each other and one person copies the movements of the other person, as though they were a reflection in a mirror.