Gymnastics was so fun! I have never been able to do a cartwheel and I actually get really dizzy doing rolls and spins, but I still had such a blast. The Disney music, this amazing cohort and excellent instruction from Stephen were probably all huge factors. Anyway, after reading the chapters this week I was feeling very daunted by the legalities that teachers face, and especially P.E. teachers. There are so many risks to consider while teaching physical activity and gymnastics seems to be one of the most accident-prone of all. I think the obvious ways to avoid risk are being really vigilant about teaching safety before each class, getting consistent routines in place around the way the kids behave on and around the equipment, ensuring you are able to see the entire space as much as possible and creating a stop signal that allows the students to finish what they’re doing before stopping.

Something that I took away from this class was the range of activities and movements you could teach your students with little to no equipment. For the younger grades, especially, you could teach all those travelling movements (skipping, hopping, leaping, side-stepping), the spinning movements and balancing movements without anything other than mats. I liked the idea of creating our own tableau after we learned the movements or creating our own routine. I would be excited to try something like this with students during Practicum. I really appreciated this lesson, as many schools do not have access to all the equipment we saw in the gymnastics space on Tuesday.