I had a great time teaching gymnastics to the class! As everyone already knew, I did gymnastics from age 3 to 12 and I presently coach gymnastics/physical literacy, so I was very excited to be able to have the chance to teach the class. I thought my group was very clear with our expectations of the lesson and the flow of our station rotation and the skills learned within each station went really well.

At my station, forward rolls and log rolls, I made each step for the forward rolls clear and almost everyone was able to do one at the end of the station. It was definitely one of the more challenging stations for some students but even if they were not able to “perfectly” perform a forward roll, they still had the chance to practice their log rolls. This was important because the skill being taught at my station was body rotations and although some students were not able to do the forward roll, they were still able to move and practice a different skill that focused on the same body movement. I had to be aware of the students that could not perform the forward roll because I did not just want them standing around for the entire rotation. I wanted everyone moving and being active throughout their entire time at each station.

We made a  number of changes to our lesson plan during the actual lesson. We realized we did not have enough time to do the final “gymnastics relay” and apply all the skills the students had learned to a larger scale activity. We also would have liked to include a small gymnastics routine portion where the students would have been able to create and incorporate the newly learned skills into a unique choreographed routine with their group. Another important thing we considered is how lucky we were to have 4 teachers to work with the students. Realistically, this lesson would have to be modified because there is typically just one teacher to 25+ students and it is impossible for that one teacher to physically be at every station helping students one on one if they needed it.

Overall, my group and I had a ton of fun teaching our lesson and we hope that everyone else had a great time! Thanks CITE!