This week Klara, Elissa, Jessica and I taught our P.E. lesson on Gymnastics. We aimed our lesson towards a Grade 5 class with all different athletic abilities. I felt as though the class went a lot more smoothly than I was expecting. We decided to start off with some warm-up instant activities that were associated with Halloween and gymnastics since it was the day before Halloween. It as a way to have the class be more involved. During the whole class, the students were given a Halloween character, and were supposed to act like that character throughout the class. When it came to teaching the gymnastics movements and activities, we decided to teach in a circuit rotation format, breaking each station down with different challenges and ways of making the stations either easier or more difficult depending on the students abilities. I was in charge of the jumping stations, and there were also a balance, rolling and bear walk stations. At my station, I started everyone together breaking down the steps of how to jump with single legs as well as two foot jumps and how to land. I talked about the importance of using your arms to help create more upward movement, as well as ‘loading/activating’ your leg muscles, and how to land best without harming your knees and the rest of the body through ‘soft landing’ and lowering your center of gravity. We practiced our jumping, and then worked on jumping forwards and backwards and side-to-side. After I felt the majority of the students were fully able to jump with proper form, I allowed the students to go to the small stations within the jumping station. We had hula-hoops to practice two feet and single foot jumps. Then there were vaults at different heights where the students were able to jump off of and focus on their landings. I emphasized that they did not have to do anything they did not feel comfortable with, so some of the students did not jump off of the highest vault.
One of the questions we focused on this week was how are teachers suppose to teach activities was limited equipment? When teaching this week, we used very limited equipment as well, using only mats, benches, cones, hula-hoops, and then the vaults which we didn’t have to use. These are all pieces of equipment that is most likely found in most Elementary and High school gyms. Although the students may think that these activities are not equivalent to attending a gymnastics facility, these are a lot of the same movements being done in the school gym.
The main topic in the readings for the week talked a lot about the connection between law and teaching, including TORTS law. Being a P.E. teacher, there is a great deal more injures that occur compared to all other classroom settings. Therefore as a P.E. teacher, as well as all other teachers, we have to be more aware of the surroundings and possible situations which could occur, and how to avoid any negative situations. Torts law is not very well defined in a few words, but it is pretty much any situation that could have been avoided while a teacher is responsible, that teacher can been seen as guilty. We must treat all students as if they are our own children.