Lab 2

My second time at St. Mary’s was my make up day. I helped the play the parachute game. Just as it was on Monday, it was also a disaster on Wednesday. None of the kids would listen and the game just fell apart. Kids were running under the parachute when they weren’t supposed to and hardly any of the children were performing the correct skill. The parachute triggered wildness in the kids.

On Monday, I observed the movement patterns of kindergarteners and first graders. The movements we observed were the run, gallop, and the hop. Most students performed the run well. The gallop and the hop proved a little more difficult. The gallop started off rough but got better as the students were shown more examples. The hop was more of jumping, many of the kids would jump off two feet and land on one or jump off one foot and land on two. The first student we observed was a five year old girl named Casey. She had the most trouble galloping as she was just jumping. Her hop was descent for the most part, she’d be able to hoop once or twice before going into a jump or another skill. Her running was good, as she demonstrated proper form. The second student we observed was a six year old 1st grader name Shamish. He had his run and gallop down pat but struggled a bit with his hop.

There were defiantly differences in ability between age and gender. The boys tended to do all the skills quicker but necessarily better then the girls. The girls seemed to do the skills in a more controlled manner. Age was also a factor in the ability and execution of the skill. The older students could do the skills with more ease and with less thought then the younger students.
Some effective “teaching strategies” that I observed were getting all the students to come in close while talking to them and standing in front of them while speaking. I also noticed that when the speaker is more energetic and dramatic with their words the kids tend to be more attentive. I found that the students enjoy when we get involved and play along with them. When trying to explain a game to an entire group of kids it can be challenging, as there are so many distractions and who knows how many of the students are paying attention. For our group I found that it was a lot easier and quicker for each one of us to explain the game to a group of kids. They were more attentive and understood the game better.