Oh Pre-K

Sometimes we forget what it's like to be a kid, but spend a couple hours with 4 and 5 year olds and you will be reminded quickly. :) I loved working with the pre-k group at Saint Mary's during this semester. They have this light and innocence about them and it's so refreshing to be able to work with them. One moment that I cracked up at was when we were playing with the kids in the classroom. There were different activities that the kids were able to choose for themselves. You could either color, play with Lego's, put together puzzles, or play on the carpeted area with a house and a kitchen. I mingled around at each station with the kids and ended up eating dinner at a palace :) One of the girls told me to sit down and get ready for a meal. I laughed and went a long with being royalty. She brought over a empty plate and I said, "Where's the food?" The little girl said, "It's on the plate, silly." It made me think of the movie "Hook" and how Robin Williams had to imagine he was eating a humongous feast. I played along with the girl and pretended to gorge myself. I thanked her for the meal and she was so happy. This stood out to me because it's about being able to connect with your students as a teacher. You have to be able to come down to your audience's level and be able to relate. I know this is just a silly example, but I think it represents the joy and responsibility you have as a teacher. It's exciting.

What Inspires Me...

Here is a collage of some of my favorite pictures of me snowboarding over the years

 

I started snowboarding about 5 years ago. It's hard to describe the feeling I get when I am snowboarding down a mountain of fresh powder, but I know one thing, I love it. I forget who or what introduced me to the sport, but I have been obsessed with it ever since. I wanted to drop everything and move to Colorado and be a bum on the slopes but that didn't quite pan out, thankfully. In the winter, I am always trying to bring my friends to the mountain who have never snowboarded before. The first day is always frustrating for beginners. I always say "expect to fall a lot and expect to hurt the next day". Not very inviting? Hahaha. Don't worry the pain pays off. Snowboarding is not only a rush, but it's an awesome way to help stay in shape during the long Central New York winters. I use muscles that I never thought existed in my body while snowboarding. I have dabbled around the Internet for reliable statistics on how many calories you burn in one hour of snowboarding and the average is about 500 calories. That's just one hour! You use so many muscles throughout the day while snowboarding.

I think it's so important to get kids involved with lifelong activities they can do wherever they are. If you live in a mostly snowy climate, get involved with snowboarding or skiing(snowboarding is better ;). If you live in a mostly warm weather climate, than surfing or long boarding. These are great ways to enjoy the earth and stay active. I feel like there is such an "elitist" mindset in athletes today, that they have to be the best. I want to encourage my students to practice balance and maybe try activities they wouldn't normally do. Football isn't a sport most 60 year olds enjoy, but cross-country skiing is. So why don't we encourage these kind of sports in school along with the other sports? That's something I would like to see change over the years. I am hoping to get a job as a snowboard instructor at Greek Peak this winter. Let's keep our fingers crossed :)

Just Clowning Around

Saving my clown outfit from eighth grade Halloween turned out to be worthwhile after all. My mom insisted that it would come in handy one day, and time and again, she was right. Our theme for Lab 4 was "Circus" and I know I don't have any issues with being a clown sometimes. I put on a full-fledged clown outfit from head to toe and my hair was in pig-tails. Everyone who saw me chuckled and I had a blast being goofy with the kids.

I have really enjoyed my experiences at Saint Mary's so far, but there have definitely been areas that I know I need to work on personally and within a group. One challenge that made me nervous, and still makes me a little nervous, is teaching in front of other teachers. Sometimes I am afraid that I am not explaining my point across clearly and I sound dumb. I am too critical of myself and I have been learning that no body judges me as harshly as I judge myself. There are times when I feel like I am really on my game with teaching and relating with the kids and then there are other times where it's difficult for me to feel like I am being effective. This is something that I have struggled with in other areas as well and I guess I am just learning as I go not to be so hard on myself. I really want to be a teacher that isn't concerned with how I am teaching in relation with anyone else, but I want to be confident in myself.

Another area of difficulty that I have come across would be preparation. Lab 4 was a struggle for our group because we didn't even fully understand the point of the game we were doing with the kids. We felt like the age group was too young for the difficulty of the game, but we went with it anyways. The kids had no idea what was going on, but they still attempted the game and it looked like they were having fun. We can't go into another lab without being comfortable with what we are teaching and if we don't think the activity is effective we need to come up with a variation that we can all agree on. Also, during lab 4 my group didn't have enough activities to fill up our time slot. That's not a good feeling and it showed that we didn't put enough time into our activity. Hopefully next week will be a 180 for our group.

I have loved getting to know the kids at Saint Mary's and I am so grateful that our Professor runs our labs like this, because we are able to gain so much experience. One thing that we did in class was work on the loudness and tone of our voices and also our facial expressions. I thought that I was pretty expressive, but after looking at all the pictures our Professor takes of us during each lab, I wasn't smiling in a lot of them. I look a little too intense I think and I know I need to smile more. I want to work on being a lot more expressive and smiling. :)

Wait, How Many Rubber Chickens Did We Count?

Inventory many not be the most exciting time of your life as a physical education teacher, but it definitely is important. Our group was in charge of counting and organizing equipment during Lab 3 at Saint Mary's. We kind of all groaned when we heard we had to do inventory, because of course we wanted to be playing with the kids. Anyone could go crazy trying to untangle 100 jump ropes, but we all agreed that being organized as a teacher is crucial for being fully effective. Being behind the scenes makes you grateful for the time and effort that goes into creating a good program with good equipment. We did lose count a couple times, but we'd like to think we organized a pretty good closet space.

Halloween was in the air and after so many versions of "Monster Mash" Professor Yang thought it might be fun to switch things up. Our group was in charge of coming up with a song for the kids to dance to at the end of class. We had planned to do a dance to "Monster Mash" but the song was overused during the day so my group made a simple choreography to "Thriller". Oh, it was a sight. I came up with some pretty professional moves (exaggerating) and it actually was a lot of fun. I love dancing and have recently embraced the importance of dance in a physical education program. Music and dance put together not only provide an outlet for kids, but they also are great ways for kids to stay active. That is another post all in itself...coming soon. Back to "Thriller"...the kids loved dancing to the song and I wish I could have come up with choreography for the whole song! The group was in a big circle and at the end of the song a boy from Saint Mary's strutted to the middle and was showing off his dance skills. It was hilarious and I think it's so important to encourage kids to maybe be a little goofy sometimes.