Ahoy Matees!! Look below to check out the fun things we are learning each week here in the Pickett's Mill gym.
Check the sides for important information about our Pickett's Mill PE program and to link to some great physical education and health sites from around the nation....Arrrrh!!!
Can you believe we are already at our last week of school! What a great school year this has been. This is the 5th year I was able to work with our current 5th grade group and it is going to be very sad to see them move on to Middle School.
Before we say goodbye to all of the students for the summer, we are going to have our world famous Grade Level Tug-O-War Tournament on Monday. The entire grade level(s) will enter the gym during their Specials times and compete in a round-robin tournament "tug-off". It should be a lot of fun and the students always get excited and anticipate this event all year long. It gets kind of loud in the gym but we hope that the teachers and some parents will come in and cheer on their classes.
The rest of the week will be filled with large group team games that the students love to play....high energy, with tons of movement! Let's play hard but play safe and don't forget our great sportsmanship!
Wow, last week's Field Day was awesome! We could not have picked two better weather days in which to be outside all day. The "Surf" was really up at Pickett's Mill ! The students told me they loved the water games, scooter roll and the T-Ball events the best. The Allatoona students, Watchdog Dads and Clasroom Parent Volunteers were awesome and made Field Day 2013 a day to remember. Thanks so much to all of the students, teachers and parents for making field day happen.
This week we will be doing a variety of games and activites inside and outside including hitting off Tee's, 4 square, climbing the wall, jumping long ropes, kickball, fuzzball, and cup stacking. Some of the classes still have to run a "40 Yd. Dash on the field too. Since this is the 2nd last week of school this year and we have hit all of our major units for P. E., I wanted to provide a variety of choice activites for the students to try. Next week, on Monday, we will have our annual "Tug-O-War" tournament Day for all grades. It is always a blast! I hope all of the teachers and some parents will join us to watch the fun.
Field Day is this week.......finally!
Grades 3 through 5 - Wednesday, May 8 from 9:00 AM - 1:10 PM
Grades K through 3 - Thursday, May 9 from 9:00 AM - 1:10 PM
Our theme for this year's Field Day is "Surf's Up Pickett's Mill"! It is a beach-type theme and we will play all kinds of beach music during the events from several decades. Classes can dress beachy, wear hats or bandanas and/or carry signs/posters that represent beach stuff...it should be fun! Please do not wear a Bathing Suit however. You can dress "beachy" in other ways and it might be a good idea to bring a change of clothes to school because there is a chance you may get WET!!!
Each class will be broken into 3 teams - blue, green and yellow and they will compete at 17 different events around the school. Each event will be color coded to match the teams and we will have Allatoona High School kids and Watchdog Dads there to help run the events.
For more information about field day and to download a map and/or field day package, click here to go to the Pickett's Mill main page and get the information from there.
Last week, we had a "fast and furious" schedule because of the CRCT testing for our 3rd to 5th graders. We played a variety of games in the gym including "Space Invaders" and "Pirates" as we could organize those games and get the studrnts playing quite quickly. They always love to play "large group games" in the Pickett's Mill gym!!!
This week, depending on the weather,we will run the students through some races and relays on the field, two of which will be a timed 40 yd. and 140 yd. dash. The students scores will help us to make even relay teams that we can run next week around our 140 yd track on the field. We will also give the older students chances to break their personal and/or school records for the football/frizbee throw and the 40 yd. dash. Look for our Field Day Packets coming out on the school web page early this week....YAHHHH!!!!
Last week the older students finally finished their Fitnessgram testing and were able to play some fun games of "Team handball" which is a great teamwork and "synergizing" kind of game. Our younger students got to hit off of the tees and play games of "Homerun Derby". It was fun and fast paced.
This week, we will have very short periods since our school is going through the statewide CRCT testing program. Since classes will be short, we are going to set up a number of personal best and school record PE skill stations in which the students will get a chance ot climb, throw, run, stack, shoot, jump and more in the gym and outside. We will also play some large group throwing and catching games from my "Large Group Games that Rock" series.
Good luck with CRCT testing this week students and just remember, Field Day will be here before you know it!!!
Spring Break was Awesome! My family got to go hang out on the beach near Gulf Shores and my son played in a lacrosse tournament in Birhmingham, Alabama.. We had a blast....what did you guys get to do? Hope you kept active some how. It is always good to move your body during school break times.
This week we will finish recording scores for the push up and curl up portion of the Fitnessgram test with our 4th and 5th grade students. We will also play some base games like frizbee baseball, kickball and Danish Rounders and use our striking skills in some cool games of "Home Run Derby" and "Hit and Run". We might even to get to play some outdoor games of "Storm the Castle" if the weather stays warm in the mornings.
Should be another great week at the Mill!
Last week we completed some of our Fitnessgram fitness testing and this week we will continue officially testing our 4th and 5th graders and recording scores in our books for our 2nd and 3rd grade students. We will start with the PACER test and work towards completing the curl ups and Sit and Reach portion of the test. Can you believe at the end of the week we are already at Spring Break........YeeHaw!
We will also continue this week with short court, soft hockey games inside the gym. The students love playing these games at all age groups. Many great goals and saves occured last week and the students showed outstanding sportsmanship during the games. Way to go Pirates!
We finished a great volleyball unit last week. We really put our bumping, setting and serving skills to good use as we played rotational volleyball with our 2nd - 5th Grade students and scramble volleyball with our K and 1 students. The students did a great job and the games were very exciting. During some of our larger classes, we had 3 games going on in the gym at once!
This week we will continue to practice our push ups, curlups, and sit and reach so we are able to perform better when we record scores for the FITNESSGRAM Fitness Test with our 4th and 5th grade students. We will also begin to practice skills for a play small sided games of indoor Pillo Hockey games. We will set up to indoor courts and our students will rotate to different positions on the court. They will play offense, defense and have a chance at the goalie position too.
Last week we learned how to rotate through the 9 positions of a volleyball game with our older students. We had some awesome games that went "back and forth". Some of the scores were very close and the games were a lot of fun. We also played several different games where we learned to strike beachballs over the net with our younger students. Although they don't play what you typically think of as a volleyball game, they are hitting over the net and learning how to "track" a ball in order to hit it. We used oversized beachballs with them.
This week, we will continue on with our volleyball unit and add in a day or 2 of some hockey stations to mix things up some. In my opinion, it is always great to change things up in the middle of a unit to keep the kids guessing and bring excitement to the gym everyday. I love it when the students are begging to stay in the gym when they are leaving P. E.! When they are sweating up a storm and want to keep on moving at the end of class, I know we are doing things right.
I look forward to hanging out with the rest of the PIRATES each and every week at the "MILL"
Last week we worked on the volleyball skills for bumping, setting and serving. We also practiced the curl up and push up portions of the Finessgram with our 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students. The younger students used balloons and learned how to keep the balloon up using all parts of their bodies. We also learned how to play a new game called "Marbles" using the extra large beach balls and gator skin balls. It was a blast!
This week we will continue practicing different components of the Fitnessgram with our older students and test our younger students on catching and throwing. We will also begin to play volleyball over the nets using a rotational format with our 3rd to 5th grade students and a scramble format with our younger aged students. To ensure our students are successful in keeping a volleyball game going, we like to use different sized beach balls depending upon the grade of the students. The older the students, the smaller the beach ball.
