Charrette PE Blog

Week # 25 & 26: Volleyball Skill Stations and Balloon Striking

We had a blast last week jumping rope and finishing the week with our "Grand Finale" - Jump Rope for Heart 2013. The event was so much fun and we appreciate all of the energy and excitement all of our students (elementary and high school) brought in to the gym!!! Thanks to all of the students that brought in an envelope with contributions for the American Heart Association. 

This week we are jumping quickly into volleyball, beachball and balloon striking activites and skills. The 2nd to 5th graders will work in stations in small groups to perfect their volleyballs skills for "bumping", "setting", and "serving". They will also play some low net or line volleyball games in groups of 4. We might even throw in the climbing wall as a bonus station to keep us on our toes (and hands of course). The younger age students will practice striking ballooons and beachballs up in the air using various body parts and will play games of "keep it up". 

SERVE, SET, BUMP......Yah!

Week # 24 Jump Rope for Heart Week

This is a big week for us....it is Jump Rope for Heart week.  

We will continue teaching the students cool ways to use a long jump rope so that they will be ready for the big day on Thursday, February 14. Last week, the students got to use both long and short jump ropes and learned many new skills with them. This week, we will learn how to jump the snake in the grass, the ocean wave, the pendulum swing, run throughs, partner jumps and jump rope tag....fun, fun, fun!

The students will all come to PE on Thurssday at their regular scheduled Specials times. There is no Art, Music, or Computer Lab that day. Jump Rope for Heart will be a fun day of jumping, climbing and dancing. We will definitely have a bunch of Allatoona student athletes with us for each grade level. Please send your Jump Rope for Heart envelopes to the PE office first thing in the morning this week. We would like to have them all collected by Thursday. Students are eligible for extra prizes if they have their envelopes in on Jump Rope for Heart day. 

If you have any questions about Jump Rope for Heart, please email me at: pete.charrette@cobbk12.org

Week # 23: Jumping and Landing - Individual Jump Rope Skills

We finished up a great bowling unit last week and we were are now ready to test our 4th and 5th grade students on thier bowling knowledge. 

This week we will begin our Jump Rope Unit where we will focus in on some age-appropriate non-jumping and jumping skills using both long and individual short ropes. We will teach many skills with the rope on the ground and with it turning around our bodies and we will even use task cards and let the students teach each other some skills. Some of the skills are easier than others. It is important that the students progress at their own pace. That's the great thing about jumping rope. There are many ways you can jump and a variety of things that you can do with the rope. The sky's the limit!

Don't forget, next Thursday, February 14 is Pickett's Mill's, 5th Annual Jump Rope for Heart Event. It will be a lot of fun. The high school student athletes from Allatoona High School are going to come and jump with us all day!!! Hopefully the students have been able to collect pledges for the American Heart Association and they can start bringing it in next Monday, February 11 through to the event day on the 14th.

Parents, if you have any questions, regarding the Jump Rope for Heart event, email me at pete.charrette@cobbk12.org.

Week # 22: Introduction to Bowling & Kickoff to Jump Rope for Heart

This week we will be kicking off our Jump Rope for Heart Event which will be taking place on February 14, 2013! We will talk to the students about why, when, how and where we do the event and show them the "thank you" prizes that they can earn for collecting pledges. Parents, we will be sent home lots of information (including their colletion envelopes) about Jump Rope for Heart last week.  This year's event should be a lot of fun as we have again invited several of the Allatoona High School Student Athletes to come jump and play with us that day. Jump Rope for Heart is a worthwhile community event and it is always such a blast!

Along with kicking off our Jump Rope for Heart Event, we will beginning our Bowling unit on Monday. The bowling unit is always one of our students favorite activites as the students truly practice many of our 7 Habits by helping each other out "Synergizing" to turn our gym into the Pickett's Mill Bowling lanes. The students will help move pins, keep score and return bowling balls for each other while they play. 

We would like to welcome our special guests for "Leadership Day" on Friday, February 1 and we hope they will get to come by and watch our students during P. E. Maybe we could get one of them to take a turn at bowling in one of our lanes.

What a great week!!!!!!

 

Week # 21: Finish Tumbling and Begin Bowling

We hope everyone enjoyed a nice long weekend with the Martin Luther King Holiday Monday. 

We did several days of tumbling last week and took a short break from it at the end of the week. This week, we will get back at it with some fun rolls, crawls, jumps and balance moves. We will also test our students with some basic tumbling skills such as forward rolls, alligator crawls, hopscoth jumps, etc.

At the end of the week, we will crank up our bowling unit to prepare for Leadership Day which happens next Friday, Febraury 1. We will do some aerobic bowling, scoring and team bowling games.

Should be fun!!!

Week # 20: Educational Gymnastics: Tumbling, Balance and Group Stunts

After starting last week off with a "bang" playing "Sky Bowling", we eased our way into our "TUMBLING" unit on Friday. Our intention was to play "BattleShip" earlier in the week but I forgot that I had lent out some of our bowling pins to Bullard Elementary so we settled on "Sky Bowling" as a year opening game. We may get to Battleship late this week when we get our pins back from Bullard which will make a nice diversion to tumbling.

We will tumble most of this week practicing a variety of jumps, rolls, crawls, individual balance stunts and group balance stunts. We keep things very safe but try to get creative in how we can move our bodies down the mats. It's amazing just how you can get from one end of the mat to the other! Our students are very inventive and love the freedom of playing in the gym with their shoes off.....why, I don't know. That being said, please make sure you have on both tennis shoes for our fitness activity prior to tumbling and clean socks for the tumbling movements on the mats. 

We will do a small tumbling assessment at the end of this shortened tumbling unit for our 4th and 5th grade students. Our next unit for January will be BOWLING! We will be bowling on our "Leadership Day" on February 1. 

Week # 19: "Battle Ship", Tumbling and Balance

Wow, did that Winter Break ever go by fast....they always do! I hope everyone is rested and ready to go. We are going to start things back with a bang. Since all of the students have been asking when we are going to play  "BATTLE SHIP",  I decided it would be a great game to begin the year with. Click on the link and/or thumbnail to see the rules and diagram for the game.

Battleship takes a lot of set up but the good thing is, the placement of the mats in the game help lead into our tumbling, balance and stunt unit which we will begin on Friday. We will continue with the tumbling unit most of next week too. More about that unit on my next blog.

We will also begin each class this month with a practice Fitnesgram test (curl-ups, push-ups, sit-and-reach and the PACER). At the end of the month, our 4th and 5th grade students will be officially tested for the year on each of the listed fitness components. Parents will get reports revealing scores towards the end of the school year. The 2nd and 3rd grade students will also go through the motions for Fitnessgram testing to prepare for upcoming years. It seems if we practice with them now, it makes it much easier when the reach 4th and 5th grade. We even allow our K and 1st students to try each of the fitness testing activites, however we do not record the scores for them.

Let's get at it!

Week # 18: Finish Basketball and Play Parrot Award Games

It is so hard to believe that this is our last week before our Winter Holidays. This first half of the year has flown by!!! We are having fun with our olders students with our basketball unit. The 3rd, 4th and 5th graders played full court games late last week. Some classes are still yet to play full court games so we will do that with our olders students early this week to make sure they get some games in. We will also complete all of our basketball assessment for 4th and 5th graders and locomotor skills with our K - 3rd graders. 

Towards the end of the week, we will allow our Parott Award winning classes to choose their favorite games and play them as a reward heading into the break. Should be fun.

As an elementary school PE teacher, I can't help but think about the terrible tragedy that occured up in Connecticut. I will certainly spend this week praying for the families and community as they attempt to heal from the many losses they incurred this past Friday.  God bless them.

Week # 17: Continue Basketball Unit (Finish Stations & Assessment)/Full Court Games (3-5)

 

Last week, we began working on our basketball dribbling, passing and shooting skills in a station format and even had some time to climb across the climbing walls in the gym. Our 5th graders missed the entire week however because of their awesome "Pirate Christmas" performance. That put us a little behind but we will quickly get them "back to speed" so we can get to some rotational games by the end of the week leading into next week. Our younger students will continue working on their ball skills (dribbling, passing and shooting) and we will also throw in some parachute games to keep things interesting!!!

Can you believe we have less than 2 weeks before our Winter Holidays? 

 

Week 16: Basketball dribbling, passing and shooting stations/Locomotor assessment & Parachute Games

Last week we have a great time sequencing some "ball handling" maneuvers to come up with mini routines. We all looked like Harlem Globetrotters out there in the Pickett's Mill gym. We also got to play a great game or two of "Survivor 1" and "Survivvor 2". All of the students throroughly enjoyed the game and when asked to score the game, gave it very high marks. We may have to revisit "Survivor" again this year.

This week, we will continue our basketball unit and delve into the art of 'dribbling" and "passing". The students will practice these skills a number of different ways using a number of different teaching styles and the 4th and 5th graders will end up the week practicing and being assessed at various basketball stations set up aroung our gym. The younger students, Kindergarten to 3rd grade will be assessed on their ability to perform some developmentally appropriate locomotor movement. The younger students will also get to play some parachute games at the end of the week. The older students are preparing to play short court (full court, modified rules) basketball games next week.

Busy times, fun times!