Monthly Archives: February 2015

Jump Ropes

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K-2 Skills:

Short Rope – Every student has a rope and has personal space for jump roping.

Lay rope in a line in front of you in a straight line

  • Walk heel-toe from one end to the other while next to the line.
  • Walk heel toe backwards next to your  line.
  • Zig-Zag skier style (side to side) starting at one end, then turn around and return
  • Put one hand on each side of your rope and jump both feet back and forth.
  • Tightrope walker from one end to the other, then return

Lay rope in a circle in front of you

  • Balance on one foot and go as low as you can – then, as high as you can
  • Put one hand in the middle and see if you can move your feet 360 degrees around the circle
  • Leap into your rope on two feet
  • Leap in on one foot and out on one foot
  • Leap over your rope on two feet

Partners put your two ropes together and make a circle

  • Around the Lake Tag
  • Choose one person to be it
  • Try to tag your partner with a hand
  • Tag without going in “lake” or into the forest (rest of gym)
  • When tagged – count thousand one, thousand two, switch “its”

Before you jump rope… 

  • Thread the Needle (hand on both handles and jump over it)
  • Swing the rope and stop it with your feet.
  • When you’re ready to jump, just watch for the rope to be closer your feet Most people miss because they jump too soon.

Long Rope for K,1,2: Teacher is the rope turner

It works best initially if the teacher turns the long rope by hooking one end of the rope to an eye bolt on the wall.

  • Ocean Waves (Up and down ripple)
  • Snake Jump (Side to side ripple)
  • Blue bells (back and forth jump)

School: Long Jump Rope Activity 

3rd/4th/5th Skills

Novice:

  • Single Side Swing and Jump – Always keep a handle in each hand
  • Cue: left-jump-right – jump
  • Swing rope to right side – jump
  • Swing rope to left side – jump

Scissors – Forward Straddle

  • Cue: Left-Right
  • Jump to stride position with left foot forward
  • Jump and reverse position of feet

Straddle Cross

  • Cue: Apart – Cross
  • Jump to straddle position
  • Jump to crossed legs

Wounded Duck

  • Cue: Apart-Cross
  • Jump, toes and knees together, heels spread
  • Jump, heels together, toes and knees spread
  • Heel – Toe
  • Heel – Toe – Heel – Toe
  • Hop on left foot, touch right heel forward
  • Hop on left foot again, touch right toe backward
  • Repeat on opposite side

Strategies for Teaching in the Gym

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A Successful Activity in the gym is on that has most students engaged and their mood is lifted by music, physical activity, and positive relationships with their classmates.

Music: Music has the ability to change the mood of a class. It has untapped potential in assisting with management in the classroom too. When you want students to put everything away and be ready for transition, use a 30 second song. Then the song is running your class and not the teacher. Also, it’s a good stress manager for the teacher if you like the music too!

Tag Games: Make sure all tag games have a way for students to get back in the game after the tag. This is essential for creating a fun atmosphere, because students aren’t just getting each other out, they are getting them back in the game. Partner tag games may have the highest level of participation and many require no equipment. Also, if you have old stuffed animals, they make for very popular taggers.

Gym Homes and Color Teams: If you teach or student teach P.E. to a classroom of students for whom you are also the classroom teacher, you would be wise to create gym homes and color teams for them. If you go to this much trouble, you might also consider organizing your classroom with the same format. I’m attaching a grid that can be used in a gym or classroom. I do mix up the classes with an equal number of boy and girls whenever. I do also try to spread out the students that have more athletic experience or skill, so that when we break into teams they are more evenly matched.
Here’s the color scheme that we use in the gym, It is also used by the major P.E. suppliers, so you can often have equipment that is the same color as the teams, which makes for much easier transitions.
Blue     Orange     Yellow     Green     Purple     Red

When You’re teaching: Connecting to previous experiences improves the pace of understanding:
When teaching in the gym it is helpful to connect a new activity to a previous one. It makes for quicker understanding. For example you might say, “You remember when we held a parachute in a circle in the center of the gym. Let’s make a circle about the same size”.

Demonstrating: When teachers have small group of students come up and do a physical demonstration, it much more inclusive to the diverse learners in the class.

Classroom and P.E. Nonverbals: If you find yourself repeated a verbal directive, look for a way to change it to a nonverbal. For example if you excuse students from class by saying the name of a group. Put up the group names on the wall and use a laser pointer instead. It’s quieter and kids respond more quickly to visual information and something that is unique, like a laser pointer.

Project Adventure

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Chicken Impulse

(Project Adventure Book p. 240) Equipment: Rubber Chicken

  • Split class into 2 even groups – First 4 on each color team for example
  • Students sit down facing (backs?) to each other, 12 inches between teams
  • Students hold hands with the person on either side of them
  • The rubber chicken will be at the end of the line between the last two players on each team
  • Close eyes, except for the two people at the beginning of each line
  • The teacher flips a coin
  • If the coin lands on heads – both teams send down the pulse to the end of the line and tries to be the first to grab the chicken.
  • If the coin lands on tails, neither team sends an impulse down the line
  • Teams gets a point when they are able to send the pulse down their line by using the hand pulse technique
  • Teams lose a point if a pulse is passed down, or chicken grabbed when the coin landed on tail

Gotcha

  • Whole groups stands in a circle – close enough to touch hands.
  • Everyone puts left hand out and open (palm up).
  • Right hand with finger resting above neighbor’s left open palm.
  • On the count of three, try to catch  your neighbor’s finger, while trying to avoid being caught by your neighbor.

Team Tag:

  • This is an everyone is it game.
  • You are trying to tag other people and they are trying to tag you.
  • However, people are split into smaller groups of three or four and each group is given a different color ball.
  • Now, if a person is tagged they take a knee and can only get back in if someone from their team throws them their team ball.

Human Knot (Knot my Problem):

  • Coil-up a looped rope (ends tied together) and place it in the center of the group.
  • Ask participants to reach across the coil of rope and grab a section of rope with one hand.
  • Once this is done, ask folks to reach across and grab another section of rope with their other hand.
  • When participants have a hold of the rope with both hands they shouldn’t let go.
  • The object is for the group to untangle the rope.
  • Participants can slide their hands along the rope but may not let go.

Circle The Hoop:

  • Participants stand in a circle and link hands with a hula-hoop around a designated set link hands to start.
  • The group must then pass the hula-hoop around the circle by passing it over and under their bodies and arms, without letting go of each other’s hands.
  • An added challenge is to add a second hoop traveling in the opposite direction.

NASCAR:

  • With the group standing in a circle and each person holding a rope (ends tied together) the teacher will start a stopwatch and time how long the knot in the rope can be passed around the circle and back to the starting spot.

Popcorn (Bouncers and Chasers)

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This game is from the Project Adventure Curriculum. Check out their website: http://www.pa.org/

Setup and Equipment:

  • Pail
  • Whiffle golf balls (simulated  popcorn)
  • Break the class in half. 1/2 = bouncers, 1/2=chasers. With four color teams: 2 teams are bouncers and two are chasers

Rules:

  • The game is set up in the center circle in the gym. An empty pail is set up in the center (absolute) of the circle. The “bouncers” sit on the black line that circles around the pail (about three feet from the pail).
  • The job of the “bouncers” is to sit on the center circle line in the gym and attempt to bounce the balls into the bucket. The attempt works best with one bounce. However, with younger students (K,1,2) you will probably need to make an exception to this rule.
  • The job of the chasers is to retrieve the balls that the teacher throws into the air and roll them to their classmates who are the “bouncers”. Chasers are not allowed to bounce balls into the bucket.
  • The game begins when all of the chasers circle around the teacher who has a full bucket of golf whiffle balls which are thrown at once high up into the air. (Note: A surprising number of students will like to stand close and have these balls land on their heads!)
  • Chasers may not run with the balls, but must roll them to their classmates in the center circle.
  • The teacher will time this activity.
  • When the last ball is bounced into the empty bucket, the time is stopped and now the class should change “jobs”.
  • The bouncers are now the chasers and vice versa.
  • The teacher will start this game in the same manner as before and time it again