Infinity War (an invasion game for G1s - G5s)

I put this game together to demonstrate to the G5s and G4s that when you approach the concept of creating a game, having a theme is key, as in this case it helps to spark the imagination and create excitement.

The students are very excited about this game, and the news of it has spread like wildfire, with classes who have never played the game before coming in asking in they are playing the Thanos Game!

It's taken 2 days of PE to get to the version I'm playing at the moment. There has been a fair bit of trial and error, particularly around the number of Infinity Stones compared to the number of teams playing.

The Story

For those students who are old enough and have seen the Avengers, I tell them that they are agents working for Thanos, and it is there quest to collect all 6 Infinity Stones.

Interestingly, this leads onto students asking if they can create a mini dance/action when they have collected all 6 in order to replicate Thanos snapping his fingers.

With that in mind, I will put a more positive spin on the game, saying they are the Avengers and that they need to collect the Infinity Stones to keep them safe from Thanos.

Then they could choose which Avenger they would like to play... something like that.

The Set-up

It's a basic invasion/capture the flag type game.

I split the gym into 4 equal areas, each area has an Infinity Gauntlet or The Avengers Gauntlet (a hoops with coloured cones placed in it) placed at the end of each area (corner of the gym or basketball court).

The objective is to fill all 6 stone holders (cones) with the 6 Infinity Stones (dodgeballs).

I then place the 6 Infinity Stones in the center of the gym (where each team area touches). As luck would have it, Gopher manufacture the identical colours of dodgeballs to Infinity Stones! (according to the movies and not the comics).

I then divide the class into 4 teams.

The Rules

Teams can only handle 1 Infinity Stone at a time.
Infinity Stones can not be thrown, kicked or passed.
Teams can only tag others when they are in their own quarter of the gym (eg. Blues can tag anyone who isn't a blue in their own area).
When tagged the student takes a knee (if they have an Infinity Stone they hand the Stone back).
To be released a team member must get to the tagged member without being tagged themselves and hold their hand (wrist, shoulder etc.) for a free walk back to their quarter of the gym.
No one is allowed to stand in the hoop (gauntlet) to guard the stone(s).
One guard per hoop (gauntlet).

If a blue team member steals a stone from the green team but is tagged by a yellow when traveling through the yellow teams territory, the yellows keep the stone.

The Start

Each team selects 2 members from their team. The 2 selected team members for each team stand equal distance from the pile of Infinity Stones (baseline of the basketball court) which are placed in the center of the gym.

These runners can only collect 1 Infinity Stone at a time.

I call this the Infinity Scramble.

On a given signal the 2 players from each team rush out to grab an Infinity Stone (8 runners and 6 Infinity Stones).

As soon as the Infinity Scramble is over the game has started and all rules apply.

Conclusion

This is a fun game which the students can play at their own pace.
It's always good to remind the students if they have zero Infinity Stones, not to get upset and to carry on raiding others areas.

I'm still tweaking the game, so if anyone has any other info they would like to add or new variations I would love to hear from them.

Putting the Fun back into Fitness - The Nuts & Bolts of the Fitness Unit

If you've read previous posts you will already know that I don't particularly agree with fitness testing in Elementary School. (Link Here to Fitness Testing in Primary Schools - YES or NO?)

For Grade 5 we overlapped the Athletics Unit (an intro to Track & Field) with the Fitness Unit in order to introduce the students to a wide range of the components of fitness (health and skill).

For the lower Grades we focus six lessons (three cycles) on cherry picking the components of fitness that we feel appropriate for the specific age groups.

In this post I am not going to go into depth into the Athletics unit (Grade 5), but the events covered within that unit will help highlight where certain components of fitness fit across the two units.

Grade 5 Athletics (Intro. to Track & Field)

Athletics Unit 2018
Lesson 1: Into. to Sprinting
Lesson 2: Sprinting
Lesson 3: Intro. to Middle Distance 1500m
Lesson 4: Middle Distance 1500m
Lesson 5: Intro. to Long Jump
Lesson 6: Long Jump
Lesson 7: Intro. to High Jump
Lesson 8: High Jump
Lesson 9: Javelin

A constant theme throughout this unit are the components of fitness, particularly:
Health: cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, muscular endurance, strength and
Skills: agility, balance, coordination, reactions, rhythm, power and speed.

Added onto the Athletics Unit for the Grade 5s are the following lessons, which make up the Fitness Units for the younger Grade groups.

Fitness Unit 2018
Lesson 1: Intro. to three new bodyweight exercises through a tag game. Followed up by Fitness Prisoner Dodgeball.
Lesson 2: Intro. to three new bodyweight exercises through a tag game. Followed up by Fitness Prisoner Dodgeball.
Lesson 3: 'Old School' (warm up), one partner circuit. Followed by a Dodgeball game or Yoshi.
Lesson 4: 'Old School' (warm up), one partner circuit. Followed by a Dodgeball game or Yoshi.
Lesson 5: Interval training via a timed tag game. Followed by a Dodgeball game or Yoshi.
Lesson 6: Interval training via a timed tag game. Followed by a Dodgeball game or Yoshi.

The breakdown of lessons 1 and 2 introduces 6 bodyweight exercises over the course of two lessons.  This is achieved by playing 'everyone is it' tag or the fast tag in the world. Each time someone is tagged they perform 5-6 repetitions of the exercise we are learning about. The game is repeated three times introducing the three exercises. A lot of emphasis is place on form and doing the exercise right.

The first three exercise were the Star jump, Mountain Climbers and the Burpee.

Each exercise was taped to a board so they could be stood up around the gym.

The second half of those lessons is devoted to a game the students really have a lot of fun playing. With prisoner dodgeball when the students are hit or if they get caught, they go to the side and perform one of the exercises introduced that lesson. Once they have completed the exercise they make their way to prison and the game continues.  Each time they head to the side to do an exercise they are advised to rotate through the three and if they get hit a fourth time they start back with their first exercise.

By the time the students get to lessons 3 and 4 they know their six new exercises really well. After an 'old school' warm up, as a class we run some shuttles, the students break in to pairs and make their way clockwise round the gym doing their new circuit. Rep. ranges for the easier exercises are 20 and for the harder exercises 10.

For the second half of the lesson we play a fun game of the students choice, usually dodgeball or Yoshi.

In lessons 5 and 6 we play a tag game as part of the fitness element of the unit. The tag game introduces interval training. I don't know what the tag game is called, but I will attempt to describe it below.

Interval Tag Game.
The game is divided into 10 rounds.
Each round is 30 seconds long or each round gets progressively longer by 3-5 seconds.
Mr. Weston starts off as the sole tagger, carrying 4 mini noodles.
In the first 30 seconds I have to tag 4 students.

Once round 1 is over, if the students have not been a tagger or have not been tagged they receive a lollypop stick e.g. if they have successfully evaded the taggers that round they get a lollypop stick.

After the first round, if the students do get tagged they have to surrender their all their lollypop sticks to the tagger. You can not get tagged back within that round.

After 10 rounds we have a quick show of hands regarding who has how many lolly sticks.

Another possible timing opportunity would be to pyramid the times e.g. start at 30 seconds, increase by 5secs until you get halfway through the rounds and then start decreasing the time back to 30 again.

Again the second half of the lesson is devoted to a popular student game, Dodgeball or Yoshi.

That's it for a rough nuts and bolts for elementary fitness.

Introduction to Orienteering

Introducing simple maps and map readings to the Grade 3's.
The first to lessons of the unit have been based in or around the gym.

Lesson 1 - Micro Orienteering in the Gym

The objective of this lesson is to use a simple map in regards to orientating themselves to the room. I start the lesson with a map drawn on the wall. I ask the obvious question of what are they looking at? Once I get an answer I ask them how they knew they were looking at a map of the gym? This leads us into talking about what clues gave it away? what a 'plan' is and what the symbols on the map indicate.

We have a number of basketball hoops in the gym and so I point to one on the map and ask them to point to the one I am indicating in the gym. We discuss North, South, East and West (they have covered this in class) and why it's important to have a North arrow on the map. We also talk about how to hold the map and to always keep it orientated to themselves and the room.

My simple map!

Before the lesson I hid 33 sticker in the gym and marked their location on two maps, one master map with location and codes and one map with just the locations. I photocopied the map with just the locations, which were handed out pairs of students.

One of the 33 stickers hidden in the gym, coded D1

We discuss what the students are looking for and that once a sticker is spotted they should not draw attention to it.

Then once they have the code in the case above 'D1' they should check back with me as a control to make sure the right circle on the map ties up with the correct code. It's at this point I discover if they are reading their map correctly. If they get the first couple correct I tell them to check in with me every 4-5 stickers that they find. They write the code on their map.

This lesson is very active and keeps the students engrossed and on task. I also did this lesson with the Grade 2's and they loved it! I called it 'Treasure Hunting'

Lesson 2 - Lollypop Stick Orienteering

With this lesson the students have a slate a whiteboard marker and a lollypop stick each. Again they partner up. The idea is they draw their own personal design on the lollypop stick, hand it to their partner (swap sticks) and they take it in turns to go hide their partners stick. I put a max time of 1 minute for them to hide their partners stick and state the boundaries for the hiding locations (I don't want them disappearing across the school). Once they have returned they start to draw a map on their slate that will lead their partner to their missing stick.

I have the partners share a yoga mat to ensure they meet up in the same location each time.

Once the sticks have been located they clean their slates and go again.

You'll be amazed at some of the maps your students will draw!!! Lol - just that alone will lead you/them into a wealth of inquiry.

Personalizing their stick!

Essential Agreements 2016 - 2017

Slightly different approach this year... 

To help the students start thinking, collaborating, and developing our Essential Agreements, I used the visible learning routine of 'think, pair, share' and based the initial leading questions around our five senses. 

If you were going to have an environment that would help you be the best that you can be in PE, what would that (environment) PE lesson look like? What would that PE lesson sound like? What would that lesson (make you) feel like? What does your PE lesson smell like? AND finally if you could make your PE lesson into a pie, or if it was a flavour of ice cream, what would your PE lesson taste like? (The students love this one - lol).

After some discussion, the students write down their thoughts and ideas on what will make the PE lessons 'work' for them this year.

The next step was to highlight the Essential Agreements the students felt were important. Again I used the visible thinking routine of 'think, pair, share' to start (students read peers contributions).

Then I had them place 3 pins in the Essential Agreements that they thought applied most to them and their idea of a good learning environment. There were a couple of rules to follow when choosing the 3 Essential Agreements they liked the most. Rule 1, was they shouldn't pick there own. Rule 2, was they shouldn't pick 3 EAs with the same theme and finally, Rule 3, was don't follow the crowd, be honest with yourself and pick 3 EAs that mean the most to you!

(Why pins? Because it takes the minimum amount of time away from the physically active part of the PE lesson).

Finally, I merged EA's with similar themes together in order to construct a list of agreed upon attitudes and values that the students felt they needed to create a safe learning environment in physical education.

Grade 2 Net Games Unit (Tennis & Badminton)

Net Games - Learning Journey: Elements of Movement

 

Enduring Understanding: Constantly returning to the ready position in Tennis or Badminton is necessary for long term success.

An introduction to Net Games: Tennis & Badminton.

In the unit we explored the concept of the "ready position" and it's importance in letting the player move between the ground strokes in tennis or from offensive to defensive shots in badminton.

Essential Questions:

"What does being 'ready' look like?"

"Why do we want to consistently return to the 'ready position' in-between shots?"

 

Ground Tennis

A new game I did experiment with in this unit that I want to highlight is 'ground tennis'. Having already talked about the ready position the students we then get into a friendly and/or a competitive game of 'ground tennis'. Ground tennis is exactly what it says it is (obviously without a net).... you play tennis with a tennis ball along the ground. Everyone one can play, and you can tailor the games to the needs of the students. For example you could have a friendly rally, or a blistering competitive match, or you could make it more technical by having them try to keep the ball on a line or add in a ground shot. What you do need to stress is that after every shot they return to their starting ready position. 

Ground Tennis

During the unit we used tennis balls when focusing on technique, but we would always bring out the big bubble gum balls to have a fun rally.

Volleyball Badminton

One game I do enjoy is volleyball badminton. Again, it's exactly what it says it is. Volleyball rules but played with badminton equipment. I usually go 3vs.3 as that still leaves lots of space on a badminton court. At times the whole, you continue to serve until you loose a point is a bit hard to understand for the overly keen, but the students seem to love it! You can also play this game with or without net.

 

Reflections on their Adventures in Tennis & Badminton

 

Essential Agreements 2015 - 2016

My classes came up with some fantastic Essential Agreements for this school year in PE. #essentialagreements #physed

 

G2 Problem Solving...

G2 Problem Solving... Running Out of Road!!!

Last day of the school year, units are done, reports are written, everybody is winding down.
This little group did make laugh :)

They had almost completed the obstacle course without touching the floor. The last challenge in their way was getting over the vaulting box (they couldn't go round (far too easy)). For the exercise they had the use of foam balance beams and scooters.

The photos below shows what happens when too many students push ahead without thinking ahead. A pile-up of little people, hanging onto the vaulting box for dear life as they try to have equipment send to them from the rear.

A valuable life lesson - lol

Grade 1 and Grade 2 Striking & Fielding Ideas

G2 Relationships in Team Sports through the Physical Education Learning Lens of Striking & Fielding II

The G2 Striking & Fielding Unit II will focus on the concept of Relationships.

Taken from my conceptual map for Primary Physical Education

Striking and Fielding Unit II is about transferring the skills, knowledge and understanding the learning in Unit I and applying it to a different Striking & Fielding Game. This Unit we are inquiring into Baseball, via Cricket.

Grade 2 In Action

In the photographs you will notice we are still using the cricket wickets as bases and a cricket bat. The thinking behind this is by using the wickets it still gives the students a bigger target to aim at when fielding (and when running) and the cricket bat makes it easier for the students to hit a bowled/pitched ball (with a cricket bat you can hit the ball even when it is bowled along the ground). 

In the photos you will see I am the pitcher, these are early photos within the unit (I pitch because I want every student to have success with the bat). In later lessons I will turn the pitching duties over to the students. Being the pitch also puts me right at the center of the game and in a position to teach within the game, both the rules and game sense.

MTV: Reflection - I Used To Do/ Now I Do

G2 Net Games: Coaching & Feedback/Tennis

An Inquiry into how peer coaching and constructive, timely feedback can help a friend develop their understanding and skills in the net game, Tennis...

Hand-Eye Coordination and the introduction to 'Feeding the Ball' and the Forehand 
The unit begins with an introduction to the tennis ball, and we run through simple hand-eye coordination drills to warm ourselves up e.g. patting the ball up in the air with our hands, or playing hand tennis with a partner. After the introduction to the tennis ball we simply replace our hands with a simple bat - still focusing on our movement and hand-eye coordination.

During these first couple of lessons the importance of a well fed ball is highlighted and discussed. Without the well fed ball, learning to develop the ground strokes in tennis would be incredibly difficult to achieve.

We finish the lesson with the introduction to foot movement and the forehand using the concept of preparation in the form of drawing a giant letter C and where we need to move our bodies to make the shot easier to play (step towards/away from the ball).

Over the course of the next three lessons we moved from hand-eye coordination drills with no rackets, to adding rackets, to feeding a ball, to developing forehand and backhand strokes - see the photo pin boards below.

Photo Pin Boards from the first three lessons:

Peer Coaching & Peer Learning

As a class we have studied the ground strokes in some detail. We've looked at how they are played, when they are played and simple drills to help us improve both our forehand and backhand strokes. 

The next step is having the class rank themselves on a continuum - World Class Players all the way down to Beginners. The students are usually very good at knowing what their ability is compared to their peers. Once the students are stood on the continuum I try to pair up the more experienced with the least experienced. 

We look at what is good feedback for the coaches, and we examine how we should behave as a learner when a peer is giving us feedback. In addition we also highlight that the learning shouldn't be one way, and that the coach has lots to learn from the peer student he/she is helping.

This works really well, as it gives the peer learner lots of one-on-one time with a friend who can feed the ball accurately to them and give them little pointers that may need correcting. For the peer coaches it really forces them to break down the ground strokes, identify problems and to problem solve them in order to help their class mate improve.

Comments

G2 Gymnastics: Pathways

Children have previously identified simple pathways and travelled along them using feet or hands and feet in a variety of ways, so the intention of this unit is to widen their experience and make them more critical and selective in the types of movement they select for particular pathways. For example, children will need to recognise that to turn a sharp corner they must slow down before they reach it and then over-balance into the new direction and understand that the sharper the angle, the greater the need to slow down. Equally, they will find that a turning jump to land on two feet could help them turn a sharp corner and lead them into the next direction. Following a curving or curricular pathway requires children to lean their body weight into the curve and choose movements which allow them to maintain control e.g. small running steps or turning leaps are more suitable than a series of large leaps. A short, straight, direct pathway lends itself to a wide variety of travelling movements, but equally it is an ideal pathway for demonstrating an accelerating run into a jump.

The meaning of flexible (or indirect) and direct pathways should be thoroughly understood. Direct pathways are those which involve travelling in a straight line and are more functional in nature (e.g. run and jump, forward roll etc.) Flexible (or indirect) pathways are generally longer and more interesting (e.g. circles, squares, triangles arcs etc.) and can be artistic and very individual (e.g. spirals, heart shapes, clover leaf, daisy head, letters of the alphabet etc.) and some may have a common starting place and destination and others may have different starting places and destinations.

Generally children will be able to select compatible pathways and activities and create sequences which demonstrate an understanding of speeds and levels.

G2 Relationships in Team Sports through the Physical Education Learning Lens of Striking & Fielding I

The G2 Striking & Fielding Unit I will focus on the concept of Relationships.

Taken from my conceptual map for Primary Physical Education

An Introduction to Fielding - What do my G2s know about fielding?

(The account of the lesson below is a combination the first lesson on striking and fielding with my three G2 classes)

The lesson started with the question "What do you think the role of the fielder is?"

I had also printed out a photo to help students with the question.

We talked about the differences between the two sports pictured... how one wears a mitt etc. After noting down concepts such as throwing and catching the answers dried up a bit... I broke out the Kwik Cricket bats. Mr. Weston was going to go into bat and the class were going to be the fielders. All they had to do was work as a team to get Mr. Weston OUT.

This resulted in 16-20 students racing after 1 ball and Mr. Weston scoring lots of runs...

Time to Reflect

Everyone was brought back in, and 2 Questions were posed:

1. Are they achieving their objective?" (Stop Mr. Weston from scoring or GET HIM OUT!)

2. Are they acting as a team?"

On reflection they decided they were not acting as a team and observations were added to the sheet: split up, spread out, field in space. The students now spread themselves round the gym. We played a little bit more... I noticed something that needed to be explored...

Question: What is faster, throwing the ball or running with the ball?

After a moment of experimentation the class decided that throwing the ball was quicker than running with the ball and that they should pass the ball to get it back to the wicket quicker. Play continued... Mr. Weston's scoring rate was definitely slowing up as the fielders organized themselves.

More Reflection

Passing the ball is faster than running with the ball, but how can we get the ball back to the wicket even faster?

To speed up getting the ball back to the wicket, passing the ball changed to throwing the ball directly towards the wicket. We continued to play... I noticed some of the students started to organize themselves into simple roles i.e. placing themselves next to the wicket should the initial throw miss the target.

Conclusion: The 2 Questions

The 2 questions were reflected upon again: "Are they achieving their objective?" and "are they acting as a team?"

The answer to both questions were now YES. Could it get better? YES, but this is just the first lesson... :)

The rest of the lesson was spent playing an orderly game of Kwik Cricket! 

An Introduction to Batting - What do my G2s know about batting?

(The account of the lesson below is a combination the second lesson on striking and fielding with my three G2 classes)

Question: What is the role of the batsman and the batting team?
hitting the ball, focus on the ball, running fast where generally the first couple of answers.

Highlighting the word ROLE and adding "What is the objective of the Batting side? (compared to the fielding side?)" 
All three classes generally answered: to score points or to hit into gaps on the field (I loved the tactical, spacial awareness answer).

After some thinking and reflecting on the photos and their past experiences (including last lesson) they got to:  it is the batsman's job to protect/defend the wicket, and to score points/runs.

We then compared the fielder's role to the batsman's role, and identified that the fielding team could not score, but they have to "get out" the batting team as quickly as possible, in order to get themselves "into bat" to score.

We then inquired into how and where you stand as a batsman and how you hold a cricket bat in order to defend the wicket.

After some practice in 3's we got into a competitive game of Kwik Cricket.

The Language used in this unit of Striking and Fielding so far: Bat, Batting, Batsman, Fielding, Wicket, Stumps, Wicket Keeper, Bowler, Runs, Out, Catch, Throw, Aim, Target, Defend, Protect, Hit.

Batting, Bowling and Fielding Practice in 3s.