Create a Game Unit 2018 (version III)

My third year in the development of this unit.

Previous entries:
G5/4 create and develop a simple game pt. 1 (2016)
G5/4 create and develop a simple game pt. 2 (2016)
Create a games unit 2017 version II (2017)

Similar to my previous post on this unit, I'm not going to go over the fundamentals of the unit, just the changes I have made in order to make the unit run smoothly.

This year I kept drawing the class back to the units objective:
To create an original game that the whole class (approx 20 students) can play/get involved in.

and our Enduring Understandings for the Learning Journeys of Relationships & Ethics:
Participating positively, adopting various roles and responsibilities supports the development of a good team.
and
Good sportsmanship is essential to all activities.

Lesson Sequence
Lesson 1: Tuning in - Teacher lead games - 4 types of tag games.
Lesson 2: Tuning in - Team names and design a simple tag game from the 4 types of tag game sheet.
Lesson 3: Sorting out - Choosing a game type and starting to create.
Lesson 4: Creating a game.
Lesson 5: Creating a game and trailing the game.
Lesson 6: Feedback, game completion and 1st game + peer assessment.
Lesson 7: Games 2 & 3 played + peer assessment
Lesson 8: Game 4 + peer assessment and reflection

Tuning In - Team Names and Tag Games

Different from last year, this year I modelled the 4 types of tag game on the sheet below. Letting the student know that next lesson they would be presenting one of the types of tag games.

Again, the first task of the team was to come up with a team name that everyone agreed upon.
Next I kept the lesson similar to last years but instead of assigning types of tag games I let the students choose their games through luck/fate with a 4-way game of black & white and rock paper scissors.

Once the student teams have their assigned types of tag games I give them 5-10 minutes to create a simple tag game following the parameters on the sheet using minimal equipment.

After each game was played the other teams give a little vote on what they thought, marking out of 5 for originality (creativity) and 5 for fun.

Create A Game

As a way to help focus the teams I talked about types of games that they might want to create. Last year I used this document which included Health and Fitness games. I decided to lose the Health and Fitness type game this year.

https://www.iphys-ed.com

The students discuss the possible game type they would like to work on. Once the teams are in agreement they can start discussing layout, roles and equipment.

A change from last year; rather then giving them designated equipment, I gave them free rein with the advice of not to make the game so equipment intensive that it becomes painful to set up, takes 2 minutes to play and forever to put away.

Dispositions

This year I also had teams identify areas they found themselves doing well in and areas that they found challenging. This helped the students recognise and understand the process they were going through in order to reach their goals.

I did this through using the dispositions PE has identified as being strongly link to our subject area and particularly to this unit.

Trialling the Game

Trialling the game remained the same as the last couple of years. The difference this time was how and when the students gave feedback. Last year the teams delivered feedback whilst sitting in circles, this year the teams wrote down the feedback. The documented feedback was handed out next lesson. I gave the guidelines of approx 3 positives comments and 2 possible improvements.

Next lesson the groups received their feedback, had time for clarification questions and then time to complete their rules and finish (to a degree) their games, ready for the whole class to play.

The Game & Peer Assessment

It feels like this year I devoted more time to playing the games and the peer assessment.

The format is the same for each class. The group whose game everyone is about to play, sets up and then stands in front of the class to explain the rules and to answer any questions. Their peers are encouraged to ask clarifying questions and if necessary I quickly recap. Once the game has been played, we gather together in our teams and assess the game on originality and fun.

Assessment is achieved through group debate and a hand held star system: 1 - 5

With four groups per class the maximum a team can score is 15 stars for originality and 15 for fun (max 5 stars across 3 teams) making a total of 30 stars (points).

The Grade 5 & 4 Create A Game Score Board

Reflection

This year I wrote down 4 reflective questions for the students to walk around and answer.

1. How can you apply what you learned from the create a game unit in your life?
2. What advice would you give to someone else working on the create a game unit?
3. How have you been challenged during the create a game unit?
4. What did you learn through this experience and how can you use it in the future?

My Grade 4s found question 1 and 4 too similar. My personal favourite is question 2.

Enduring Understanding & Compelling Questions 2018/19

Colour Code
Yellow = Relationships
Red = Ethics
Blue = Elements of Movement
Green = Health & Fitness
Orange/Brown = Critical Thinking & Evaluation

This year I'm experimenting with focusing and aligning our 5 Learning Journeys (Relationships, Ethics, Elements of Movement, Health & Fitness and Critical Thinking & Evaluation) across Grades 1 to 5. Instead of addressing each Learning Journey depending on the games, topics or sports played, I'm focussing on letting the Enduring Understandings and Compelling Questions drive what we do in class.

Rereading our Enduring Understandings, recognising (and predicting alongside the Australian Curriculum) where the students would be with their learning and understanding, it seemed obvious that the Learning Journeys (LJ) could fall in an order that would be appropriate for a yearly overview.

Meaning, the LJs appear to fit nicely together, running from Relationships & Ethics combined, through Elements of Movement, Health & Fitness and finishing with Critical Thinking and Evaluations at the end of the year.

If you are aware of my previous physical education matrices you will notice I have combined the stands of relationships and ethics. Taking our 5 Learning Journeys down to 4 across a school year. I have done this for a number of reasons; the first of which is I believe the 2 strands run very closely together. Tackling the questions alongside one another gives us the opportunity to explorer both LJs for extended periods of time, allowing the classes the opportunities to make more meaningful connections. In addition our new 4 LJs fit neatly into our school calendar, giving each LJ focused time periods to be explored in more detail, rather than just hitting the LJs randomly over the course of the year.

Create a Game Unit 2017 (version II)

Create a Game Unit 2017 (version II)

Having first developed this unit last year, this year I was able to develop it to make it more streamlined. This is a fantastic unit and it's got even better...

Last Years Blog Entries:
G5/G4 Create and Develop a Simple Game pt. 1
G5/G4 Create and Develop a Simple Game pt. 2

Tuning in... Simple Tag Type Games

This year I'd put together a handful of visuals to help the students achieve their goals.
The tuning in part of the unit was having the peer groups work together in order to develop a tag game using simple guidelines.

Team Name

BUT first things first, once the class had chosen their peer groups their first piece of collaboration was going to be to come up with an original team name! I found this an excellent way to slowly get the groups collaborating, with each exercise being a step up in their cooperation/collaboration, from deciding a team name, through to developing a complex game. The steps this year I felt worked well: (1) Agree upon a team name, (2) simple tag games following criteria (see below) and finally (3) developing an original (relatively) complex game.

Types of Tag Games

Below is a screenshot of the document I gave the classes. I took the descriptions from Peter Hastie's (2010) book Student Designed Games. Over the next two lessons the students would come up with  tag games that would fit into the four categories below.

This is a great way to tune in, but on reflection, next year I would bullet point the descriptions rather than have them in a paragraph. Just to make it easier for the students to access the information at a glance.

Lesson Order

Having done this unit last year, the lessons follow a pattern. It keeps the unit on time, which is key as you don't want all the students enthusiasm to go stale with a unit that never ends. 

The order goes something like this:

Lesson 01: Tuning in - Choose a Team Name and Design a Simple Tag Game (Anyone Can Freeze).

Lesson 02: Tuning in - Design Simple Tag Games ( Safe Players Can Unfreeze, Multiple-Option Taggers and/or Safe Zones).

Lesson 03: Designing & Playing the Game.

Lesson 04: Designing & Playing the Game.

Lesson 05: Trialing the Game & Receiving Feedback.

Lesson 06: Recording the Rules and Documenting the Complete Game.

Lesson 07: Share the Finished Game with the Whole Class.

Lesson 08: Share the Finished Game with the Whole Class.

Reflection.

Tuning in

The Grade 5 are starting a unit called "Create your own Game". This unit fits under the "relationships" learning journey in Physical Education. In the short video the students have been given simple guidelines in order to create a simple tag game.

For the Movie Click Here

Lessons 3 & 4

Lessons 3 & 4 of the unit have seen the students coming to an agreement of the type of game they are going to create. The lessons have given the groups the opportunity to use the equipment and to trial various ideas. The development criteria they are working towards is based on whether the game is original, fun, has longevity and is appropriately challenging. Next lesson they are going to introduce their game to another group, in order to get feedback and polish their final version.

For the Movie Click Here

Lessons 5 & 6

Lessons 5 & 6 had the students trial their games with another group in order to get feedback on how their game is developing. Once the game had been trialled the group had the opportunity to document their games objectives, set up and rules.

For the Movie Click Here

Additional Documents 

I created a couple of other documents designed to help remind the students the stages they needed to go through in order to design a game. All these need tweaking for next year, after reflection they could definitely be upgraded, but they served their purpose in helping guide the students thinking in the right direction.

G5/G4 Create and Develop A Simple Game (My Learning Journey) Pt.2

After "Going Further: Testing and Feedback" it was to time to document their own unique games. 

Documenting Rules & Game Play.

Each group (4-5 students) got a big piece of blank paper so they could document the rules of their game and how it should be played. They did this through written rules and diagrams. 

The students also made a 30-60 second movie explaining how the game is played. This was generally achieved with one person narrating whilst on camera with the rest of the group playing. This part was particularly important for their online blogs and digital portfolios.

Group Assessment.

After each game as a class we assessed the game on FUN, ORIGINALITY and LONGEVITY. 

The students did this on their fingers on a scale of 1-5, 1 would be a low score and 5 would be the max, giving a total score of 15 over the three categories. All games scored between 9 - 14. 

Note: It was important to keep reminding the students that they were assessing the game, not how certain students played or interpreted the rules... For the most part, if a student gave a particularly hard score it was always interesting to hear why they gave that score, and most of the time is was due to what happened to them in the game and not actually the game itself. This would lead to brilliant class discussions on possible rules changes etc. 

Reflection.

As I often do I went with the visible thinking reflection of "I Used To Think/Now I Think". 

I particularly like this reflection as I want the students to focus in on a part of their learning journey and to tell me about it.

 

 

G5/G4 Create and Develop A Simple Game (My Learning Journey) Pt.1

This is my learning journey about how we created and developed a "Create and Develop A Simple Game" unit for Grades 4 & 5.

For Grade 3's I've been working on a similar "Create and Develop A Simple Game" unit, they didn't document their rules on paper, but they did make a 30-90 second movie explaining/playing  their game for their blog/digital portfolio.

Please note: I am a firm believer of keeping the students physically active during PE lessons. All descriptions and photos of the students sat planning or documenting is kept to an absolute minimum. Most of the planning time was spent by the students trialing their games. During this unit I would usually start with a whole class game like Yoshi and finish with either Yoshi or a game the students had created themselves and wanted to play again.

As a department we had decided in order to hit the Grade 4 Enduring Understanding (EU)*: Behaving appropriately ensures fair play and the Grade 5 EU*: Good sportsmanship is essential to all activities we would create and develop a "Create and Develop A Simple Game" unit.

*These EU's are under the Learning Journey of Ethics in our Physical Education Matrix.

Tuning In: Rules! 

Tag Games. Both Grade 4 & 5 have played a abundance of tag games throughout their school lives. Though they don't realize it, they have a huge collective knowledge of tag games and how they are played.

I started the first lesson with a game of tag (obviously), but that's all the information I communicated. With a huge amount of excitement the students immediately jumped up and rush out into the center of the gym. Some even start playing! Very soon it dawned on them that they need to clarify "who was the tagger?"

Great! So I quickly call them back in and we identified who was and how many taggers there should/could be. Again with great excitement the majority rushed back out and start running from the taggers. 

Shortly, more questions inevitably followed: "what happens when we're tagged?" and "how do we get free?"

Each time I brought the class back in and we discussed the adding of new rules.

Takeaways: We need rules and an objective to be decided upon and communicated to everyone before the game starts!

Over the next couple of lessons I experimented with dividing the class into two (approx 9-10 students per group) in order for them to come up with their own tag games with the guidelines that it had to be simple, fun and have a hint of originality. 

Some classes found this relatively easy, while others struggled. For myself, I wasn't necessary looking for an end product (though it would have been nice). I was more interested in observing the students going through the processes. I wanted the students to try ideas, reflect and if necessary change them to something that fitted.

Planning & Explaining the rules to the rest of the class

What we did notice was the students got bogged down during the initial planning stages, particularly when we organized them into large groups. Looking at this experience positively it did create an excellent opportunity to bring Guy Claxtons Essential Competences into play. Reminding the students to be open minded, that it is important to respect others, resolve conflicts and come to a consensus. 

Suddenly rather than the unit revolving around Ethics, it seemed more and more to have a foothold in the Learning Journey of Relationships.

Would it be possible to teach through two Learning Journeys simultaneously? Letting the students identify under which Journey their learning/understanding is falling under?

Finding Out: Creating a Tag Game.

Through the questions the students had asked in the previous lessons they had already identified the components of a simple tag type game: the need for a tagger(s), what happens when you get tagged and how do you get released.

By identifying these components of a tag games we divided the students into three areas/groups:
Movement: How do the tagger(s) move? How do the runners move?
Consequences: When you get tagged, what happens?
Rescue: Who and how do you get released?

With classes of approximately 18-22 students I divided my class into groups of 3-4 students, making a total of 6 groups (two groups dealt with Movement, two with Consequences and two Releases).

Once they'd had a minute of ideas sharing I then randomly teamed up a Movement, Consequence and Rescue group. Again they had a couple of minutes to share ideas, listen to each other and resolve conflicts if necessary.

The 3 Groups (Movement, Consequences & Rescue) coming together - Then explaining (& demonstrating) to the rest of the class their final game.

I was really excited about the process they were going through. The smaller groups sharing their ideas with the bigger group in order to develop a final product etc.

I should note here, it was important for me to remind a couple of the groups on occasion that they could not just poo poo the 'consequences' group idea (for example) just because it didn't fit their idea. That the 'consequences' group had the final decision regarding that area. I do remember using the word 'compromise' a lot during those lessons! Yet saying that, if an obvious or popular theme was suggested (by a group) the others would usually work well developing their area from that idea. One such example was the idea of the runners being bananas (running with both arms straight up above their heads - palms touching) and the taggers being monkeys (moving with monkey type movements) and if the bananas got tagged (they had to dance on the spot (dancing bananas?!)) until another free banana comes up and peals them (bringing both their arms down until they are at their sides).

All groups again experimented with their games in order to identify strengths and weaknesses before sharing it with the class.

Again some classes had more success than others. Though this time around all classes were able to produce a simple tag game that everyone got to play.

Sorting Out: Adding Equipment.
I decided that I needed to pick equipment that wouldn't distract too much from the task. After some talk and a little experimentation I eventually decided that bean bags, polyspots and bibs were a sensible choice.

It was at this point I decided that even smaller groups were necessary and that giving them roles wasn't required. I split the class into four friendship groups (approx 4-6 students per group). I showed them the equipment and gave them two minutes discussion time (brain storming). When they had come to a loose agreement they could start experimenting with the equipment and the layout of the game etc. I emphasized that trialling a mini version of the game was important so if they encountered any questions or problems they could quickly reflect, re-plan and try again.

I did start off with safety cones and bean bags, but changed it to polyspots and bean bags.

Going Further: Testing and Feedback.
Once they were pretty confident they had a presentable game I arranged for one of the other groups to visit to test the game. After about 5-10 minutes explaining and play time the students got into circles as the visiting group talked about what they really liked about the game and suggested possible tweaks were/if necessary. I explained to the class that the suggestions for possible improvements were just 'suggestions' and it was up to the designing group what they chose to do with the presented feedback.

The last job of the group after making any suggested tweaks was to record the final version of their game onto blank butcher paper so that any other classes could come and play their game.

Groups receiving feedback and then recording the final version of their game on butcher paper.

Finally as a class we got to play each others games and we rated them for Fun, Fitness and Originality. 

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

G5 Relationships in Team Sports through the learning lens of Football (Soccer)

I started the unit with a BIG question.... "What is Football?"

With my first class I used a big piece of butcher paper to get the students to record their understanding and knowledge of what they believe/think football is. From their answers as a class we created 5 essential questions that will be the driving force behind the direction of the unit. 

Whilst working with the class in developing the 5 essential questions, I felt some students were not getting the chance to contribute to the conversation as much as I would of liked, so...

With the second class I decided that rather than the class coming up with the 5 essential questions, I would get them working in small groups that would develop their own essential questions first and then we would agree or disagree as a whole class as to which ones would be included. Letting the students work in smaller groups helped give the more quiet or shy students a chance to contribute to the possible direction of the unit.

Some of the second classes small group essential questions:

Examining the essential questions I created with the help of the first class and using the second classes own small group essential questions we have come up with the following 5 essential questions for this unit.

What is important to note in the following 5 essential questions is that the first three questions are very much about the game itself, the skill and control required to play and understand a very basic game of football. The last two questions are the ones I personally love! The big picture questions that could be considered lifeworthy learning, the ones that are transferable across subjects and that could be used throughout their lives, whether they continue to play football or not.

1. What skills do you need to play football? The students identified: dribbling, passing, heading & shooting
2. What skills do you need to be a goalkeeper?
3. What are the rules and regulations of football?
4. What traits and dispositions do we need to develop to enable us to work and learn together, with a focus as peer learners and peer coaches?
5. What are the relationships in playing team sports? The concepts of roles, responsibilities, of space, to a team and to the opposition?

G3 Relationships in Team Sports through the Physical Education Learning Lens of Striking & Fielding

This unit will be touching on a number on concepts linked with relationships

What does Fielding mean to you?
Prior Knowledge & Burning Questions: Identifying understandings, burning questions and possible misconceptions...

What does Batting mean to you?
Prior Knowledge & Burning Questions: Identifying understandings, burning questions and possible misconceptions...

 

Batting, Bowling and Fielding Practice

As the lessons and the unit has progressed we've focused on batting, particularly the need to step to the ball and the mechanics of the drive. We've also examined the role of the wicket keeper and how vital their role is to the fielding team.

In addition we have also progressed our game, moving away from kwik cricket to a more elementary version of the true game. This includes adding a batsman, using two wickets that the batsman have to run between and the choice to run or not to run.

As a class we've been inquiring into, what is considered intelligent play in cricket?
This inquiry has lead us to a handful of key questions:

1. When do you run, when don't you run? 
2. How do you communicate with your batting partner?
3. Where do you want to hit (place) the ball?
4. How do you position your fielding team?
5. When you field the ball, who do you throw it to: Wicket Keeper or Bowler?