SEPTEMBER 2017 WELCOME BACK FLORADALE!!! I hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable summer with your family and friends. I am excited for this year and all the events and opportunities we will be creating for your children. My goal this year is to update the site weekly to help you keep on track and in the know with what we are doing in gym, what activities we have for your children and events that are taking place at the school. For September we will be focusing on co-operative games and building a good foundation for the rest of the school year. We are hoping by the end of September to close off with their first fitness test (only junior grades).
Terry Fox Next week we will be starting our Terry Fox Fundraising! Last year we did an AMAZING job fundraising and we raised over 1800 dollars! This year I would love to raise 2000, which I think we can accomplish! We will be asking for each family to donate a toonie to help us raise our goal and to contribute to raise money for cancer research. Cancer seems to be on the rise as I think most of us know someone that has, or is battling cancer. There is still no cure for this horrible disease and any money we can raise to help hospitals and researchers fund for new equipment and tests is important. Two dollars does not seem a lot but if everyone brings in a toonie it would make a huge difference and we would crush our goal!! To help with our initiative I will be selling raffle tickets for a dollar starting next week. The tickets will be towards being a gym teacher assistant for a morning and having your class earn an extra gym period!!!!!!!! I will be drawing a name each day for the last week of September. I will also be taking orders for Terry Fox official T-shirts. They are 15 dollars each and all the money will go towards are fundraising as well. We will end the fundraising and Cancer awareness on Friday September 29th with an assembly and our Terry Fox Run/Walk. Family is more than welcome to join us during the event. Details on time and place and route for the walk will be posted here later next week.
This Friday we will be having a Dance-a-Thon to fundraise for gym equipment for each classroom! The dance itself is free, however we will be selling glow sticks for 1 dollar!Grade 1&2's will go to the dance from 12:10-12:50, Kindergarten will be from 12:50-1:30. Grade 3&4 will be at 2:10-2:50 and grade 5&6 will be from 2:50-3:30😊 Hoping we will raise money while everyone is having fun
March
this month we will being doing are second round of fitness testing and then we will be moving into our net sports (volleyball, tennis and badminton)
February
this month we worked on Floor hockey and are now finishing it up
primary students were assessed on stick handling, passing and shooting and juniors were assessed on the same along with strategies and team work during a game situation. All students are assessed every term on participation
December/January
In December we finished up Basketball and started our first segment of Health. One thing many people are not aware of is that Health is actually 50% of the Phys-Ed curriculum, therefore, it is just as important as the sports and fitness we teach and do throughout the year. Health this term is on safety for the grade one and two students (safety in the gym, school and outside) for the grades 3-6 it focuses on bullying and friendship and healthy eating and the Canadian Food Guide.
November
For November we will be starting off with Fitness Testing. This will be the first of three fitness tests they will do throughout the year. The test is comprised of the Beep Test, Agility, Upper Body, Lower Body, Balance and Flexibility. Hopefully, they will see that by the second and third tests, they will have improved from this one. I will be discussing with the students how to make realistic goals and how to create small steps to help them meet and reach these goals. Then we will move on to Basketball. For the grade ones, we will be doing parachute games .
October
This month we will be focusing on European Handball with most of the grades, as well as preparing them for their first fitness test (the fitness test is a variety of exercises that they do to see what their muscular endurance, flexibility, cardiovascular endurance and agility is like.) Then we will re-visit the test two more times in hopes that throughout the year they will see a progression in their athletic abilities.
September
This month's focus was on building a relationship with the students and establishing routines and introducing our rules and expectations we have for the gym (The 3R's, respect the gym, respect yourself, and respect others). Our goal was also to create a strong foundation of respect with the students and have the students build respect and trust with their new classmates by playing co-operative and team building games (hula hut relay's, back to back, chain tag) We also played various tag games and class games that we knew the students would enjoy.
Kindergarten phys-ed primarily centres around outdoor play and fitness and sport centres around the gym. We find that creating structured and organized centres for the younger students gives them an opportunity to try various activities, but in a manner that allows us to be able to closely supervise them and keep them the most safe. Examples of centres are gymnastics (tumble mats, hula hoops), basketball ( with soft balls and beach balls and with a portable basketball net) scooters, the rock climbing wall (mats at the floor to protect them) and stacking cups. We also take them outside either when the weather is nice or when they are scheduled with an older class, and in that case they must go outside. Outside we either take them to the city park, to the climbers or to the asphalt on bikes.
Junior grades transitioned into various games using the holy moly belts (used in flag football), which prepared them for their first sport in gym; which will be flag football next month.
We also have all classes run, jog or walk for 5 minutes at the start of each class, so that they are able to work on their cardiovascular endurance and stamina.