Day 14...Time Goes By So Fast (4/1/10)

Woot woot! First day of April. That means only 28 more days until my family comes down and 1 more month of teaching. Holy crap!! Where did the time go? Today was just another day at the school. It seems like more and more just regular things happening throughout the day, but then again that is not such a bad thing anyway.

The first class was pretty chill. We worked on our first lesson of baseball/softball. It’s really nice to have this class to start off the day with because it is a small class (21 students) and they are pretty respectful and well behaved class. We worked on throwing and catching. Instead of using regular softballs and baseballs, we used mushballs. Mushballs are nicer to use because they are not as hard and you don’t need gloves to catch them. Also, when we start our hitting lesson plan, they don’t fly as far so we will be able to play small games. This really helps with the amount of equipment we will need and allows for better management because I don’t have to worry about the equipment.

There was one boy who could not throw or catch well and I didn’t know this until he was demonstrating with me. I had instructed the kids to catch and throw properly and this boy struggled to do so and there were a few chuckles from them. I felt bad, because here this student was put on display, but the student didn’t seem to mind. However, students are pretty good at putting on fronts, but they could be torn up inside.

Today we really focused on opposition and proper form when throwing and doing ground balls. There were another couple of girls who had trouble with opposition, but overall the students enjoyed this lesson. I even challenged them to see if they could do the same but with their non dominant hand. Some students took this challenge and others just kept practicing their same way. Other students were challenged by the distance between them and their partners. At the end of class, we played pickle which is a game where there is a student in the middle and two on the outsides on bases. The student in the middle would try to reach a base before they got tagged by the ball and partner. I think the students really liked this class. I could see that most of them were engaged in the activities and had fun doing them.

My honors class was torn between going inside and going outside for class today. It is really windy and I wanted to do convergent and divergent discovery with them. So I decided we would split the class in half between going inside and going outside for class. This really made me think on my feet for what I was going to do for the inside class. They really wanted to dance again. Talk about being able to adapt and think on the fly. Outside we did convergent discovery with a small modified game of soccer and then came inside for dance. I taught the students about beats and counting beats.

We finished the class with different music, counting beats, and the Cha Cha Slide. I asked the students if they would be interested in doing a dance lesson and I was surprised at the students agreeing to do so. A lot of these girls play team sports and want to be competitive, but here they are saying that they would really like to do a dance unit for the next four weeks. This made me really excited because I initially wanted to teach them dance and now I get the chance to.

With the third class, we did convergent and divergent discovery inside the gym. I set up the gym in two different formats. There were three small courts made for three on three soccer. Then on the side of the gym, I set up a court for ultimate Frisbee. After we started the games, I realized that I didn’t fully explain my instructions to them. I have realized that I have been doing that a lot lately. I rush through my instructions or forget the important parts and then I am left with students engaging in off task behavior. I am so worried about getting the students started with the activity that I don’t explain it well enough. Maybe this is why things are so slow to start.

Needless to say, this class didn’t go horribly wrong. I was able to jump in and out of all the games during the class and be a part of every team. Thinking about how I set up the class, I needed to have a more efficient set up. There were balls crossing into other courts and messing up that game and things were just too close together for the amount of activity and students where in the gym. This is definitely something I will have to change for next time.

Overall, today was a pretty good day. Just like any other time, there will always be things that need to be changed or fixed upon. Things can be tweaked and adapted to make lessons go better. It’s not going to be perfect every time. I have to learn to let this go, but then again, I can always strive for perfection. Oh and no class tomorrow! Woot woot! Time to catch up on lesson plans.