St. Mary's Lab 2

Last Wednesday was our second lab at St. Mary’s. Upon arrival I was surprised that I could not only remember many of the kid’s names, but they remembered me. Once again it was fun getting to know some of the other kids there that I hadn’t gotten the chance to work with.

This lab we were to rate some students on their locomotor skills (running, hopping, and galloping). To do this we observed other groups of college students teaching the kids new games. Also during this time I went around to the kids who were trying to just walk away and do something else and motivate them to play the group games. My group also had a chance to teach the kids a game. Our game was “Zanny Zoo” from the Station PE site. It was a great game, the students picked up on it quickly and they were very active during it and were patient when they were waiting to go.

To explain the game quickly, students are in groups with half the group on one side of the gym and half the group on the other with a pile of cards face down in the center. One student walks out and picks up a card which has an animal on it and an action (for example: Gallop like a horse). The student then gallops like a horse to the other line where they hand the card off to the next person. That person then gallops to the center and picks up a new card and does that action to the next line, and it repeats.

After the games my group got to go work with the Pre-K kids. This was an interesting place. As soon as we entered we were basically ambushed by eager kids. They wanted to tell us their names, how old they were, what they were playing with, even showing us around the room. We helped set them up for snack and then two of us were sent into the gym to set up an activity for them, while the rest of the group had story time.

I was one of the two in the gym, so we decided to create an obstacle course which would teach them jumping. It was great, the kids loved it, especially crawling through the tunnel and rolling across the mats like a log. We even had some older kids join in.

Afterward we played a giant game of “Chuck the Chicken” with all the kids. I think this game is a little bit too high of a level for some of the young kids, but they still had fun. The college students had to help them, but in the end it worked.

As always it ended with everyone getting together and saying a cheer. I was exhausted afterward again, but it was well worth it.