St. Mary's Holiday Carnival

     St. Mary's provided their annual Holiday Carnival on Saturday November 19th, 2011. SUNY Cortland students including myself helped bring fun activities and games to the St. Mary's students for the holidays. I maintained the popular Spongebob basketball shot booth, which was a big hit in the St. Mary's Carnival. I had the opportunity to help instruct the students on the proper way to perform a basketball shot and use both techniques of teaching by invitation as well as intratask variations. Since I was in the giving holiday mood I gave the students other chances as well as one ticket as a reward for attempting the task. I had so much fun meeting the parents and getting to see the students. I know I am where I want to be!

St. Mary's: Outside Looking In!

               These past few weeks attending St. Mary’s as a TA for the Motor Development class have been special. I feel more comfortable than I ever have, establishing a leadership role juggling both the SUNY Cortland students and the St. Mary’s students. The goal I set for myself in becoming a Teacher’s Assistant has provided me with the experience I am looking for. This past Monday, my group did a great job establishing an active and fun environment for the St. Mary’s Pre-K. The SUNY Cortland students seemed more comfortable and confident with providing their tasks to the St. Mary’s students. As a group, they need to work on their creativity to the games they choose from a motivating stand point. Looking up games that already exist is great but incorporating your own twist and mark on the game keeps will eventually allow you to make your own games up. The relativity to the themes each week can also use some improving. Again this is all just being able to work on the creativity portion of their lesson plans. Other than that it has been a successful and fun semester with the Motor Development group at St. Mary’s too say the least!

Lab 6: May the Force be with St. Mary's

The last lab at St. Mary’s school was a memorable one. The Cortland students associated our last assignment with a Star Wars theme. This was a great success with the majority of Cortland and St. Mary’s students being big fans of the epic movie/story. It was great to have an opportunity to introduce the historic characters and story to the pre-k. Brittney Olsen, team member of the Shimney Crickets has shown amazing creativity towards the arts and crafts for the pre-k the last couple of weeks. It showed in the children’s faces filled with excitement. The difference between observing the pre-k and the older kids is very interesting with the gentle kindness, innocence, and a sense of possible potential to be great learners. The Cortland students finished the day off with Beyonce’s Lets Move dance and some fun Star Wars games using the parachute. The children loved this prop and it was the easy favorite of the day. It has been a great pleasure attending St. Mary’s school this semester and look forward to seeing more of the children and faculty in the near future.







Lab 6

Highest Achievement Presentation

 In December 2002, I was able to perform a remarkable feat that I had only dreamed about growing up. I am a skilled bowler who established the first two 300 perfect games in Lynbrook High School history. The ability to be able to bowl a 300 is rare but with the time and effort I put into this difficult task I had accomplished a goal with the probabilities not in my favor. The sky was the limit for me after the success I had worked hard for. This presentation demonstrates the importance of this successful achievement.

Bowling a Perfect Game in High School on Prezi

SUNY Cortland Bouncing Support for Let's Move Program

 Today, SUNY Cortland students bounced their support of the new dance created by musical icon artist, Beyonce who has given her support to the Let’s Move program established by Michelle Obama to help children become more active and nutritionally healthy. Take a look and join the fight against child obesity.

St. Mary's 5k Run!

SUNY Cortland students had all hands in on St. Mary’s 5 k run, Saturday, April 9^th, 2011. The run consisted of different distant runs for different ages. Delicious pancakes were served throughout the morning. The streets were filled with eager children and parents running around the path provided by St. Mary’s school. The Cortland students helped entertain the children of St. Mary’s with games and activities; protected the boundaries of the run and supported the children and parents as they ran.

Lab 5: The Easter Vibe

            St. Mary’s students had our class hopping with excitement. I had a great opportunity to experience significant time with the pre-k. The atmosphere was amusing and fun. The ability to interact with the children through reading Easter bunny books and having them participate in arts and crafts, creating Easter bunny puppets, made the time spent enlightening.

In the beginning of the after school activities at St. Mary’s I was able to properly assess the motor skills of dribbling a basketball and kicking a soccer ball into a net. This was exciting and interesting to see the different areas and levels of movement each student performed. The motor skills being related to sports was also a nice change of pace do to my interest on the matter.

I finished off the day establishing a creative game of musical dribbling with the pre-k. The objective was to have the pre-k dribble in different ways when the music was playing and have them run to any available poly spot once the music stopped. The interest in the children was promising and the group all together looked to be having an energetic and enthusiastic experience.

           The educational value that I had personally learned through this activity was how much more of a comfortable approach instructing students can be once you get to interact with them in a class setting. Through expressing positive feedback and encouragement, the children will be motivated to continue the game or other kinds of activity.

Lab 5

Group Skit Project !!!

The Motor Development group project was a success. The Shimney Crickets created a music video associating 50 cent’s original rap “Disco Inferno” and altering it with our own lyrics that were relative to an infant’s motor development.  The group each played a vital role and it could not be done without everyone’s hard work and ideas. There is a clip below, don’t hesitate to post a comment.

Thank You St. Mary's !!!

The Students at SUNY Cortland would like to thank the faculty staff and the students of St. Mary’s school for giving us an opportunity to work with them. Personally, I have learned so much in such little time and look forward to continuing to work with St. Mary’s. This experience is the true meaning of people helping other people.

Lab 4: A Dinosaur Roar!

This week at St. Mary’s school had the Cortland students roaring for more. We concentrated on the hit TV series Dinosaur Train and associated it into our activities that were presented to the St. Mary’s students. The assessments of the St. Mary’s students continued with evaluating their throwing and catching techniques. The Shiminey Cricket’s finished the day with the popular wiggle’s dance, a St. Mary’s huddle for a shout out to Dinosaur Train, and created and provided posters for the 1-5k run that will be taking place at St. Mary’s school this Saturday at 8 o’clock in the morning. Hope to see everyone there!

Lab 4

Lab 3: Effective Teaching Strategies

YEE HAA!!! This week’s theme had St. Mary and Cortland students experiencing western civilization. The cowboy’s and cowgirl’s of Cortland associated games, activities, and the Cotton Eye Joe dance with western civilization. Our groups continue to concentrate on assessing the students of St. Mary’s with motor skills such as a leap, horizontal jump, and a slide. Teaching strategies helped us to grab the attention of St. Mary’s students as well as help successfully accomplish the activities and games prepared for the students without confusion or disinterest. The expressions on the student’s faces were memorable and everyone had a great and fun experience.

Lab 3  

Inspiring!!!

Stories like this one are the reason I dedicate myself to becoming a Physical Educator. I know I am where I want to be.

Chapter 4 Slide Presentation

This slide presentation summarizes Chapter 4 of our Motor Development textbook. The information provided is not only important for the future of physical education but enlightening for the detailed knowledge of physical fitness provided to help better the process of motor development.

Lab 2: Learning to Observe and Assess

The second week at St. Mary’s school had the Cortland students experiencing how to affectively assess the children using the motor skills that were associated with the activities and games provided by our groups. Although at times it was difficult to observe the students due to the excitement they had over the games and activities, most of the motor tasks that were performed by the St. Mary’s students were accomplished successfully. One of the most common problems noticed of the observing of the students was not being able to know whether or not they could use both the dominant and non-dominant limbs while performing the motor tasks. The best experience I had with this lab was being able to dress up as a cartoon character and see the curiosity as well as the ambition to learn. 

Lab 2 

Lab 1: Learning to Teach, Teaching to Learn

The official start of my career in physical education began this week with a teaching experience that left me wanting more. The students of St. Mary’s school are filled with happiness, creativity and ambition. I had an opportunity to create and modify a game of my own while associating the subject of nutrition to help the students of St. Mary’s school become more knowledgeable about healthy eating habits. The activity was performed by the K-1 grades. The activity was instructed by myself which was truly scary because not only was it my idea but my instructions. I was in unfamiliar territory. The confidence of what I had created and how I was going to present it just kicked in. The activity itself and the way I instructed it was a success. The body language of the students told me they enjoyed the time they spent with our group. That to me made me realize I am right where I want to be. The most productive lesson and I learned from the students as well as myself is I should not be afraid to fail, people learn from their mistakes, it will only make me stronger.

Lab 1

Enhancing Activities with Modifications to Help Nutrient Knowledge

The new guidelines that are being established into the modern physical education programs concerning health plans for our younger generations are of the upmost important. Personal experience involving lack of nutrient in my physical education in the past gives me a great opportunity to express new ideas. Enhancing games and locomotor skills by modifying them with cognitive excercise skills to help develop the knowledge for nutrient. An example of this would be:  Red Fruits, Green Fruits, 1-2-3 - The materials needed for this game are (4) 8 foot long jump ropes. There could be more or less depending on the size of the class and the area or space needed. Place the jump ropes on the floor on opposite sides of the gymnasium. Join the jump ropes together to form a big box so that there is a big box on both sides of the gymnasium. One box will be the donut penalty box, which is where the students will start. The box at the far end on the opposite side will be the fruit bowl. There will be a student chosen as the fruit police officer. His/her job is to stand on the fruit bowl side, turned around facing away from the students. The fruit police officer is not able to turn around or see them until saying out loud red fruits, green fruits, 1-2-3. If a student is caught moving toward the fruit bowl for safety, he/she will be asked a question on a specific color that is a fruit. If they get the question wrong they must go back to the donut penalty box and start over. If they get the question right they are safe. The objective is to have all the students reach the fruit bowl safely without getting caught by the fruit police officer.
Modifications - Variety of locomotor skills including running, hopping, skipping, sliding, and walking from one end to the other. Game can change as well. Instead of just asking a student right after being caught a question, you can have other fruit police officers chosen to try and tag the person who was caught moving. That person who was caught has the opportunity to run to the fruit bowl for safety before being tagged. If tagged though then he/she must answer the question given by the instructor.

Chapter 1

Fundamental skill development and assessment is extremely important to our professional career as well as the health of our students. Although, the most obvious answer an individual would come up with would be, without these things we wouldn’t have jobs. There is more to it than that. The fundamental skill development for a child helps them learn how to move and learn through moving. Motor development, cognitive learning (concept learning), and affective growth are all key aspects of what is involved in fundamental skill development. The goal is to have progressive enhancement physically by motor tasks and mentally by activities and games. This will become a snowball effect as the child grows into an adult and environmental obstacles although differ will be associated with what is learned at developing stages. The health of our students will also be more successful. This is important because of problems like obesity and early puberty, which could lead to health issues and bullying. These are problems that could end up affecting children in their development of becoming an adult cognitively as well. Assessment is important for the skill development of a child in measuring the progression of their motor skills, cognitive learning, and affective growth.

Picture Source 1

Picture Source 2

Day 2: Preparing for St Mary's and creation of team Shiminey Crickets!

The information provided today in our second lab classes although an abundant amount was very helpful in preparing to face the tasks we will have at St. Mary's School. I am excited to start. The games we learned and played today were fun and effective at the same time. The thing that surprised me the most is how much you could do with such little equipment and a lot of creativity. The second part of our lab class today involved creating a team in which we will be working with that team for the semester. I look foward to learning from, as well as providing my own personal knowledge and experience to my new group of Britney, Corey, and Austin. Let's Do This Team Shiminey Crickets!!!

Im in the Real World Now!

Today was an extremely exciting and enlightening eventful day. Although scary at times, I had the opportunity to have hands on experience with young children at St. Mary’s School. The interaction with such young children showed me just how different learning through a text book in my field of study and actually being a part of something so surreal gets me wanting more interaction. I am happy with what I have accomplished today and looking forward to the days ahead in my lab classes.