In PE this week, the students participated in a track unit. The events covered were: sprints, long jump, shot put, and relays.
The kindergarten students were introduced to long jump with a quick exercise to emphasize a one-foot take off and a two-feet landing. Standing near the end of the runway, students took one step, jumped from the extended foot and landed with two focusing on the feet hitting the sand at the exact same time. With much success, the students were then challenged by adding an approach run. Most students were able to maintain the one-two combo, but some jumps turned into leaps. For the shot put, resisting the urge to throw the shot put was the biggest challenge. To counter this the students feinted punches (jabs) in the air starting with their hands next to their cheek. For the sprints, staying in the lane was the focus. They were told that going out of the lane meant DQ - and we're not talking Dairy Queen. As simple as the concept seems, we had a few start in lane six and finish in lane three.
The first graders worked on the same events as the kindergartners. They too had trouble with the push of the shot put, but improved with repetition. With some students, I used the camera on my phone to show them how their hands went back behind their heads to start the throwing motion. This helped them visualize the mistake being made, because they couldn't "feel" it.
In the long jump, common mistakes are jumping for distance without adding any height to the jump or running straight out into the pit. To help avoid this, the second graders used a small barrier to help them take off into the air when doing the long jump.
Third and fourth graders were able to concentrate on extending both feet out in front of them on the jumps. They also learned about how to hand off the baton in a relay race. Hand movement in sprints was also discussed.
