September Starts with Skills and Sportsmanship
The year is off to a great start in P.E.!
The Toddlers are enjoying a time of exploration with the variety of equipment in class; we even had our first circle time this week and it was a huge success! As we know, by the time children are 3 and 4 years old, they have mastered basic movement skills such as running and jumping. Throughout the year they’ll continue to refine these skills and build on them to learn and master more complex ones. These Casa kids are ready and very excited to learn. During the last month all students have been learning or refreshing what they know about space awareness and cooperative play.
All Elementary students started the first two weeks with their ‘Games’ unit, where the focus was on co-operative, tag, relay and team games. These games help the children re-learn how to communicate, problem-solve and play together after a summer apart. For the rest of this term the focus will be on invasion games, starting with football then onto field hockey, tag rugby, netball and basketball.
New to this year, students in Grades 1 to 6 will take part in a 6-minute core skills warm-up at the start of every class. They work on skills such as skipping, over and under arm throwing, hula hooping, sitting down and getting up without using their hands, etc. These are skills which, at first glance, may seem very basic but my expectation is for the children to learn to identify their own level of skill and to figure out how they can improve, or for them to try to identify ways to set the challenge higher for themselves so they can keep improving. This may include trying to hula hoop with more than one hoop at a time, sitting down using no hands and only one leg, or the child may be at a basic stage of the skill, such as trying to successfully whip the skipping rope over their head and step over it. It is all about self-motivation and self-reflection.
As always, sportsmanship and fair play are emphasized in all of our classes. Children will be taught to respect themselves and others in all forms of play, and to respect and follow rules correctly from Toddler to Grade 6. As we know, these skills are vital not just for all sports and physical activities, but for a successful and happy life in society.