St. Mary's day 3 - hopping, galloping, and running

This week at St. Mary's the theme during our games was hopping, galloping and running. We tried to incorporate these skills into the games that we used with the children. We began by watching the children participate in games hosted by other groups, while evaluating the movement and behavior of one particular boy and girl. I did not see any clear pattern of development between the two children; they both seemed to respond to the new skills almost the same. Both children hopped on one foot equally well, but did need time every few hops to land on two feet. The boy and girl had a little trouble galloping, both did almost a run rather then a gallop. The running looked to be pretty well off for both the children. At the end of evaluating the children my group and I had to introduce our games. Some of the games were a bit too much for the children, and we had to explain the game a few more times then usual. We played two tag games, and then went to the cafeteria. I sat at the end of a table with about 6 or 7 girls, who were all coloring pictures. I offered to draw anything they wanted for them to color, and after one Hello Kitty drawing I ended up making every girl one. The drawing went over great, and I was happy to see that the children all wanted one of my pictures. All of the children in the cafeteria were pretty controlled, except for when we had the children pick up which got a rowdy. They had to be told to stay in a line after they picked up their things a few times by all of my group members. When going back to the gymnasium, it was my turn to introduce a game. I gathered the children to the center circle, and asked if anyone had heard the game " What time is it Mr. Fox" and the children started screaming in excitement. I asked for two helpers, and then told the children to go to one end of the gymnasium while me and the two helpers stood at the opposite end. I waited for the children to yell down " What time as it Mr. Fox", and would only respond if the children were really excited and yelling down to me. If they weren't really yelling, I would tell them that I couldn't hear them and also wouldn't give them a time until they got louder. I tried to incorporate the new skills into my game each round of the game, I would have them hop and gallop back to safety. I enjoyed my time with the children today, and loved the feedback I got from the children with my tag game and my Hello Kitty pictures.

Ped 201 Lab at St. Mary's

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Octopus Tag

Throughout every child's lifetime, tag games take place in the heart of every physical education classroom setting. There are thousands of different learning tecniques that contribute to a childs development in life physically, mentally, and socially. Tag games can aid in a childs heath, bringing a hidden workout into a fun and exciting experience. Every child who takes part in a tag game will build skills in runnning, and in spacial awareness of their surroundings. Children can interact with one another and build relationships off of the teamwork they have while participating in these games. The games have large amounts of participation time where children will take turns and learn patience when being assingned to be "it". Developing these forms of tolerance can encourage a child to handle frustration in a controlling manner, building social skills that the child can use for the rest of their lives. Even though tag games seem to aid in the proper development of a child, the physical education classroom has put tag games on their Hall of Shame, and has banned these games from the classroom.

Tag games are looked upon as games that aim to highlight one specific child while eliminating other children from participation within that game. Although most tag games involve much physical activity around any given gymnasium, it is said by the Hall of Shame that the total amount of time that the children are being physicaly active is limited.

The Hall of Shame can list tag games as lacking to children, physical education teachers have the awesome job of picking and choosing which tag games give children the most involvement in the act and fun of physical activity. By coming up with a game where there is continuous action and participation, no child will be sitting on the sideline. For example, the game of Octopus tag has every children moving and always having something to do. Once a child is tagged, they become an Octopus where they sit on the ground and flail their arms trying to get every other peer who passes by. No child is ever not participating, and always has something to do, whether it's being "it" or becoming an octopus. Another tag game could be Blob tag. This game has children connect to the tagger one by one after being tagged, slowely creating one large blob who can capture whoever has not yet been tagged. This can creates teamwork within the blob, and does not have any time outs or sidelines.

With creation of new tag games with continuous involvment and participation, no child will feel left out or put down because of being tagged. By focousing on eliminating embarrasement and minimal activity, tag games can progress and help a child to have fun while enjoying physical activity.

St. Mary's Lab # 1

Question 1: Based upon observation, what are the differences in motor behavior and social between the St. Mary's student's you observed? What differences did you observe between grade levels, gender, and ability? Do you think that grade level, gender, and ability have any influence on motor behavior?
Question 2: Based upon your observation, what fine motor activities did you observe(describe these) when watching the St. Marys student's? Were there differences between age? Gender? Ability?


1. Based upon my observation and involvement with the children at St. Mary’s, I determined that the children behaved differently depending on their grade level or age group. When going to the cafeteria with the younger kids, they tended to react to enthusiasm from me and my fellow peers. The more we talked, laughed, and put effort into gaining the children’s attention the easier it was for them to want to play whichever game I asked them to play. When playing checkers with a young boy, the more fun I looked to be having seemed to fall into place with the amount of children who wanted to try and beat me. The more games I won and the more interest I put into gaining the children’s attention seemed to be easy. It didn’t matter if the child was good or bad at checkers, they still kept coming back to try and beat their last score. To me, gender did not matter with this activity, for both girls and boys wanted to take place in the game. After the cafeteria my peers and I took the children to the gymnasium. Being loud, upfront, and showing excitement in the tag games played grasped the children’s attention. I came up with octopus tag, which the children seemed to enjoy. It seemed that if a boy was a tagger, he would tag more of the boys than girls, and vice versa. The boys tended to go outside the boundaries in order to keep clear of being tagged, while the girls were more likely to stay in bounds and be tagged. When free time came along, the younger children in the gymnasium were more in clusters and groups continuing to play games while the older children seemed to be shooting baskets and playing by themselves. It took more effort to try and grasp the attention of the older children.

2. When watching the children of St. Mary’s interact and play games with each other, it was obvious that the older the age, the more ability the children had. When coming to involvement in games such as kicking a ball, the younger girl’s I played with tended to miss the ball when trying to kick it; the older girl’s did not have this problem. When a younger girl was in goal and an older girl was kicking, the older girl would tend to score often. It seemed the older girl had better or more progressed skills when coming to kicking and saving a soccer ball then the younger girl. Also, this happened to be the case when playing with hoola hoops as well. The older girls spun the hoop around their bodies longer then the younger girls, who would finish a few spins only to have the hoop drop on the floor very fast.