Day 4, The Easter Bunny is Coming!

Today at St. Mary's involved great Easter Fun. I thought it would be a good idea to bring some visual props to excite the children, so my group and I came prepared with Easter Bunny ears & Easter egg necklaces. As soon as we put the props on the children become overjoyed and came running over to us. The Bunny ears definitely caught the children's attention and made them ready to interact in all of our Easter activites. The day started off with my group and I observing the children participate in activities where they were working on skills such as the overhand throw and catch. We watched a girl named Mady and a boy named Garrett's reaction to both skills. As they passed a ball back and forth to each other, Mady struggled a little more then Garrett in how she did the " T " and extended her arm during the throw. Mady did an underhand toss almost every time instead of any initiation of a wind up. She didn't have any follow-through or weight transfer during the attempt. Garrett was succesful in the overhand throw for the most part, but had trouble rotating his body. When catching the ball, again Mady struggled and caught the ball close to her chest; almost using her chest as a backboard. Garrett was good at catching, he flexed his elbows and held his friends infront of his body. After observing the children, my group and I posted the collages that the Cortland student's made onto posterboard, and put the poster board on the door of the St. Mary's gymnasium. We tried to be as creative as possible as we decorated the door's, and took our time making sure that they looked great. Next my group and I cleaned up the exquipment room. It took a little while and we did our best. When it was our turn for my group's activity, we split up the children into two different groups. The goal of our game was to have to have the children participate in different skills such as hoping, skipping, jumping. We placed Easter cards with instructions such as " hop 5 times ", " jump 10 times on your right foot", after finishing the skill the children could pick up a nearby bean bag and run to the oppoiste end to place the bean bag in a Houla Hoop. Then the children would run back to the Easter cards and complete another task until all the Easter cards were picked up. Our game was a good time, and I felt like the children really liked it. My group and I were assigned to make up a Easter themed song, and to teach it to both the children and Cortland students. It was a fairly easy song to follow, and we sang it togeather 4 times. To close up the day my group did an end of the day Easter cheer. All in all, it was a great Easter filled day. I had a good time with the children, and I hope they enjoyed us ! =)