Welcome back to the 20 days of summer school physical education series! If you are just joining this series, stop right now and check out Summer School Physical Education: Day 1. What Works and What Doesn’t.
The post above details what I will be talking about day to day, and how it can help you improve your social distancing physical education classes in the fall. It also lays out my class size, class time frames and space I am able to use.
If you are currently teaching summer school physical education, please leave comments on what works for you! I love collaborating, so let me know what you’re up to.
Fun Friday
If you have been keeping up with my posts, you will see that last Friday was all messed up so we never did Fun Friday. As a class we all decided that we would cut ties with the other classes, and have more structure.
Also if you’ve been keeping up, you’ll see that we could not get volleyball or badminton nets. I coordinated with the other teachers that we would switch gyms for Friday only. This allows my students to get 3 hours of badminton and volleyball in.
I decided that that at the end of each of our classes, that the PE teachers can bring their classes in for an organized game of winners court between all three classes. The students who did not want to participate could walk the track or cheer on their friends from the bleachers. Read below how this went in activity 4.
Activity #1: Tips
This game is fun, and makes it easy for students who aren’t good at volleyball.
How to play:
Same serving and rotations in regular volleyball, only you are allowed to catch the ball and throw it back. I allow only 1 second with the ball, so as soon as you catch it you immediately have to either throw it over, or to a teammate. Like volleyball, only three people can touch the ball before it has to be thrown back over the net.
What Worked:
Students who caught on quickly had a great time. But of course like any new game we go slower in the beginning so everyone understands.
For my morning class, I don’t know if it was because they were so tired or because we didn’t do any outdoor time, but they looked like statues on the court. I split them up into teams of 4 and one group of pretty athletic boys were a group of 3. Even while I was helping them, and getting involved in the game to show them what exactly they should be doing, there was about 6 kids who would not move. They would literally watch the ball drop right in front of them.
It got to the point where I was so frustrated. It wasn’t lack of skill, because it’s throw/catch. It was lack of effort. I stopped them and let them know if they don’t want to try they can go get some cardio upstairs, and let the people who actually want to be here have fun. They picked up the energy a little bit, but it was still so hard to watch. I finally decided to just combine the teams to make two teams of 7 vs 8. That way the kids who wouldn’t do anything, at least wouldn’t ruin it for their team, because they had more people to help out.
When it comes to my second class, I almost didn’t want to stop them! They immediately picked the game up and loved it. They were screaming and cheering, and got so into the game that I almost felt bad telling them it was time for volleyball. But while we were playing tips each team versed each other once for 8 minute rounds.
Improvements or Modifications:
Making bigger teams definitly helped with the morning class. It actually gave a few of them the confidence to try a little harder. Today with the morning crew was strange. Maybe the different gym threw them off??
You could definitely play with a lighter ball too. We played with a standard volleyball, so at least everyone was familiar with the feel of it. A bigger ball would have worked too.
Having my afternoon class rotate through courts to play different teams, keep their energy levels high. It always adds excitement, especially if they are going to a new court after a win.
Activity #2: Volleyball
So seeing how my morning class had trouble with throw and catch over the net, I was worried volleyball would be even worse, since it involves more skill.
What Worked:
I remade teams for the morning kids, and put students who worked well together and could carry the team if needed together. To my surprise the morning class did pretty well with volleyball. But also they were more woken up by this point, and maybe were ready to work.
Also, almost all of my students know how to play volleyball or at least the basics. I speak to different teams or students individually throughout the game (and especially Nitroball) to help them understand when they should be bumping, setting or where they should be playing. The constant encouragement or feedback, helped them understand what they should be doing in a game that requires more skill than Nitroball.
As for the afternoon class, they had just as much fun as when they were playing Tips. Lately they have been open to trying new variations of the games they already know and love.
Modifications and Improvements:
Keeping their teams small in this game actually worked great compared to Tips which I was surprised about.
And again you can change the ball size or weight too.
Activity #3: Court Choice
Since we actually can play badminton on standard badminton height nets I gave the kids some time to play. After about 10 minutes, I switched it up and told them they could pick from 1 of 3 courts.
- Court 1: Volleyball
- Court 2: Tips
- Court 3: Badminton
What Worked:
For both classes this worked out perfectly. In the morning the majority of the kids went to badminton, because it’s fun and they haven’t gotten any time to play a real game yet.
Because this was the case, one court was badminton, and the one next to it was Round Robin Badminton. Letting them choose to play what they are good at, definitely helped them enjoy this part of class.
For the afternoon kids, most of them teamed up to play volleyball, while 4 of them stayed on the badminton court. They had 20 minutes to switch between different courts, but everyone used the whole time to stay where they were.
Improvements or Modifications
For smaller classes, you can give them less options, that way there would be enough people at each activity. Or you can assign them a court, and have them rotate through after a specific amount of time passes.
Activity #4 WInners Court Combined Classes:
Like I said above, I coordinated to have one of the other PE teachers bring both classes into the gym with us so we could play a winners court championship. I made teams for my kids, and then all of a sudden I get a text in the morning classes that some of the kids don’t want to play volleyball so they aren’t coming. I can only assume it’s because they have been playing volleyball all week… but regardless that wasn’t the plan.
Morning Classes:
So since not everyone from the other classes came, it made it extremely difficult to organize and re figure out teams. They were coming in at random times and from different areas of the gym, so I’d have to account for them and filter them onto teams. By like ten minutes of this nonsense, I made 6 even teams and said they are final. Anyone who comes in after this can just watch the show, or go back to their teachers who never showed up.
For volleyball winners court today we had 3 courts. I jumped in on a team who was down a player, and we made it from court 3, to the winners court! Super proud teacher moment.
After all the confusion and frustration I had, it actually turned out to be really fun. I got to meet kids from the other PE classes, and watch everyone have fun mixing with their friends.
Afternoon Classes:
We have been waiting for this day to show everyone how great we are. Apparently the afternoon class also has a lot of volleyball players, so we knew it was going to get intense.
Hoping the morning disorganization, was over with, we planned on the other teachers to bring their classes in 1.5 hours after my second class started. This time the teacher said they were all coming but not everyone was going to play. Okay this is fine, because now I can make smaller teams and I know this ahead of time.
Well sure enough, his class came in through different doors upstairs and downstairs and at all separate times. I specifically said to have them come in and sit down. Clearly the message wasn’t translated to their students.
Anyways, since I had already made teams for my students, I asked all of the other kids to please have a seat. Some did, some didn’t. Kids were still walking in on the upstairs track too so it was taking them forever to come down. As I tried explaining how the day was going to look, the other PE teacher took over and just told his team of 6 that he was playing on to go get started. So now you have kids running around, starting to play and a complete mess that I’m left to clean up. I finally get everyone organized and on a team playing, and I run over to the other teacher and tell him I will stop everyone in ten minutes. We will play five rounds for ten minutes each. He says, oh I already have a timer set for 12 minutes and I already started it…knowing that the rest of the gym were barely organized yet.
So I monitored the first round, but felt completely useless. Once he switched the first round and had kids move up or down, I figured I’d just let him do his thing. The kids were having fun, but I was fuming.
Not letting any of my students see this, I just minded my business and let it play out. I figured if he wants to come in and change up MY entire game plan, then he can move all the kids around and I’ll save my voice. It’s never the students’ fault, so why make them feel bad! Let them have fun!
They finished their games, and then took a mini break before we left for the day. Since the times are staggered, one class left at 2:00, mine at 2:15 and the 3rd PE teachers class at 2:30.
Overall
Normally I love being at school, but today I could not wait until 2:15 to get out of there. The pure chaos and complete lack of regard for my lesson plan just did not sit right with me and my anxiety was out of control. I am one of those teachers that has a lesson plan, and knows what the days agenda is going to look like. Do I change things on the fly? Absolutely. But merging with teachers who have COMPLETELY different teaching styles than you, and don’t care what kind of PE experience their students have is not something I want to involve myself with anymore.
Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely like the other PE teachers. We are just different people and that’s okay.