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.

Monday

You’ll notice that there is no Day 16 post. That is because I had an up north trip planned for a while that kept getting moved around due to Covid-19. It was a day trip that randomly had to fall on a Monday. Since summer school was almost a no go, it got pushed back overlapping the trip. I spoke with administration and assured them I could cancel if need be, but they said I would be just fine.

So I spent my Monday hiking, and exploring NW Michigan. I was definitely missing my kids though. Since I promote physical activity to them on my teacher Instagram page year round, I posted this picture below talking about why yoga is beneficial for you. Out of my 341 followers, a bunch of my summer and regular school year kids liked the picture. The intent is to get them thinking about yoga and possibly trying it out for themselves at home!

Back To Summer School

For the remaining blog posts, I will summerize each day. We have played many different activities that work really well, and some that I wouldn’t bother to do again.

For instance, ultimate football in Day 8. This is one of my all time favorite games to teach, play and watch my students play, but I honestly did not feel comfortable with all of the contact. Even though the game is a non contact sport, you cannot take that intense defense out of the kids whose only goal is to win. I always appreciate those type of kids when they are playing fair. But in this case with a pandemic going on, I just think that game would be better played when we have a solution to this global virus mess we are in.

One of the current favorites is Monarchy that we played in Day 14. After are outdoor warm up/free time we got a big class game going. It’s always fun adjusting the boundaries on them to make it harder, or stopping them and telling them “if you have a ball in your hand you are now it…new rounds starts NOW!” It throws them all off, shakes everything up, and adds more excitement to the game.

So What Did we do Today?

Morning Class:

We started the day off with our outdoor free time like I mentioned above. No fitness notebooks. Just getting everyone outside to play around, walk the track or just enjoy the fresh air.

About 7 kids played World Cup (Day 14), a few more walked the track with friends, and a few more got a volleyball passing circle going.

After about 20 minutes, the other morning PE classes came outside. Now if you read my last post you’ll see how anxious I was about merging the classes together. But today is a new day, and my outdoor time wasn’t structured so I welcomed the other classes.

What ended up happening was a mini game of football, that the other PE teacher monitored and interacted with (which I greatly appreciated, because he was able to keep them at respectable distances), as well as a 5 vs 5 soccer game, a mini monarchy game, track walkers, and bleacher workouts.

It went great. Everyone took up their own area on the huge outdoor space we have making it really easy to social distance. The football players even played with their masks on, and would take frequent water or breathing breaks if needed.

After some time passed, I had all the classes come sit in one of the end zones, and explained how to play monarchy. The other two classes don’t know how yet, so my class had the advantage. I demonstrated and made really big boundaries, so we could fit everyone in safely. It was great! After multiple rounds some students got tired, and decided to watch instead of play. I was more than okay with that, since we had been playing really hard for a while.

After monarchy, we played boys vs. girls capture the flag. Again we made larger boundaries, and if students’ did not want to play they could watch or walk the track. Since there was all 3 classes combined we didn’t have enough pool noodles for everyone. So the students used their best judgement on spacing, and tagging. We tried eliminating skin to skin contact by tagging shirts. Once this game was over we went inside and immediately washed our hands.

I always play a lot harder and longer with my morning classes. Normally I get anywhere from 15,000-20,000 steps in for the full 6 hours of teaching. Unfortunately I did not wear my Fitbit today since it’s charging, but I’m positive I’m was up there in steps before my second class even came in.

Afternoon Class:

Just like in the morning, we started off with some wake up outdoor time.

Four boys played 2 vs 2 soccer, a few girls played volleyball, and a handful of them walked the track in pairs or groups. After about 30 min, we played a class game of Nitroball outside on the concrete part of the track. It was great playing a game they love outdoors with the sun.

After some time went by we tried to play monarchy. But it was hot, and they were tired from the day so we quickly realized it’s not working. Instead we played boys vs girls capture the flag.

I played with them the whole time, and I’m sitting here writing this drenched in sweat, since we just came back inside for ten minutes to cool down before they go home for the day.

To account for kids tagging each other we played where you can only kick the ball and tag people with your feet for a couple rounds. Surprisingly it worked really well. No one was “kicked” or tripped. It did make it easier to get the flag which we were using colored soccer balls anyways.

The other two PE classes did come outside, but they played their own kickball game, and we stayed on the other half of the field. We did recruit two girls from the other classes. I was happy to have them, because they were very respectful. They got permission from their teacher, and since we were all outside, we could have eyes on everyone.

Overall

With only a few days left of school, I am feeling happy, tired and really proud of my students. We are going to school during a pandemic and we’re doing a great job. I have not heard of one Covid-19 case, and I really hope none pop up. I am so cut off from the rest of the school, that I can only assume everyone is doing their part in staying healthy. Starting with administration, down to the teachers, to the students, or to anyone else that has to enter the building 5 days a week.