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.

Changes in this Layout

I love that people are extremely interested in the what works and what doesn’t work section of each post, but as I write in the “what doesn’t work” section I realize that it’s more adaptations or improvements that need to be made.

So from here on out it will be labeled as “improvements or modifications”.

Also I have been getting tons of questions, so in this post I will rewrite your questions, and answer them as best I can. So please leave me more questions either directly on this blog, or on the PE Central and Social Distancing in PE Facebook groups!

Questions Asked:

• Where will you be posting this and how often will it be?

I will be updating you all every day. A bunch of you have subscribed to this blog, so every Friday I will send you an email with the weeks posts.

I will also post on the Facebook pages you are apart of. If you miss the emails or Facebook posts just check my blog after 8:00 pm EST. Normally I can get these done by 6ish, but you never know what may come up.

Like I said above, I love the questions so keep them coming!

• Do you notice the kids getting winded at all in their masks?

Yes. I was watching two students working extremely hard on the treadmill and elliptical today and could not get enough air with their masks on. I have already explained to the students that if at any time physical activity gets to be too much, step out of the activity and focus on your breathing where no one is around with your mask pulled to the side or off your face an inch or two.

I was very proud of both of these kids, and watched them slow it down, and pull the mask away to get a few breaths in and then put them right back in place. The rest of the time they were on the equipment they paced themselves. So they figured out what their limits were in that setting.

Also, I play pretty hard with my morning class. I definitely struggle to get full breaths in when we do a lot of running during game play. But in between every activity I let them regroup for 2 minutes or so, and I take advantage of this. Don’t forget these kids spend 3 hours a day with me so the intensity of their physical activity is going to be much more than a 30 min PE class.

• How hard is it to breathe in your mask during PA

It’s not horrible until the intensity picks up. I’m very comfortable sitting on our breaks with my mask fully on.

While teaching I worry my voice wont project to everyone with the fans blowing loud. I notice I pull my mask forward and off of my mouth (not off) to help me be clearer. I know there are masks that bulge out so they don’t sit directly on your mouth. Mine is a thick cloth, so a new mask purchase may be in store for me.

• How are water breaks handled?

Every student brings their own water bottle and can go drink out of it at any time near their little cubby I made for them with pool noodles which I talked about in Day 2. They don’t have to ask me to get a drink, unless they are physically leaving the gym.

They just simply pull their mask down a bit, take what they need and head right back into game play. The water fountains are the type where you can just put your bottle up to the sensor and it fills automatically. No touching necessary.

• What is the school doing to ensure safety?

The school has been great. Each teacher and all of their students have a specific door they can enter through. For the 3 PE teachers and classes, we go in through the athletics entrance, but at different times.

PE teacher 1 starts at 7:30, so he and his students have to be checked in by 7:15 and they meet in the field house. I’m PE teacher 2 and I start my class at 7:45, so my kids and I have to be checked in by 7:30 and head to the performance gym. PE teacher 3 starts class at 8, so he and his students must be checked in by 7:45.

As we enter both doors to get in are propped open for us and we can only walk in one at a time to get our temperature taken. The school hired extra people to help everyone with this process. They make sure we are all staggered waiting to get into the building. We also must turn in a health sheet daily just asking us if we have experienced any symptoms like cough, headaches, nausea, etc.

Since our start times are staggered, that means our lunches are too. All of our kids go to health after us and vise versa so lunch schedule has to be followed to keep up with the staggered times. Everyone stays in their classroom for lunch, and you’d think this would be annoying because this is supposed to be your time, but it’s not bad at all. We are allowed to take our masks off to eat and my kids are so good, they just spread themselves out and relax.

Every single class has breaks that the school worked hard on to create to ensure multiple classes aren’t in the hallways at the same time. Most of my breaks consist of the kids cooling down in their cubbys. Usually I’ll tell everyone to wash their hands during this time.

• What do they do with their masks while outside?

The kids bring their masks outside, and either keep them in their pockets, or just pull them down so they sit on their chin. I tuck mine in my shirt collar if I don’t have pockets.

• Who has to sanitize equipment?

When we played pool noodle tag each student was responsible for cleaning off their own noodle once class was over. Since no one is sharing, I only had them do it at the end of class. Same thing with basketball. The students clean their own and when they weren’t using them they kept them in their cubby.

The mats, kickball and giant ball we used yesterday were cleaned by me.

• How can you punish them with exercise for being close?

This was a tricky question. In Day 2, I mentioned a couple solutions to get the kids to keep their masks on or stay distanced. Honestly, this may be the hardest question, because these two expectations are not normal. The kids have to break the habits of literally being kids!

I don’t mind reminding kids about pulling their masks up, but I have at least 2 students who never have their mask on until I repeatedly tell them. And I’m extremely nice about it. But maybe I am being too nice. They are in high school and know how to follow rules.

When school let out, I was walking to my car and noticed one of my students who I’m constantly reminding to pull her mask up had her mask on full force. Now the rules of our summer school is that if you are outside distancing you don’t have to wear a mask. The fact that she had hers on outside not by anyone, waiting for her parents let me know that whoever is picking her up expects her to be wearing her mask.

The school as a whole have gotten multiple emails with concerns about their kids safety. They send their kids to school, with all of their trust in us teachers to keep them safe. Wearing a mask was one of the top safety procedures we were to follow, and if teachers are laxed with these rules the parents are upset. And I 100% agree with them.

If you send your kid with the promise that they will be safe from a virus we can’t contain by EVERYONE wearing a mask, you would expect nothing short of that. The parents get it…but the kids are trying to see how far they can get away with pulling them down. Maybe they don’t understand the severity of all of it

• What are your thoughts about sitting on the floor?

I can see how this would be a concern, but as of now I don’t have a solution. We are up being active for almost 3 hours, so they definitely will need to rest, I just haven’t figured out a cleaner solution! Please comment any advice you may have.

Activity #1: Fitness Notebooks

Since this is an every day thing, I will just briefly write about how it went and if the kids are improving or not.

Today, I explained that they may follow the same template as yesterday (see Summer School Physical Education Day 2 for pictures), or they may change up their style of working.

A lot of my kids are runners, so it was nice to see them doing a cardiovascular workout by running about two miles.

Eight of them teamed up to run a couple 4×100 m sprints. Instead of tagging each other or passing a baton, the runners took off once their teammate got about 4 steps from them. They still were able to follow the track standards, by “handing off” in the designated areas. So relays are definitely doable.

Whatever their workout was today, they wrote them down for me to look over on Friday. I will be leaving them notes and things they can add for more inspiration.

Coming inside, I would let one kid walk through the door that I held, while the next student in line count to ten before entering. That way each student had enough room in front and behind each other.

Activity #2: Kickball

Since I have small classes and a large gym I felt comfortable enough to play. One thing I modified was the size of the bases. I put 3 mats together. That way if a player is running to base and an outfielder needs to step on it, they are far enough apart for no contact.

How to play:

Basic kickball rules. The ball is rolled towards home plate for the kicker to kick. Once kicked, that player will run to first base. He has to make it to the base before an outfielder either hits him with the ball, or tags first base before him.

If the ball is caught in the air it’s an automatic out, and anyone running the bases needs to tag up or stay put. After three outs we switch it up so kicking team becomes the outfield team and vise versa.

In the gym we play with no foul balls and if they make a basket (they are pretty far away) they get an automatic home run.

What Worked:

Because the bases were so big, everyone stayed a safe distance away. Even in line, I told them if they can swing their arms at the same time as the person next to them and touch, they are too close. Every so often I’d just walk by and swing my arms around and they’d automatically move.

The size of my gym and number of kids I have makes me more comfortable with playing this game. Because the ball is making contact with kids, I wiped it down before hand, and everyone was instructed to either wash their hands or use hand sanitizer before we started.

Improvements or Modifications:

In any game, there are some students who don’t want to be hit with a ball. Like I stated in my Social Distance Activities for Physical Education, you could eliminate that aspect and have a designated person have to catch the ball in a specific area. Meaning if a runner is not at the base yet and the designated ball catcher has the ball and is standing on…lets say a base or mat, the runner would be out regardless.

Then possibly that ball catcher could set up the next play by putting the ball on home plate and eliminating the pitchers roll. That would take a couple sets of hands off the ball in that round. The less contact the better.

When I say designated ball catcher, I don’t actually mean a catcher that stands behind home plate. He or she should be in a random off to the side space. He can still go after the ball, he would just have to make it back to his “plate” before the runners make it to any base.

Activity #3: Matball

This is MY FAVORITE GAME to play with my regular school year kids. If you haven’t seen my Day 1 post, I teach summer school PE in a different district…so of course different kids.

How to play:

There are still 4 bases, but instead of a home base it’s a fourth base. Set each mat up in a square. The outfield sets up exactly the same as kickball game, but the kicker will kick in between 4th and 1st base.

Pitcher rolls the ball to the kicker. Once kicked, that player will run to base 1. If they think they can make it to base 2, 3, or 4 they can keep going.

Lets say they stop on 1st base. Kicker #2 comes up and kicks. The player originally on 1st base can either stay there or run to 2nd base. The fun thing about this game is that you can have multiple runners on base. Go through your line up using the same out’s system as kickball.

To score:

Once you are on 4th base you’re in scoring position. Instead of running home, you will run back to first base and score 1 point. To clarify once you get on base, you don’t get off until you are tagged out by the ball. This means you can run around the bases 6 times on your teams kicking turn and score 6 points for your team. And with multiple people running the bases at different times your team can score many points until the inning is over.

Same rules as kickball wen it comes to switching who’s up to kick and field. Three outs and you’re done.

What Worked:

Basically the same things that worked in kickball worked in Matball. Bigger mats or course. It actually was really great to see on base all of the kids were far enough apart.

I even told them, instead of standing in the middle of the base just keep one foot on and stand at different corners so others have plenty of room. At any point there was never more than 4 people on the same base, but even this was rare since there was only 7 or 8 to a team. It was easy to space them out.

Improvements or Modifications:

Again like improvements with kickball, the same modifications could apply to Matball.

You could even make the bases much bigger for larger classes, but if you’re gym is pretty small and you don’t have any room outside I probably wouldn’t play either kickball games.

For instance, my regular school year teaching position I don’t think I will be playing either game. My gym is very small, I have no outdoor area to use for it and class sizes are 25-30 students in each.

Also, how can I make sure students had washed their hands before our 30 minute class? I can’t build in hand washing breaks in that time frame for a class of 30 with no direct access to a sink without leaving the gym. I’m very lucky right now since our classes our 3 hours, I build those breaks right into our class time.

So in my opinion unless you have the room and smaller class sizes, it may be too risky.

Activity #4: Weight Room

I was very unsure about this activity for the day since Michigan gyms are not open yet. I made sure I got multiple approvals from the administration before I even attempted to take my kids in.

With 15 kids and a nice open weight room, social distancing isn’t an issue. It’s the wiping and cleaning of equipment. As an adult who goes to the gym this is common sense and gym etiquette no matter where you’re from. But as an overly excited kid to show his friends all his muscles and how much weight he can lift on each equipment, this is the step that can be constantly overlooked.

What Worked:

I brought 3 containers of disinfectant wipes and a bottle of hand sanitizer. I set them up all around for easy access.

The kids also had to distance themselves between the cardio machines if that is what they chose to do. I also let kids run/walk the indoor track if they did not feel comfortable in the weight room. There is a glass door that connects the two, so as I was rotating around I could constantly check up on them.

Since I am teaching high school, most of the students already knew what to expect and how to use most of the machines properly. Out of both classes only 3 had never been to a gym before.

Modifications or Improvements:

My first block (morning class) had to be told way to many times to either wipe down equipment or distance themselves. It got to the point where I told them we will not be back until I can the rules being followed as given.

Something I may try is to split them into 3 groups. Five will get to run/walk the track, 5 will experience the cardio machines and the other 5 will get to use the equipment dumbbell area. I will also split groups of friends up. Normally that is not my style. I like when kids work with their friends, because it helps them enjoy the activity more, but my first block showed me that they were not capable of that. The gym is not the time to be hanging on each other and the equipment inappropriately.

Now there are a bunch of them following every rule put in place and if I decide to split them up into groups, I will let those kids still be together.

As far as the second block goes, they did MUCH better than the first group. I made sure to praise them about their proper gym etiquette while constantly reminding them that wiping down equipment is the standard no matter what gym you’re in. Planet Fitness, Lifetime or your high school weight room.

They’ll definitely get to go back. Instead of the outdoor fitness logs for class 2 on Wednesdays, they will strictly get the weight room while still keeping track of their workouts.

Overall

I just wanted to clarify once again that I see two different classes in a 3 hour time frame. That is why you are seeing so many activities done throughout a class period. Technically in a regular school year with hour long periods this would have been 6 separate classes.

And if you are one of the unlucky teachers who only get 30 minutes or less with your kids like me in a regular school year, this would be approximately 12 different classes.

You could pick one activity to try every day, and could really stretch your units out, until we figure out more ways to keep every kid safe and distanced from their classmates.