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.

Alright, here we go. Day 7 of social distancing in PE…

Reebok athletic apparel. 

Activity #1: Weight Room

Normally students would be writing their workouts down in their fitness notebooks, but today I decided to take them to the weight room and let them experiment without having to keep track of anything.

In Day 6, my students were given a muscle endurance, cardiovascular endurance and flexibility workout to accomplish, so today we worked on muscular strength. Free weights and equipment were used as long as proper distancing and cleaning took place.

What Worked:

If you remember from a previous post (Day 3), I talked about how my morning class was very careless when it came to distancing and cleaning every piece of equipment after use. I decided today we’d try again and they did amazing. I let them know that if I have to remind them more than 2 times to clean equipment or move away from each other they would have to come hang out with me and we’d talk about the most boring topics. Obviously it was a joke, but it worked.

The morning class had a really good time, and I think the first day weight room excitement wore off after last time, which showed they could handle being safe and responsible.

My afternoon class is always tired and quiet when they came to the weight room, so of course there were no issues with their distancing.

Improvements or Modifications:

Again, like my Day 3 weight room experience I talked about splitting kids up into 3 groups to ensure everyone is a safe distance. I did not do that today, because I honestly trust these kids and I wanted to let them try again on their own. And they nailed it.

But in the future, I may do that just so students who gravitate to cardio equipment can get a better understanding of how to workout on machines or free weights.

With smaller groups, I would be able to focus more on showing kids proper form rather than just doing a walk around all 40 minutes and randomly helping kids who cross paths with me.

My leader in the morning class was helping a student push himself on one of the cable machines. The student performing the exercise was doing a cable chest fly, and was working so hard. His weight was pretty heavy so I could see him breaking form, and I let the student who was encouraging him know, normally you’d spot your friend, but since we aren’t allowed to touch I’d suggest dropping weight or less reps. He was working to muscle failure, but since his form was breaking I decided to have him drop weight instead of spotting. But they had the right idea, and I’d be excited to see their workouts in the future once we figure out what we are doing with the coronavirus.

Activity #2: Finish Choreographed Dance/Workout

Check out my Day 6 description to see how I introduced this activity to both classes.

Since we added activities to my morning class yesterday, the student’s didn’t finish their work. So after the wight room, the morning class spent about 30 minutes finishing and showing me what they accomplished.

I loved the creativity that came out of both classes with this, and I’ll definitely be doing this again for my regular school year students.

One thing I did not mention from yesterday, but was also something I would add in the future, is to include a minimum amount of exercises per group. In my morning class today, one of the groups choreographed a workout and did everything I asked, but only included two different exercises (jogging in place and jumping jacks). It worked, but for future reference I’d let them know a minimum amount of exercises.

Activity #3: RipStiks

MY FAVORITE ACTIVITY! Anytime I talk RipStiks, I mention how it is the best way to increase student engagement in my class. If you follow the link provided, you can find a how to video that shows your students how to use one.

I introduced RipStiks to my high school summer school kids today, but instead of showing the video, I just demonstrated. Balance, acceleration and turning were all talked about, but the number one thing to stress is safety. Every kid brought their own helmet, and the couple that forgot had their parents bring them up after class started.

Now if you have looked at the how to video, it shows how to be a good partner and getting used to riding while holding onto someone. I took that part out, and had them use the wall. Our gym is so big and classes are so small that we were able to put 3-4 kids on each wall to hold on until they felt confident to ride without assistance.

Notice there are two different sizes. I have about 13 longer RipStiks and 6 smaller usable RipStiks. 

What Worked:

I was able to provide every student their own RipStik. No one had to share, which means cross contamination of germs was non existent. Even students that needed wall assistance, worked in their own space so they did not have to touch the wall or bleacher that another student touched.

In my K-8 school I teach at in the fall, I provide helmets and each student shares a RipStik. I don’t see this happening in the fall, and I cannot have every 3-8th grade student bring their own helmet and RipStik. It’s impossible, but for my 9-12 small class I was able to pull this off.

Once you get your class lists and if you have a decent budget, I would somehow try to pull this off at your school.

Improvements or Modifications:

There were times students needed to trade RipStiks, because they needed a different size. The only solution I had today was to disinfect each of them before making the trade. After today, students will know what size they like so tomorrow I don’t see anyone trading. Even with the few that took place, the majority of the kids kept their original.

Make sure your wheels are decent, so the RipStik glides smoothly. I left a few at home, because its really hard to turn or accelerate.

It took my afternoon class a little longer to catch onto the motion to accelerate and balance than the morning class. They ended up practicing for an extra 20 minutes, and by the end of the class there were maybe 4 students who could not get the hang of it without holding on to the wall.

I realized they were watching the kids who were pretty good, so I got on my RipStik and made sure they could see the motion of my body and talked them through it. I gave a lot more feedback and pointers to the afternoon class, so regardless of what your kids can do, make sure you stay committed to helping them succeed. Even if it takes them longer.

Activity #4: Outdoor Free Time

Since both classes have been doing amazing, I figured I’d let them run around for about 20 minutes. I never worry that they are spending all 3 hours working as hard as possible, because that is just unrealistic. Especially with wearing a mask all day.

My afternoon class had a little more time outside than the morning class, but either way both classes enjoyed some unmasked time.

Overall

So far so good still. I love writing and I love teaching. I’m happy to be sharing my experiences with you all!

Please leave me questions or comments!

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