January 6th, 2016 - Basketball Unit - Day 1

Today I had my Day 3 classes, which is a combination of one class who has played the games we played this week and one new class. There are few kids who speak up or blurt out answers from the class that has already been in the gym, but mostly, its a challenge for myself. I feel like I am on repeat, so I may change or leave something out so then either the class who has already been in the gym hears it again or the new class loses out on something I taught the previous day. I am in my 5th year in the position and I feel I am still trying to juggle this schedule.

This morning I had the 4th and 3rd graders enter the normal way of walking and then progressing through an exercise warm-up. After we played a new variation of fitness tag, where there are green, blue and red taggers. If a student is wearing a green jersey, they must hold onto a rubber frog while they try to tag the fleeing students. If a student is wearing a blue jersey, they must hold onto a rubber fish and if they have a red jersey, they hold onto a noodle (still trying a think of a creative way to use the noodle). When a fleeing student is tagged, they have different exercises to complete.

Tagged by a red noodle - 20 jumping jacks
Tagged by a blue noodle - 20 windmills
Tagged by a green noodle - 20 mountain climbers

We play 3 rounds of this games. (First round the fleeing students skip, Second they gallop or shuffle and Third they can move freely)

One thing I added today to this game is that the taggers have to move a certain way.

Blue jersey - swim like fish with hands together
Green jersey - swim like a frog with one hand on the frog and then both arms making circles out in front of themselves
Red jersey - move like the fleeing students

After the 3 rounds, we move on to playing "red light green light basketball." Yes, even in 2nd-3rd and 4th grade. Each student receives a ball and follows the commands based on the lights below.

Red - "Chin-it" position
Green - Dribble in own space
Yellow - Dribble and walk
Blue - Dribble and jog
Purple - Set ball down and perform windmills
Orange - Set ball down and perform jumping jacks
White - Shoot freely at any of the 8 hoops in the gym

After about 10 minutes, we begin the elimination round until there are only two remaining students. They will then compete in a shooting challenge. (First to make 4 baskets)

Remaining students get into their teams and we play "4 hoop basketball." Each students has a number, when their number is called they run out and compete against the other students with the same number. The mini game is played until a basket is made or time is up. I try to go through each number 3-4 times.