Day 26: Stormy Puddles

Today was the end of what felt like a short week. Although I’m exhausted and tired, mainly because I’ve been staying up late every night to finish my Honor’s thesis, Faux Foxes: Fox Domestication and Pet Ownership, this week seemed to go by pretty quickly and it was enjoyable. I’m glad it’s the weekend, so I can continue working on my thesis, though.

Today was another standard Fitness Friday. The morning began with a Friday assembly, then we had a shortened 2nd-Grade class to start off the day of gym classes. Unfortunately, because a huge storm blew in this morning, there were tremendous amounts of water and puddles outside that prevented us from using the outdoor space for the students.

Fortunately, this did allow me to see a new game.

The music teacher put on the headset and told all of the students to get into a giant circle in the middle of the gym. She counted each student off with a number between one and ten and then told the students that when she called their number, they would run towards the middle of the circle and then back to where they started, run a full lap around the circle, and return to their spot. The first person of that number to do so would win a point for his or her gender. It seemed like a simple, yet fun twist on Duck, Duck, Goose. She then asked me to control the music while the game commenced.

Today, all of our classes were slightly different because of the outdoor circumstances. The first two classes didn’t go outside at all and instead played inside games. The later classes did go outside, but we had to modify the running track with cones because of all of the puddles. Instead of running full laps, students had to run half laps, running to one side of the track blocked off by cones and then back to the other side blocked off by cones. I was at one end giving students red dots and my cooperating teacher was at the other end giving blue dots. Students had to earn 5 red and 5 blue dots to show that they had run down and back 5 full times.

This was a successful way of getting students to run their laps, until an ice cream delivery truck needed to pull up to the back of the cafeteria. This elementary school doesn’t actually have a real track, and instead uses the driveway in the back of the school as a track. Because of the truck, we had to pick up all of the cones and send everyone back in.

It definitely seems like you have to be ready for anything at this school and change your schedule at the drop of a hat!

Another difference about today was that it was a Club Day, meaning our lunch period was greatly shortened to allow a 7th class period to fit into the day. During this class, students were able to walk to a classroom that they had chosen at the beginning of the year to attend a club that they were interested in. My cooperating teacher’s club is The Serious Artists Club and since they created air-dry sculptures during the last Club Day, they painted them during this Club Day. This is an interesting way to fit clubs into the school day, rather than having them after school and my cooperating teacher prefers it.

Again, I feel like there isn’t as much to reflect on today since it was another gym day.

At least it wasn’t a week full of gym days!

Here’s one of the songs that’s played at the beginning of the Friday assemblies: