| Author |
Message |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 22, 2005 - 7:27 pm: |       |
I work in a very small private school that does not have a gym or outside field/play area. (We are located in an office park.) Until now, we've been busing the kids to a local gym/field area. However, our administrators have decided to gut one of the buildings where our school is located and have told us to use that as our PE area.
It is a 1500-1800 foot carpeted area with 8-foot hanging ceilings. (Ceilings apparently cannot be raised.) The area available outside is a parking lot (no grass). We're estimating 22-28 students per class (co-ed).
Any ideas on how to conduct PE in such an area? Any suggestions are much appreciated. |
Anonymous
| | Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2005 - 5:24 pm: | |
I also have no gym and get to use a parking lot throughout the day. In the mornings, after parents have dropped of their students for breakfast, I block off the majority of the parking lot with cones to reserve some space for P.E. I asked staff to park in a designated area as well. |
Isobel Kleinman
Unregistered guest
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 3:59 pm: | |
Wow . . . tough situation. I would do dance ... lots of it and in every form. Try folk, social and creative dance. I'd do dance aerobics, gymnastics (floorwork if you can't get equipment in there). For sports, I'd teach handball (the wall variety . . . see Complete Physical Education Plans for Grades 7-12 for details). I would probably give ping pong and pickleball a try, too. Neither require high ceilings. I would encourage the kids to work up routines in dance and gymnastics and have them all participate in a show to keep motivation and interest up. With such limitations, you can really focus on quality of movement. Having a show will allow you to do that.
|
Anonymous
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 9:21 am: | |
If you are teaching middle school, you might want to check out the book "No Gym? No Problem!". It is published by Human Kinetics (www.humankinetics.com). |
becky pope (Bpope)
Junior Member
Username: Bpope
Post Number: 5
Registered: 7-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, June 25, 2006 - 10:08 pm: | |
I teach in a small, public charter high school, and my "track and field" are a large asphalt parking lot, and my gym is a small cafeteria that has tables that must be moved anytime we use that room. We also have one outdoor basketball court. I just got my P.E. credential, and last year was my first year teaching P.E. (I found the facility to be more challenging than I had anticipated in my enthusiasm for teaching P.E.) We are located in the center of our small city, and we walked a lot through town. I would set a relatively fast pace at the front of the group, but then we'd have to stop every three or four blocks to let the stragglers catch up. Many of the students enjoyed getting off campus, and they enjoyed the socializing that was possible as they walked. (Unfortunately the previously mentioned stragglers liked that part of it a bit too much.) I tried to get the students to pick up the pace by encouragement (and those who could walk faster but chose not to saw their participation grade go down). I also used our local bowling alley as a resource. It is a little over a mile from the school, so we would walk there and back. This worked well for my block class (almost two hours long), but I felt I was shortchanging the daily class, as we only had about a half hour to bowl after walking there and back. Since that class was the last class of the day, my solution was to stay an extra hour after school got out with any students who wanted to stay and bowl, and then walk back to school with me. (Anyone who didn't want to do that had to make arrangements to be picked up at the bowling alley. Since we don't have bus service for our students, bussing wasn't an issue.) I also applied for and received a fly-fishing grant (for anyone who's interested, go to www.futurefishermen.org). As a grant recipient, I will attend a workshop in Michigan this summer to learn how to flyfish, tie flies, etc.. Another teacher who is an avid fisherman will help me purchase fly rod kits, students will assemble the rods, and they'll be bussed to our local park where they'll get to fish in the river on several different occasions. (The other teacher will also use the rods for an afterschool flyfishing club.)I plan to teach a dance unit this next year (YIKES! I'm not too secure in doing this, but I'm going to give it a shot.) The kids enjoyed viewing a STOMP video I played for them when it was too hot to stay out all period (it gets REALLY hot here), and I will show it next year as a form of dance to get them interested (hopefully) in the possibilities with dance, and am going to work with a teacher at our sister site (we're part of a high-school district) to get ideas for what videos to use. I also have played a modified version of Capture the Flag in our parking lot (the kids really like it, for the most part), but several kids have gotten road rash from taking spills, so I'm not crazy about that. Indoors, we've played seated volleyball, using a beach ball. Students are allowed to use the ceiling (or a teammates head, as happens frequently by accident) and may hit it as many times as needed. The rules are that they must be on their knees, sitting, or may have one leg or arm free (the other three apendages must be in contact with the floor). The ball is dead when it hits the floor or goes out of bounds. We've also done yoga and Pilates by video; some students like it and some don't. I'm also going to give golf a try this next year, using our guidance counselor---a good golfer---and other community members as a guest teachers, and we'll use the Birdie Balls and the strike pads that come with them. I'm going to run two concurrent units---golf for those who are interested and sign up, and something else (basketball, possibly)for those who aren't interested in golf (too many playing golf, otherwise). For aerobic activites indoors, I purchased aerobic steps and mini-trampolines, but we didn't use them much last year. (It's logistically challenging to get them moved from the storage area down the hall to the cafeteria, but I'm going to knuckle down and get more organized in making this happen next year.) I also bought a number of dumbbells---5, 10, 15 and a few 20's---and we'll do a true weight training program next year using the dumbbells and body weight exercises. I'm going to purchase badminton racquets and a few nets, as that's something that can be done on the asphalt. We also did a timed run, walk/run, or walk four times during the year. I used cones to mark the distance across the parking lot and had them go for fifteen minutes. Their partner sat on the sidelines and counted laps for them (and the actual distance across the lot didn't matter, as they were going for the same amount of time each session. The idea was to improve each session; some kids really tried and others didn't. The only other thing I would suggest is thinking about local organiztions with whom you could partner. We joined forces with our Public Health department and transported students around our city and to the park for mapping walking trails (nstudents and adult helpers noted where there were no sidewalks or there were hazards); Public Health will then take the information to the city for them to do create good walking trails for the community. You might have a teen center facility you could use (ours is in the process of being built, as the old one had to be torn down). I hope I haven't gone on too long here, but I was desperate for ideas this year, so I am trying to offer you anything that might be useful...hope it helps. |
|
