In my second experience at St. Mary's, it was super hero day, so some of the SUNY Cortland students dressed up in shirts and costumes. Our day was spent in the gymnasium with the fifth and sixth graders, and first through third graders. Our activity was called super hero's verse villains, which was a modified game of capture the flag, but much better of course. With the older kids it was much easier to explain the game to them because they knew the backround of it. They were interested to hear that we changed the game up, and got more into it everytime we changed the locomotor skill. At first we had them running, and the games were going by very quickly, so then we had them gallop everywhere. All of the kids at this age level were good at galloping, however it did slow the pace of the game down. Finally when we broke it down into hopping and walking as low as possible, the game slowed down tremendously, and the kids finally learned to use some strategy, instead of just going as quick as possible. After every game it was up to the us to decide who won, so after each game the kids would come up to us waiting to see who won. Most times it was,"And the Winner is..." which kept the kids interested and focused on the activity.
When the younger kids were brought into the gym, we had to sit them down, get them quiet and explaing the rules to them. Unlike the older kids, they couldn't grasp the concept of the game that quickly. Most of the kids were just running around aimlessly, either into the hoola-hoops or behind the baseline so we had to make a change. Since the younger kids were much more interested in the fact that it was called super hero's verse villains, we included the SUNY Cortland students and made them villains, and had the team that kept winning as the super hero's. By doing this, it kept the kids listening, because they wanted to beat the cortland students, and the kids on our team wanted to help us win. It's the little incentives like that, that can grab a kids attention, or keep a kid listening to you until your done explaining. Like the older kids, after every game the kids were so concerned about who won the game, or if they did win, they were so happy. Overall this was another great experience at St. Mary's.
It is important that you found a way to manipulate the game. For the older students you challenged their abilities and made them work as a team and then made a game that the younger children find different still fun. It is good to see how much you are learning in classes and bringing it into your labs.
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