Lower School
Hello MMFS Friends,
It has been an exciting and fun-filled first few weeks in the elementary school physical education classes! When planning our lessons we always keep in mind our core values: play hard, play fair, play safe. Everyday we encourage students to play hard by exerting their best efforts in each and every activity they do. They are taught to play fair by following all of the rules and being honest with themselves and others. And they learn to play safe because we emphasize how important the rules are to keeping students safe. We created colorful contracts that each student signed agreeing to these core values. The contracts are now hanging up beautifully in the gym for all to see.
The students have participated in many thrilling activities thus far and it is only just the beginning. Each class begins with a proper ten minute warm up. Students enjoy race walking, skipping, galloping, jogging, dancing, and imitating their favorite animals. After warming up, they participate in cooperative games and friendly competitive games. Cooperative games include obstacle courses, Blob Tag, Banana Tag, Tunnel Tag, and “ice skating” with practice jerseys. The competitive games that they have been introduced to so far include Gaga (the most popular!), Clean the Backyard, and Builders and Bulldozers. The 5th floor students utilize the YMCA where we have access to a full size gymnasium, allowing the students to move around the entire perimeter of the basketball court. The students really enjoy playing Blob Tag, Line Tag, basketball games, and Doctor Dodgeball.
We have a lot of great upcoming units planned. Beginning October 17th we will start the MMFS Olympics Unit. It will include such events as the long jump, high jump, time trials, balancing competitions, and super ring toss to name a few. Beginning in November, Meg will put her expertise to work when we introduce the gymnastics unit. Students will have a plethora of new equipment to work on spatial awareness and coordination. They will be using a floor balance beam, cartwheel mats, and cheese wedge mats. They will also try handstand walking stations, balancing activities, core stations, and strength work.
Another community building activity that all 3rd and 4th floor students participated in was our Fall Field Day at Prospect Park. It was a gorgeous day, a perfect opportunity for our students to connect with other members of the ES community and engage in team building through exciting adventure games. Stations included relay races, circle games, bubbles and chalk, parachute games, exploring nature, and paper airplanes and chalk. The biggest hit of the day was the paparazzi station where students were given digital cameras to take selfies, snap pictures of their friends at each station, and sneak up and catch some photos of Hannah and Franziska! The 5th floor spent Field Day at Brooklyn Bridge Park with representatives from the Greenkill Outdoor Education Center. Students played games together and spent time discussing the core values of community and teamwork. Overall, it was a wonderful day for the MMFS Elementary and everyone left with a great big smile!
We look forward to a great year in PE class!
In Friendship,
John Stimson, Head Physical Education Teacher
Meg Marco, Physical Education Teacher
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