Middle and Older Kids are starting one of our favorite units: Invent A Game. Students have the task of creating a game and presenting it to the class.  Then we’ll give it a try!  It’s amazing to see some of the creative ideas the kids come up with.  We still use some games that previous Rivendell students have invented.

We look at all the aspects that go into a game:

• What?  The name of the game.
• Why?  The purpose and goal of the game.
• Where?  Is it inside or outside, what does the field look like, what are the boundaries.
• Who?  Teams, groups, individuals, positions.
• How?  The equipment needed, rules, restrictions, and how different rules end up affecting the game.

Preschool and Younger Kids will continue to work on fundamental athletic skills like running, throwing, catching, kicking, balance and agility.

We’re currently on a school-wide unit on systems of the body—a perfect topic for PE class! As the kids learn about the body in class, we reinforce the concepts and learn more with fun, active games: anatomy freeze tag for names of bones and muscles, skeleton building with exercises and foam bricks, circulatory system simulations where the kids get to be blood cells, heart, lungs or muscles, finding our heart rates, and learning about health risk factors in Heart Attack City.  All these activities are an exciting, kinesthetic and dynamic way to learn about the incredible human body.

In Early Childhood and Younger Kids, we learn names for various parts of the body and exercises that help our bones, muscles, heart and lungs get stronger. Middle and Older kids learn more technical names for major bones and muscles, lots of no-equipment-needed exercises, learn how the systems work together (and how they can break down), and about health risks like heart attacks and strokes and how to help prevent them.

Having students understand healthy lifestyles in one of our goals in Rivendell PE. Understanding the systems of the body is important so the kids know how it all fits together to keep everyone healthy and happy!

To simplify the weekly PE schedule, we’ve moved one of Bryce’s classes PE times to a new day.  The previous Tuesday PE class has been moved to Thursday at 10:30am, so Bryce’s class now has PE on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  If your child is in Bryce’s class, please make a note of it so they can be properly attired to run, jump and throw.

This fall, we are set to explore the sport of rugby.  It’s a game that is not as popular as other sports in the US, but has a growing following.  Interestingly, it arose from the same ancestral game as soccer and American football, but the three diverged roughly 150 years ago when some players wanted to keep the “kicking game” (soccer), and others wanted to be able to pick up the ball and run with it.

Of course, we won’t be tackling, or having rucks or mauls. We will use a variation called American flag rugby, which is much like flag football—only it’s rugby!

For Younger Kids, we will focus on the mechanics of running and passing, as well as the joys of flag pulling. We’ve already introduced the concept of flag belts with a rousing game of Sharks and Minnows.

Middle and Older Kids will progress to game play, with boundaries, scoring, and penalties. The mysteries of scrums, lineouts, and knock-ons will be revealed.

We’ve learned all about volleyball: serve, bump, set, spike, rotating, keeping score.  There’s even math involved!  (When playing outdoors, etiquette is to switch sides of the net whenever the teams’ combined scores add up to a multiple of 5.)  The kids did a great job, as you can see in these pictures from our first “official” volleyball game.

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We’ve started a new unit this week on volleyball.  To volley is to strike an object out of the air before it hits the ground.  A ball is, well… the kids know what a ball is!  Put the two together (and throw in a net) and you have the sport of volleyball.

We’ve started learning correct hitting technique—serve, bump, set, spike—and will progress to learning rules, scoring and rotation as we go along.

Preschoolers and younger kids start off with a beach ball.  Middle and older kids use “Volley Lite” balls, designed with softer covers and lighter weight to take the sting and fear out of hitting the ball.  Now we just have to wait for less rainy weather so we can get outside, and stop worrying about the balls hitting the ceiling!

More pictures from our second day of Rivendell Olympic competition.

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The Rivendell Olympics of 2012 are underway.  Here are some photos of the exciting action!

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The summer Olympic games has come and gone in London, but at Rivendell we are just getting started!  Middle and Older Kids learned that only male citizens could compete in ancient Greece, but the Rivendell Olympics is more inclusive.  We’ve started practicing for our own Olympic events in Middle and Older Kids, based on some of the original Greek contests.

Students in each class were divided up into city-states (Athens, Argos and Corinth) to compete in the following events, modified for safety:

• Running. The original Greek stadion race was between 180-240 meters; we have a perfect venue in our 208 meter track.
• Wrestling. We use a standing, push-only version where the only contact is with the palms of the hands.  As in sumo, you must simply make your opponent step out of a small ring. It encourages good athletic stance, and not just size and strength.
• Javelin.  Instead of spears, we throw footballs.
• Discus. Flying plastic discs (Frisbees) take the place of heavy metal ones.
• Archery. Bows and arrows are replaced by scoops and whiffle balls.
• Chariot Races.  This is always lots of fun, with snow sleds on the grass and the kids as “horses”!

Everyone will compete for their city-state in at least one event. Let the games begin!

We’re having lots of fun so far in PE this fall—even though the weather hasn’t been very fall-like!

In preschool, we have been playing games that work on locomotor skills: running, shuffling, going backwards, skipping, and introduced basics of throwing and catching.

In younger kids, we learned what a dynamic warmup is, worked on good athletic position and locomotor skills, and are learning more about our personal space.

Middle and Older kids have done all of the above as well as the ROOTS of sportsmanship. Now we have started on our Greek Olympics—more on that soon.