Ms Meghan's Grocery Games

So this was a fun one...one of the Pre-K classes is learning about health/nutrition so I may or may not have made up this fun game for them.

Last year I bought a bunch of play food on sale, and before class I dug through the food pulling out all the fruits, veggies, meats and breads. Before playing the game we went over each food item and which category it would fall in to. Then I divided the class in to two teams. Each team had a grocery cart with a grocery sack in it filled with the toy food. On my go the first person in line raced down to the end of the gym...

When the got to the other end there were 4 hula hoops set up; one for bread, one for meat, one for fruit and one for vegetables...

They would then reach in to their bag of groceries, pull out one item and place it in the correct hula hoop...

The team who got all their groceries delivered first was declared the winner. They had a great time and I love it when gym can reinforce what they're learning in the classroom!

New Year, New Game

Wow! It has been a while...We've done some fun stuff in gym and I will get around to posting those fun activities, but for now I will share with you the "new" game we played the other day. Returning from Christmas Break often means reviewing, assessing and getting ready for conferences, and I love it when gym can coordinate with what is being done in the class! Today I put a twist on a favorite, gave it a new name and...viola - Smarty Pants was born (which is a hilarious name if you are of preschool age).

Much like my Trash Day game, I put a pile of items in the middle of the gym

 

Then on "go" the kids sorted the items based on if it was a...

Number

Letter

or Shape

The great thing about this game, is you can adapt it for Pre-3's all the way up to Pre-K. The older classes had to take it a step further and sort the shapes into stars, circles and squares. The youngest class sorted just the shapes.

A few important things to note - before we started playing we reviewed our letters, numbers and shapes, and a sample was put in each hoop before the game started.

Happy New Year!

Creepy Crawly Parachute Games

With Halloween right around the corner, I had to play some spider'ish themed game.

After stretching, I asked kids what sort of decorations they'd seen in people's yards; the answers varied, but almost every class had at least one student who said spiders and spider webs. Out came the game...

First the spider web (aka - parachute)

Then the spiders or bugs that had gotten caught in the web (aka - balloons)

The class was tasked with shaking the web until all the spiders or bugs were freed.

We only played the game twice, but I think they could have played it the whole time! Nothing says fun like a parachute game!

Homerun Derby Preschool Style

Usually I wait to teach baseball until Spring Training starts, but being hopeful that the M's might make it to the playoffs this year, I decided to start baseball now (sorry M's but I have many friends who are A's fans in the Bay Area that are excited).

My first three years of teaching PE, I taught at the middle school level, (I am one of those random people that really like middle schoolers), and I was amazed at how little they knew about the fundamentals of baseball. When teaching our Incrediball unit (a "soft" version of a softball - unless you get hit, then it doesn't feel too soft), I noticed that the kids had no idea how or where to run after they hit. So I vowed then and there no student of mine would be clueless when running the bases!

To keep it simple for the preschoolers, they hit the ball off the tee...

and then ran to colored bases (I didn't take a picture of this because it was hard to get a good picture of the "diamond" but I used three different colored poly spots). Each base is a different color, so we would cheer them on telling them what color to run to. A few tried to field their own hit, but once they got the hang of it, they really loved it - even those that "bunted" got homeruns.

With a group of 16 kids ranging from 3 on up, safety is key, so I put out my "line-up behind this circle" poly spot...

I love using what is going on in the world of sports to teach the kids new skills and hopefully encourage an interest in following sports - at least the "big games".

Trash Day

This is one of my ALL TIME favorite games, and surprisingly enough, the kids love it too! My apple tree game was adapted from this activity. This game keeps them busy for a good 10 minutes, and they usually ask to play it again.

I love it when I can reinforce what they're learning in class during gym. This game is great for helping learn colors.

I put a bunch of different colored items in the middle of the gym (I used scarves, bean bags, and poly spots this time around). This is our "trash".

Trash has to go in the correct "trash can", which are hula hoops, placed around the gym.

The yellow and green are hard to see, but this gives you an idea of their spacing.

On my go, the kids can pick up two pieces of trash (one per hand) and put it in the correct color trash can. The further apart you spread the hula hoops, the more they have to run.

This is a great game for reinforcing colors, and for teaching them how to move quickly without colliding with friends :) (no trash collectors were hurt while playing this game).

A little later in the year we separate by item - which can be tricky for them, especially since they're used to separating by color. I adapt this game a lot, so stay tuned for other ways you can use hula hoops and random stuff to create a fun game for preschoolers :)

Apple Tree Game

When I'm able, I try and plan themed gym activities to go along with the classroom themes. This week two of the classes have an apple theme, and one has water, so I added to/adapted one of my favorite games to have an apple/water theme.

I put green, yellow and red items in the middle of the gym, these were our apples.

Then I placed green, yellow and red hula hoops at one end of the gym. These were our "trees".

Kids were divided up in to green, yellow and red "teams", and it was similar to a relay race. On my "go" the first person in line ran to the middle of the gym and picked up the correct color item for their "team" tree, then they ran to the tree and put their apple on the tree. When one team got all their apples on their tree the game was over. For the older classes, I added in a balance activity, and they had to "climb the trunk of the tree" (walk on the balance beam) and put their apple on the tree.

I love this activity, because it involves color recognition, sorting, balance and teamwork.

For the class studying water, all teams had a blue hula hoop, representing their pool, and they had to "fill their pool" by taking items from the center of the gym and sorting based on the item (scarves, bean bags & big building blocks). The balance beam was the "diving board" and they had to walk to the edge of the board and fill their pool. (I didn't get pictures of this one)

Stay tuned for more apple/water themed games!

Safety Rules and More

What a fun first week we had in gym! I am a person of routine, so it's important to me to always follow the same routine in gym. Even though the weather was beautiful, we still had to have our structured time in gym.

At the beginning of the year, we talk a lot about safety and how to stay safe in the gym. As individual classes they come up with their own rules. This year rules included; don't leave the gym, don't push/hit/kick anyone, don't pick your nose, and my favorite - you can throw a ball, but don't throw another kid.

We talk about using our eyes to stay safe by looking out for our friends. We played a fun game of "bumper cars" where the kids each got a hula-hoop, which was their "car" and we drove from one end of the gym to the other without "crashing". We'll keep working on this, as pretty soon we'll just run from one end to the other and I'm hoping they'll remember some of the "spacing" guidelines.

We also talked about our ears keeping us safe - how it's important to listen to the teacher and when they say "freeze" we need to keep our bodies and our mouths still. To practice this we played freeze dance, which is always a fun way to get the wiggles out. It's still a work in progress, as some classes are better "freezers" than others, but we work on this one A LOT.

I introduced our "preschool road" where we can run and ride bikes. Basically the road is achieved by setting cones up around the perimeter of the gym giving kids room to roam without having bikes coming through the center of the gym where a variety of PE manipulatives are set up. And we worked on walking feet, and running feet - one funny thing about preschoolers, if I ask them to walk all bets are off, but if I asked them to have walking feet...boom they walk.

But since we had such amazing weather, we didn't spend too much time indoors, and we were able to enjoy our fun playground.