Tuesday, October 27, 2009

"Blaze" Heats up St.Mary Students



As the kids seen us coming they were excited as usual, but today was something different. We had a special guest coming to bring a spark to St. Mary’s. "Blaze" the Suny Cortland mascot came running into the gym and the kids went ecstatic. The excitement that "Blaze" brought to the school was something I have never seen. All the kids were immediately attracted to the big red dragon storming around the school. In one instance I had seen a little boy, Luke, sad and somewhat depressed. As "Blaze" came along a big smile came on his face and he was much easier to work with when teaching him activities and games to play.
"Zany Zoo" was the game we choose to play with the older kids. The game involves 4 different teams evenly paired. Two hula-hoops are placed in the middle with a variety of movements on pieces of paper. The kids then run to the hoops and pick up a piece of paper, having to act out the movement back to their spot on line. Which ever team finishes first with each member acting out a movement that team wins. I couldn’t believe how interested they were in participating in the game. They loved how they had a variety of movements to pick from when choosing the next task on the pieces of paper.
Being here for a couple of weeks now I figured out how to grab the attention of the kids and make my teaching more effective. The best way to attain the attention of the kids is relate whatever you are teaching to what the students like. By using themes like "Superheroes" and "Halloween" we grabbed the attention of the kids much easier than playing a game with a boring old name. A great example of this is when "Blaze" came running in it grabbed the attention of the kids and made it much easier to teach them. This week was really fun and "Blaze" was a great addition...

1 comment:

  1. That is good that you are starting to realize how to get kids to play your games. One important thing when working with kids is trying to do something that they will find interesting. This can be a very hard task at times but I feel that your group does a good job with it.

    ReplyDelete