Thursday, April 14, 2011

5k St. Mary's Run..




When My Pofessor anounced about the 5K fund raiser, I was immideatly intrested. I wanted to help out the community that gives me and SUNY Cortland soo much by allowing us the college students learn and experience hands on working with School children. Saterday Morning comes and I'm up at 7 am, the first time since High Scool Basketball Practice and begin getting ready and brought my pedonometer.  We arive there and met Jared the head of Fund Raiser than we were sent out to direct the runners and prevent traffic. We got there a bit early with no runners or anyone insight, and to get my blood pumping I did alittle warmup with my extra motivation of the pedonometer intill cars started coming. And then the first runner came running very fast yet faced with a person behind him at least the a block length doewn. With no one else in sight for another 2 minutes, making it clear that those first 2 guys were well trained athletes. Then we the 2 guys are on the way back more and more people start coming. As I'm guiding a big bunch of people to go to the left many cars come at once. So I tell my Partner Gianluca to take the orange flag while I tell the drivers to turn around and go back becuase they cant go that way for the swafety of the runners. Then when I came back I saw many of the children that attend the after school where we teach. That lightt me up even further and I was screaming good job keep it going even louder with more enthusiasm as I was watching familiar children faces. It made me remember how out of shape I was at their age, I would of never been able to run 5k not even 1K. Thank Goodness I transformed my body and went from a sedentary coach patatoe to living an active healthy life. Thats why I want to help others especially the youth to not live a unhappy and unhealthy lifetsyle like I did. Then Me and My Partner Gianluca helped a lady who lives right at the corner of where we were directing the runers to turn. We  told her to wait intill it was the perfect time for her to pull out her driveway with out disturbing any runners. Because we didnt want to hurt the runners or their pace, so sh had to wait a while but she didnt mind and was happy. And told us thank you that if it wasn't for us she would of never attempted to even try to get out , that brightened my day even further. Then every one started running back to St. Mary's to finish the race and in 15 we got picked up and taken back to watch people as they finish.  And recieved water bottles and had a table full of healthy foods like bananas oraganges, and bagels with peanut butter. And we got the chance to learn howthe racers  got timid for when they finish. I was surprised that they use 5 different methods to accurately determine the almost exact time a person finishes. They had a camera catching the video, a person doing it maually on a machine that looks like a cash register, and 2 panels on the floor that are connected to computers. And the first panel is the main one while the second is just if the first one misses it. Is was impressive to see all that for a local race so i cant imagine what they have in Big NYC Marathons, it really opened my eyes with the technology we use in sports. Finally we finished of the day in the caffeteria as the children got pancakes and they called out the top 3 winners in each class. Then I started thinking how it the 5k Fund Raiser benefits the school and how its a great family event with children, Moms and Dads and even Grandparens running and getting closer as a family and community and helping the School. I was a great experience which I really learned from and would definetly do it again!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Dinosaur Train Lab 4

 Our Fourth Lab themed Dinosaur Train; First we began by observing St. Mary's  students motor skills of overhand throwing and the catching. Which a bit different since before we were focused more on lower body such as how they run skip and hop. Then my group and I the Krazy Kangaroos began our games but unfortunately the kids split up and we were left with a few. We made the best and most out of what we made by making sure all our kids had smiles. When It was my turn for my Rock Paper Scissors tag game. In which each possible one such as a scissors represents a dinosaur, therefore Scissors mean T-rex so they had to run a little leaned forward with short arms. Paper represents the plant long Neck Plant eater, since paper is made out of Tree, the child would run with one arm forward in front of them.  And a triceratops which is a rock, the students would chase with both hands open over their forehead representing the triceratops horn. In the tag game, I would say rock, paper, scissors shoot and the children would run around looking and chasing the dinosaur that is inferior to them. Then we altered the game after a few rounds so that the children would team up and face each other. And from the two children the winner chases the person who has lost for 30 seconds before the next round starts. After helping all my group members making their games go smoother. I went and helped another group as they were doing a game in which they emphasized throwing for the children and they wanted to focus on overhand throwing so they put up a mat as a wall.Then we made it a little more challenging for the children, we put up another blue mat on top of the initial big red wall. To make them have to throw even higher and to see how the children would adapt, for example they should of stepped a little further back and throw using better technique using the whole body not just a swing of their arm. And many of the children weren’t able to throw over the second higher so they were throwing to where there wasn’t the second mat where my face was.


 At first the balls were probably flying directly to my face by accident, but then when the children saw me smile and they were smiling I became the main target of the balls. It’s fun knowing your making children happy and putting smile on their face so it definitely was worth it. Then we finished with the wiggle dance and a cheer!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Wild Wild West day Lab 3

I was very excited for our Wild Wild West themed day 3 Lab. really enjoy the fact we have themes for our labs , and that they are constantly changing  making the lab more refreshing and  interesting. I have been focusing on observing more on the children and my peers the Teacher.  From my observations I've noticed a lot of progression and improvement of performance from the children and us as Teachers in comparison with previous labs. It’s most likely because we all as a whole feel more comfortable with the children, as they feel more comfortable with us. My group focus was the kindergarteners and first graders; we first started in the class room with drawing and coloring and playing blocks. Then we started our arts and Crafts of making a hoarse, the children loved it and so did I.  I never would off though the shape of our foot looks like the head of a hoarse. We traced all the sneakers of the children and then cut out a RECTANGLE for the neck of the hoarse. Then we glued the neck the rectangle to the shoe cut out and glued on the googly eyes. Finally we glued on hair for the hoarse. After we cleaned up and the children ate cookies with milk. We all went to the gym to play games. The first game we played a boy named Tommy instead of playing ran to the bleachers so I followed and sat next to him. I asked if why isn't he playing and he answered with big watery eyes saying "I miss my mommy". I told him Tommy don’t worry she’s on her way, she'll be here soon and if you play the game she would be here even sooner. He said alright and joined. Then the next activity began and Tommy came to me to be my partner. That made me feel very happy and special that he chose me, because I was looking for him so I can make sure he's having fun and he snuck right under me  and grabbed my hand. We did the activity of him jumping over the cones and then we played team tag and he was my partner. And in the middle of the team tag his mom came and he was soo happy and gave me a big smile and waved and said bye. That smile made me smile even more and made my day which told me this is the major for me. Afte the 2 games we all gathered around together to dance to the Cotton eye Joe . Finally finishing our day with our teamwork cheer, in which we cheered "Ye-Haa!". It was a really great day that improved my confidence and it sreally showed me I can make a difference in the way a child feels