September & August Newsletter

Welcome everyone to another exciting year of physical education here at serendipity school. We kicked the 2017 - 2018 school year off with our first unit, Training Camp. Training Camp is a unit designed to teach our students about our routines, work on our fitness levels, increase our teamwork and communication skills, and teach us some of the fun games we all love to play.

Training Camp is the perfect unit to start the year because all of our students get the opportunity to learn what is new in their grade. We learned about how choice warm up works, where the stretch and discuss area is, and how to take care of the equipment.  

When we finish the warm up we head to the white board. The white board is where the Student and Quote of the Week are posted. There are also reminders to Think C.L.E.A.R and stay Squirrel Strong. Another thing we learn at the white board is Awesome Anatomy, a program that teaches us about our bodies. This month we were learning about the cardiovascular system, including the heart, lungs, and blood vessels.

The best Training Camp activities are always the team building challenges we participate in. These challenges are designed to make us think, strategize, and communicate with each other. A lot of times we fail, but that is ok because we know that failure is a part of learning, and growing. The Titanic challenge was so hard because we couldn't 

Learning all about fitness concepts are a huge part of what we do during Training Camp. We spend time discussing the four major components of fitness: Muscular Strength & Endurance, Cardiovascular Endurance, Flexibility, and Body Composition. We even play a game called Fitness Monopoly, where we try to create "exercise monopolies" for each component. It's a lot of fun, unless you go bankrupt and loose all your points, or get "caught smoking", then you have to do 15 burpies.

This year we took some time during our training camp to learn what it is like to be disabled during our first Ability Awareness Day. At Ability Awareness Day, our students got to simulate what physical education looks like for those differently abled then us. Some students wore ear plugs to simulate being deaf, some students had special goggles that simulated visual impairments. We also simulated gross motor and fine motor disabilities. Lastly one student in each class got to experience what it would be like to participate in a wheelchair. This experience was definitely eye opening for our students.

---

Training camp ended with our 11th Annual Bring Your Parents to PE Week. This event is the best way for parents to learn what physical education is all about. Bring Your Parents to PE is a learn by doing event so students and parents dance, play, workout, and have fun together. It is a blast, and probably the best week of the year.

Overall it has been a great start to what is shaping up to be a fantastic year of PE at Serendipity School. Don't forget to watch the monthly video newsletter above, and remember to earn those cool bucks by doing your October Homework.

In Health,
Mr. Will

---