Lesson Plan #2 Title: Pathways and Locomotor Skills
Performance Objective: Using a demonstration from the teacher, kindergarten students will be able to perform different locomotor movements combined with different pathways, being able to identify all 3 pathways and perform 5 out of 7 movements successfully.
Resources or Materials Needed: Poly-spots, movement cubes, Pandora music, iPad for teacher, computer for teacher
Time: 45 minutes
Step 1: Pre-Instructional Activities: After students enter the gym the class will discuss our goal for the day why they are trying to reach that goal. The class will also quickly review the movements from the last lesson. The class will also review why personal space is important and what they can do in order to keep that personal space. (Ex. Eyes forward, hands and feet to self.) They will also talk about why their home base spots and why those are important. The students will also be instructed that Pandora music is the starting and stopping signal. The teacher will have control of starting and stopping the music with a computer that has Pandora running on it. The teacher will access Pandora using the link above, it should connect to a Kidz Bop music station. Using this station doesn’t need a log in, it is on the homepage of Pandora and should be accessible right away using https://www.pandora.com/station
Step 2: Content Presentation: After talking about the goal for the day and reviewing the previous lesson and what movements they practiced the class will talk about pathways and why they are important. When talking about the pathways, the teacher will ask what kind of pathways they may know, some can recall pathways they’ve used but may not use the correct terminology. The teacher will introduce straight, curved and zig-zag pathways and ask why or when they might use those when moving. After discussing the different pathways most students can draw on prior knowledge about the pathways and can recall times they’ve used the pathways as well. The class will usually talk about them in terms of letters, a straight line is like lowercase L, curved pathways are like a letter S, C, U or O, and finally they can tell me a zig-zag is like a letter Z, W, N or M. This helps them understand the different pathways a little easier.
Step 3: Learner Participation: Students will then find their home base spots once again and use the helicopter to see if they have enough personal space. Once they have enough personal space the class will begin the movement activity. The teacher will again have movements cubes, this time the teacher will roll 2, one with a movement and one with a pathway. The teacher will direct the activity and show the movement and ask about the pathway and why/when it might be important to use this pathway combined with this movement. The teacher will move through the gym and correct anything they see that needs corrected by giving students feedback as they move. The class will also have a discussion together after each movement. Again, the teacher will direct the conversation and give feedback as needed. Students are usually able to tell me that most of the pathways are used in order to avoid an opponent or person that is chasing them during a game or activity and they can identify that running in a straight pathway allows them to quickly catch the person running from them. After performing all the movements and pathways for the day, the teacher will bring the students to the meeting area and use GoNoodle to cool them down. The teacher will use https://family.gonoodle.com/activities/melting.
Step 4: Assessment: Same kind of assessment for the previous lesson, the teacher will assess their movements again to see if they’ve improved at all and I’ll also check to see if they understand the pathways along with the movements. Students also give them self and assessment at the end of class so I know how they feel about the movements and pathways. If they don’t feel comfortable with these 2 concepts teacher and student will have a one on one conversation to see how the teacher can help. The students will give a thumbs up if they are completely comfortable, thumb to the side of they feel ok, and thumbs down if they are completely confused and don’t understand.
Step 5: Follow-Through Activities: Follow-through activities for the pathways are a little easier because they use pathways without knowing it. In order to check for understanding and see if they’re grasping the concepts the class will play some tag games and the teacher will name the pathways and then discuss which pathway was most successful for being a tagger and what was most successful for being a runner.