News

By: Aliza Jensen, MCS P.E. Teacher

Lower Elementary P.E.

In Lower Elementary P.E., students learn a variety of motor and coordination skills by participating in a variety of sports, games, and movement activities. Students also gain valuable lessons about teamwork and cooperation by playing with others in a team-building atmosphere.

A typical class begins with warm ups. Each child has the opportunity to choose a physical motion that can be performed while moving across the length of the gym or field. Skipping, leaping, and racecar driving are popular choices. The class then does the warm up across the gym or field together. The children really enjoy coming up with new and innovative ways to move their bodies! After warm ups, the children play a game.  Frequently children have the opportunity to choose a game and teach the rules to the class. Children learn how to play games such as soccer, capture the flag, and variations of tag.

Upper Elementary P.E.

In Upper Elementary P.E. students refine their coordination and motor skills by participating in a variety of sports, games, and exercise activities. Students also explore healthy living by learning about eating healthy, staying hydrated, and staying active.

Each day in P.E., one student is the P.E. coordinator. The P.E. coordinator is in charge of various tasks such as leading the group in warming up and stretching. The P.E. coordinator also chooses a game for the group to play that day. This role allows students to gain leadership skills and gives them an opportunity to guide their own unique experience.

Students play a variety of sports and games in P.E. such as soccer, basketball, kickball and various creative tag games. Students also have the opportunity to research obscure sports such as bobsledding, ice climbing, and surfing and present their research to the class. In upper elementary P.E., children gain life long lessons about sportsmanship and learn the enjoyment and benefits of an active lifestyle.

The Middle School students are at the completion of another cycle.  They have spent the past five weeks talking about how to be involved in the community and how service is a way to be involved and be supportive.

During their Immersion this week the Middle School students are focusing on Community Service. They have visited Wasatch Community Garden, The Stable Place, and The Living Planet Aquarium where they have rendered different services.  They have prepared and organized independent volunteer opportunities which they will participate in tomorrow and have also planned trips to the Bicycle Collective and Camp Kostopulos.  They are expecting a visit from Tree Utah on Friday.

Check back soon for a more comprehensive report of what they've been up to, what they learned along the way, and how this process suppports adolescents in their development.

Recently the Middle School students participated in their Team Building Immersion Week, after 5 weeks of study. The week started off with a trip to CLAS Ropes Course in Provo where they practiced many team building techniques.  The Upper Elementary students were excited to be able to join them for the Ropes Course Field Trip.  Other activities throughout the week included completing class projects, painting the “Nookery” (their mini workspace under the stairs), hiking up Mill Creek's Alexander Basin train with more team building games, and planning, shopping for, and preparing  meals for a campout on school campus.  Food from the class garden was used for their meals.  The week concluded with setting up a tent in preparation for their campout Thursday night.  At the campout they enjoyed a fire-pit and a presentation by Native American flutist and storyteller, Nino.  On Friday, following the campout, the students participated in a Guided Reflection on the completed week and who they are as a team.  They focused on challenges, celebrations, and goals.

Now, Middle School students have begun Cycle Two, where they will focus on “Changes,” change in literature, change in the world around us physically (fungi, protists, and matter) and social change (being catalysts for positive change). Cycle two’s immersion is geared around Service Learning, being the change we want to see in the world.