The Older The Students Get - The Harder The Control

When we first got to St. Mary's we were assessing the younger students on how to throw and catch. I was really impressed at how strong their abilities were. They were able to throw pretty much on target and many were hitting Oscar the Grouch directly in the head which was pretty entertaining. One student I noticed could sort of throw a curve ball. It discouraged me because I obviously cannot do that! Afterwords my group and I were told to work with the cafeteria group or the older students. We first went downstairs to play some board games. Two students were showing me how to build a face mask out of leggo's to protect my self in any emergency. They said that my face mask was decent for my first time building. Then we all moved upstairs where my group and I introduced our games. The students really were not interested and some of the boys were trying to see how much they could get away with and was pushing us as instructors. When it came time for my game I was a little intimidated because the boys were being rough and loud. I told them we were going to play earth ball and the object of the game was to throw small balls at one large yoga ball and see if they can get it across either teams side to score a point. But some of the students were kicking it and picking it up and throwing it at one another. After about five minutes I had to stop the game because they were out of control. So Dave, Ryan, and I decided to play basketball with the boys to try and control them more which we succeeded. They were trying to cheat a bit and pushing one another. It was not one of the better days at St. Mary's and I am actually glad it happened because now I know I have to be prepared for anything to happen because I will never know the mood of the students I will be getting. Next time I will be working with the pre kindergartener's so hopefully my game will work next time because after this past lab we got some advice from one of the past 201 students saying that the younger ones love to chase. In the event I have the older students again I will try to make my game more team oriented and more sport similar so I gain more interest and trust in the students to follow the rules. Click here for lab four!