K-4 PE at OWS: K-4 PE at OWS with Matthew Smith

Friday, September 16, 2011

K-4 PE at OWS with Matthew Smith

I am thrilled to be the new K-4 movement and PE teacher at Open Window School. Concurrent with my 1st year at Open Window School I am teaching my 6th year of K-8 PE at Arbor Montessori Schools on the Sammamish Plateau, where I have developed and refined my approach to physical education. I also taught K-6 PE at Tall Cedars Academy in Duvall before they closed last year. I am extremely excited to have the support of the OWS staff and the use of the OWS facilities and equipment for physical engagement, education, expression, and experiences with such a versatile student population. I am optimistic, and I eagerly anticipate each of the "new" bodies coming into my classroom.

I will introduce myself more thoroughly below so that the future of this blog may focus on PE students, lessons, and activities.

I have been involved in fitness education and body training for more than 14 years. I started in aquatics as a teenager and by the time I graduated college I had coached swim teams, taught swim lessons, water aerobics, lifeguarding, diving, and even a little water ballet to nearly 2000 students, ages spanning over 70 years between youngest and oldest. My aquatics career paid for my dance education.

My dance career has taken me throughout the US and as far as Tokyo, Japan, but was focused primarily in NYC. Much of that career was spent teaching, choreographing, and performing outside of NYC at universities, schools, theaters, and studios. I retired from dance when I left NYC in 2005, but recently "came out of retirement" to perform a duet I titled TORN at On the Boards in Seattle, June 2011.

I will frequently be bicycling 70km round trips between my home and OWS. Cycling is my favored means of light transport since it allows me to eat everything I want. In August 2008, I even ate ~8000 Calories daily for 20 days to pedal 5000km from Seattle to Brooklyn, NY with just one friend riding with me. I have taught and coached cycling for 3 years.

Additionally, I enjoy time gardening, farming, eating, cooking, baking, running, climbing, jumping, falling, climbing back up, playing with my Doberman named Hades, and this summer I discovered an interest in white water kayaking.

Sincerely,

Matthew Smith

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PE Benchmarks

The physical education of our youngest students emphasizes development of gross motor movement, bodily and spatial awareness, risk awareness, cooperation, and of course, fun and overall phyiscal well-being.

Students will:
1. explore and establish comprehensive movement and body vocabulary.
2. engage in kinetic problem solving, integrating mind and muscle.
3. engage in cooperative group or team activities.
4. explore the physical expression of academic studies (numbers, shapes, geometry, metric measures, etc).
5. discover a relationship between motion and emotions.
6. learn that health is lifelong process.

K/1 movement/PE students should:
*Demonstrate an understanding of self space and general space
*Demonstrate proficient locomotor skills
*Demonstrate proficient nonlocomotor skills
*Demonstrate manipulation (push, pull, lift, etc) skills
*Demonstrate and contrast major characteristics of walking, running, jumping, hopping, leaping, galloping, and skipping
*Combine locomotion and rhythm
*Understand space, shape, level, tempo, pathway, and effort
*Express ideas or intentions using a movement vocabulary
*Contrast fast and slow movement
*Understand bodily direction and orientation (right, left, clockwise)
*Move in straight, circular, and erratic pathways
*Embrace high, middle, and low levels of vertical space
*Develop skills to manipulate a ball (roll, bounce, throw, catch, kick, dribble)
*Demonstrate the ability to strike a ball with a stick
*Develop chase, flee, and dodge skills
*Work toward balance (being skilled equally with left or right side)
* Demonstrate stability (often mistook for balance) bearing weight on various body parts
*Demonstrate safety into the ground (falling, sliding, rolling)
*Understand proper posture
*Understand prepositions in movement (over, under, around, through)
*Understand movement and body opposites (on/off, up/down, front/back)

2-4 PE Students should:
*Be competent in all the above
*Demonstrate confidence in their movement vocabulary
*Understand the use and control of general and personal space
*Comprehend nutrition, cardio-aerobic endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility and range of motion, and balance and stability
*Apply the above fitness concepts to physical activities, sports, and lifestyle choices
*Demonstrate safe, competent running techniques
*Begin to understand "warm-up" or "loosen-up" as well as "cool down" exercises and stretches.
*Understand the importance and function of rest and relaxation.
*Exhibit healthy posture and skeletal-muscular alignment.