GREAT DEBATE

Merry Christmas St.Mary's!

This was our last lab at St.Mary's and probably the most fun! This week it was Christmas theme so everyone was in holiday spirit wearing red and green. This week i had the Cafeteria group which were the 3rd to 4th grade students. They were tons of fun to work with. We started off by playing a game that Professor Yang brought and we literally could've played this game all day because they were so engaged in it. It got a little out of hands at times so i had to reassure them that everyone has to be polite and share in order to have fun or we can't play it at all. After the game we went upstairs in the gymnasium to play some of the games they wanted to play. They instantly grabbed basketballs and started shooting at random, so i thought to myself that we should just all get together and play one big game of something. It took a while to get things situated because there were only a select few who wanted to do certain things. So what i did was have me and my lab partner and assistant start playing our own game and then the kids saw all the fun we had and wanted to join in. Overall it was a good day at St.Mary's and a excellent semester there as well!

Helping out at St.Mary's!

The day before the St. Mary's Christmas Bazaar some classmates and I helped to set up the gymnasium. We helped move around tables and chairs and help set some games up. There were a few kids there that were also lending a hand which was good to see. We are very greatful for the experience at St. Mary's, and since I was unable to attend the Bazaar itself I figured this was the least I could do. We all worked together and had fun doing so, by the time we left the gym was all set up and i was exhausted, but there was no doubt in my mind that the kids were going to have a blast!

Audacity tutorial

Gobble gobble dribble dribble!

This was a very exciting week at St. Mary's because it was leaning towards Thanksgiving break so that was our theme. It was very fun because everyone was getting into the holiday spirit. Nate and I were in the Special project group so we didn't get a chance to work with the kids that much. For our project we had to put together posters of all of the collages we made for St.Mary's and post them up where everyone can see them. I liked doing this because i saw what everyone had to offer in their collages and extremely appreciated the collages that had me in them doing stuff because that showed me that other people observed and liked what i was doing with the kids. Later on during lab when we got finished we went in the gym to see what everyone was doing and it put a smile on my face to see kids that i worked with previously came up to me and asked me to play with them. The majority of the kids were from the the 1-4 grade who came up to me. I had to tell them to wait until next week so we can play again and they didn't want to hear that. At the end i had to do a dance and a cheer. The song was the chicken dance but i just changed it to the turkey dance for the task that was provided. First i made sure they all knew what the chicken dance was and if they can do all the moves first then i transitioned over to doing the whole dance and walking around the circle with them. After that was over we brought it in and made them say HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! overall it was a fun lab and now i can't wait for the Christmas lab!

st marys

THANKS ST MARY'S!!

Trick or Throw

This week our theme at St.Marys was Halloween! Many people dressed up using their creative minds and had some really great costumes. I decided to dress up as a baseball player. I thought that it was a good idea since we were introducing the throwing unit. I had a couple holes in my pants which I quickly joked around and said iI was a zombie baseball player and the kids really liked that. I had the middle schoolers for my lab and they were quite the handful. We started outside and they were playing kickball. I learned fast that you can't talk to them as if you were talking to a kid at a younger level. I remember when I was in middle school and to be honest I was a little mouthy myself. When we got inside there wasn't that many kids so we had to do the best with what we had. As soon as we got inside they all started doing their own thing and not really paying attention so I ended up using a technique saying that If they played my game first they can get back to what they were doing. I based my game on an actual sport (baseball) and made them do various forms of throwing with different balls. They enjoyed that because they were at the age of knowing how to do the tasks at hand and wanted to throw the balls even harder and further which made me happy because I could extend the game as much as I wanted. Without Professor Yang there I think the Grad Assistants did a wonderful job and we'll be excellent teachers soon. Now it's time to get ready for the next lab!