2nd MEETING: PRACTICAL SESSION

Playing Supermouse!

What's up!

After three weeks, we met again in Ave Maria de Penya-roja, Carmen's school. It was the first practical session and I showed how to plan and develop different PE games in English. However, Josep asked if he could develop a warming up game since he will miss next class and he won't be able to develop any game and I was very happy handing the class to him. He did a very good job explaining his warming up activities. Moreover, he offered himself to be the reporter and he has already finished the writing. You can enjoy it below the highlights of next session. Bye!

Didac

DATE: March 9th (18:00-20:00)
PLACE: Escola Ave Maria de Penya-roja (Av. França, 3)
CONTENT: Ball Games

2nd Session Report

At 6 o’clock p.m. of a windy Wednesday of February began our first playground class. The aim of this meeting was to show how we have to develop our physical education tasks in next classes. First of all, Dídac explain us the basic routines to start a PE class. In that sense, we can use the following sentences: Good morning! Has anybody forgotten the sport bag? Is anybody missing? Let me check the list! Why are you late? Remember: Do not run through the corridor and be silent, please. After that, Dídac explain a game called Stinky Handkerchief. The main rules of this chasing game are:

• It is played in a wide zone.
• 3, 4 or 5 students have a stinky handkerchief. These students have to touch their partners with the hand that is holding the handkerchief.
• You cannot hide the handkerchief. It has to be visible.
• When a student with a stinky handkerchief catches anybody, he/she must say “I’ve got you. You must stop.” Then he/she have to rub the stinky handkerchief on his/her body’s partner and say “You stink” as she or he throws the handkerchief on the floor and runs away. That will be the pupils language involved in the task.

Having in mind Dídac advices, I tried to develop a warm up for secondary students. The warm up is the first part of a Physical Education task and many students think that is useless and boring. That’s why the teachers often have to include a game in the last phase of the warm up in order to encourage our pupils.

• 1^st phase. Let’s move our joints: neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees and ankles.
• 2^nd phase. Activation. In this part of the warm up we played a chasing game. Pupils have to make pairs and they have to give their right hand to his/her partner. They have to run in that position. The chasing pair also have to hold a handkerchief in order to know that they are running after the other pairs.
• 3^rd phase. Stretching.  We stretched our muscles: quadriceps, soleus, femoral biceps, deltoid, and triceps.
• 4^th phase. General exercises. In this part we played a game. All the students had to make a circle in pairs. The teacher proposed different motor tasks (lateral running, skipping, jumping...). The student that was inside the circle had to do these tasks in his/her place and the other one did these tasks while he/she was running around the circle. When the teacher said “go” the student that was running around have to hurry up (he/she couldn’t change his/her direction and he couldn’t run inside the circle) in order to creep under his partner’s legs. The last student and his partner had to do 20 squat jumps.

Although we were exhausted due to the exercise we did, Dídac make us play three more games using handkerchief: Handkerchiefs, Supermouse and Supermouse Express. In the first game –Handkerchiefs– each student had to wear a handkerchief on his side (not too deep). At the signal –go!– we had to try to steal other’s handkerchiefs and put them on our side (a maximum of three) and we also had to be aware in order to keep the ones we got.

In the second game, Supermouse, every student had to wear a handkerchief on his back (like a tail). But now the aim of the game was to steal handkerchiefs and threw them on the floor as you count them up aloud –One! Two! Three!...–. The game ended when someone stole five handkerchief and said: “I’m the winner! Supermouse!”. Another way of playing this game is “Supermouse Express”. In that case the winner is the first student that steals just one handkerchief.

And that was all we did. See you soon!

Josep Espert

NICE STARTING MEETING!

Nice group!

Hi, everybody!

Right yesterday we met for the first time. Our PE Workshop is already on! And I'm very happy because we've got our first report very soon. Carmen was volunteer in order to right down everything we talked about TPR methodology and many other things in this initial session. She did a very good job, by the way. Check it out! Take advantage of Carmen's effort and practice reading and writing (leave a comment).

Before reading her report though, let me remember the highlights of our next meeting:

DATE: February 24th (18:00-20:00)
PLACE: Escola Ave Maria de Penya-roja (Av. França, 3)
CONTENT: Developing different games in english (practical)

See you in three weeks!

Didac

Hi every body!

Last Wednesday, we had our first meeting of the PE workshop. It took place en my school, Ave Maria de Penya-roja of Valencia in the meeting room. There we met with Didac, five teachers and two more that joined us later.

First of all, Didac gave us two sheets with vocabulary and basic expressions for our lessons. He explained the TPR metodology -a natural method-. It is based on the coordination of language and physical movement. Later, Didac talked about the reason why teaching physical education in English and he remarked that the English has come to stay. He gave us a lot of advices:

• Reading and writing to improve our English
• To talk very slowly
• Don't do all lessons in English: first lesson in valencià and the same lesson, next session, in English.
• In the English classes, don’t change to valencià if it's not completely needed.

After that, we watched a video -PE Didac class in English-. He was with primary 2n grade class. Pupils were playing a game called “Mice”. Finally, Didac encourage us to prepare a game for the next lesson. It will take place on February 24th. I’m looking forward to start with the practical lessons. I’m sure we will learn many things and it will be funny.

See you soon!

Carmen Serra

READY, STEADY... GO!

Hi, every body!

Once again -third year in a row!- we set the basis of CEFIRE's Physical Education Seminar in English. This time it will be called "PE Workshop" but we'll run the sessions the same way we did last two years. It's a great pleasure for me to coordinate the classes but don't forget you will be the real starring actresses and actors of it all! I'm sure we'll learn a lot together and we'll improve our english, as much as we'll have a lot of fun. I'm very excited and looking forward to start working with you.

So Marcos, Carmen, Imma, Majo, Maria Jose, Josep, Juan Diego, Josep, Amparo, Fernando... Welcome on board!

By the way, here you are the basic info of our PE Workshop:

MEETING DAY: Wednesday, from 18-20hrs
MEETING PLACE: Col·legi Ave Maria de Penya-roja  (Av. França, 3. 46023 València)
NEXT MEETING: February 3rd, 2016

See you in a couple weeks!

Didac Botella i Mestres

TRADITIONAL GAMES

Last May 26th we developed our PE meeting. This time we were very few but, still, we enjoyed so much with traditional games. Susana, Miguel, Mireia and I showed and played different games that made us laugh so much. Miguel was our meeting reporter this time and he's made a great article. Before you read it, let me write down our next meeting highlights. It will be the final meeting and we hope every body will make it because... WE ARE GOING TO THE BEACH!

DATE: June 16th
STARTING TIME: 18:00
PLACE: Malva-rosa beach (Pans & Company)
TOPIC: Beach games

See you soon!

DIDAC

TRADITIONAL GAMES

Last May 26th we met again to have our last meeting. As usual it took place at CEIP Miguel Hernández of Valencia. Sadly, most of you were very busy and only four of us could attend to the meeting. Now, I am going to try to explain you what we did.

The topic was traditional games. Didac asked to us that we looked for not very popular games in order to learn new games. The first game was “The slipper”, Susana´s game. It is a simple but very funny game which consists in throwing a slipper as far as you can. The tricky thing is you have to throw the slipper putting your arms between your legs and trying to throw it up and ahead. When we played, the slipper went very often just up or even backwards! Mireia was the most skillful in this game. 

The next game was mine, “Pebbles game”. Each player has a pebble and three trading cards. One by one the players have to throw their pebbles trying to heat the other pebbles. If you hit someone’s pebble, the owner has to give you a trading card. The player who gets all the trading cards wins. This time Didac was the winner.

The third game was Mireia´s game, “Air, sea and earth”. The game is to pass a ball to another player and to say air, sea or earth. The player who gets the ball has five seconds to say an animal which lives in the place the other player said.

The last game was Didac´s game, “Caps game”. It is a fun game I used to play with my friends when I was a kid. Didac drew a circuit in the ground and we made a race with our caps. The winner was Didac again. Next time it will be different.

To sum up, we had a good time playing traditional games. Next meeting we are playing beach and water games. I‘m sure it also will be very fun. It will be our last meeting! So, don’t miss it!

Regards,

MIGUEL

GAMES AROUND THE WORLD

Hi, folks!

Last April 28th we developed our monthly meeting at CEIP Miguel Hernández from Valencia. As you know, we had prepared games from different countries around the World. As usually, we had a great time and we learnt and played games we didn't know at all. The bad new was four of our seminar colleagues couldn't make it because they had to attend different school meetings. Another bad new is we forgot to take pictures... We were to focused on the games! We hope next meeting we'll be altogether again. Now, before I write the report -this time it was my turn!-, I'll summarize next meeting highlights.

DATE: May 26th
STARTING TIME: 17:30-18:00hrs
PLACE: CEIP Miguel Hernández
TOPIC: Traditional games

See you next meeting!

DIDAC

GAMES AROUND THE WORLD

Eastern vacation was already pretty far from our minds but we started the meeting explaining what we did during this Holliday. After this brief introduction, we started with Marian, who explained us a game from Brazil called Joao Palmada. It's a game to play the whole class together. It's played in a circle where everybody put their hands back and palms up. This is how it works. One of the players starts as Joao Palmada and walks around the circle. When ever she/he wants has to clap somebody's hands and run in the opposite direction he was walking. When they meet, they have to say: "Bom dia" and "Obrigado!". As soon as they say so, they have to try to get back to the circle free spot before the other. The one who loses will be Joao Palmada and the game will keep on going. After this funny game, Majo showed us a game from Zimbabwe called The Chicken and the Snake. It's a dancing game where you pretend you are a big Zimbabwean chicken. The floor is plenty of snakes -colored handkerchief- and everybody dances around. When the music stops, all chickens  have to try to bite a snake and take it. If you get one, you'll get one point. And so on, so forth until somebody gets 3 or 4 points. Andrea explained next game since it was a whole court game as well. Her game was called What's the time, Mr. Wolf? and it comes from UK. It's a sort of our well known game Pollito Inglés but, at the end, it becomes a chasing game! There is a wolf and the rest of the class are goats. Goats ask the wolf "What's the time, Mr. Wolf?" and the wolf -who can't turn to look where goats are- has to answer. If he says "It's five o'clock" goats make five steps forward. When goats get very close and they ask the question again, teh wolf will answer "It's lunch time!" and he will try to get a goat. The goat that gets caught, will become next wolf. 

After that, was Susana's turn. Her game was called Stealing stones and Susana knew about it because her son, who explained to her. He had played this game in his school and he told her it was from Extremadura. It's played in two teams. The court is divided by two and each team has to try to get the other team's stones, which are kept in a safe area at the end of its court. Teams must stop attacking players in their court. In that case, they have to seat down and wait until some of their teammates clap their hand. Then, they will be free again. However, when a attacking player gets inside the other team's safe area, they cannot chase them any more and, therefore, the player got one of the stones. The first team that gets all stones from the other, wins the game. It's a very exciting game for kids and there are many variants which you might add in order to adapt it to your pupils' age. After this, Aida explained her game. She called it Indians and Cowboys and she "supposed" it came from USA. This is how it works. There are two teams and they are separated. In between them, there are different types of balls and every teammate has got one ball on their hands. The basic aim of this game is to try to hit the ball with your ball until it crosses to the other's team area. The game is over when there isn't any ball left in the neutral area. Again, it was a very playful and intensive game! 

After this we took a little break. Ten minutes where enough for us to recover because we were so excited about knowing more diffrent games from around the World. José Luis game was also very peculiar. It came from India and its name was Kabaddi. As he wrote on the work sheet, Kabaddi

It’s an invasion game. Two teams will score by arriving to the opponent line without being caught. It’s played by teams (7 pers. each but only 4 defenders play at the same time and one from the other team). One member of the ofence team must go to the opponent court to touch some member from that team. But he can’t be caught. Then, one of the team will score one point and a member from the other team has to leave (only until his/her team scores a point, then it is allowed to go on playing).

It's quite difficult to understand at the beginning but, once you start playing, you can't stop! For farther information, you might check this link. If you want to watch a game, you also might take a look at look at this other link.

I explained the two last games of the meeting. first of all, I showed a game called Patentero that comes from Philippines. It's very similar to a well known game called Spider or Octopus. The difference is there isn't one "araña" or "octopus" but many located in different stages. It's played in a narrow and long court and there are 4-5 stages were patenteros are located in order to stop the offense team. Patenteros can take one foot out of the line they are set on but not both feet. Every attacking player has got one handkerchief on their side. In order to make them come back to the starting point, defenders have to take the handkerchief and throw it to the floor. If one attacking player can go through all stages he's got one point. Then, teams change their rol and the team which gets more points will be the winner. After this, I explained a terrific game called Chekaya. It comes from Thailand and it has to do with Evil and Good spirits. The class is divided by two teams which are Evil (wearing red beep) and Good spirits (wearing blue beep). The court it's divided in three zones: Bad spirits zone, Good spirits and a neutral zone separating both good and Evil zones. The main aim in this game is to try to bring the spirits to your side. The fight must be on the neutral zone and, once you've been taken by either Good or Evil spirits you have to change your beep and you become a new Good/Evil spirit depending on which spirit you were. It's a very funny game to play with kids and teenagers!

That's it! See you next meeting!

DIDAC

HERE WE ARE AGAIN!

It's been a long time! After Falles and Eastern vacation we are back! this time, last meeting report (5th) comes a little bit late. It's not reporter's fault, though! It's my fault! Susana sent me the report one week ago and I forgot to upload it in our blog. Anyway, here you are Susana's great report! Before you read it though, I will remind you next meeting highlights!

DATE: April 28th
STARTING TIME: 17'30-18'00
PLACE: CEIP Miguel Hernández
TOPIC: Games of the World

DIDAC

COOPERATIVE GAMES

Last tuesday 30th of March we had our meeting. We were few people but we enjoyed a lot as always. This time we share our cooperative games. The meeting started with Miguel's game. It was called "Let's make shapes". We did 2 teams. One team had 8 bricks and the other had 8 little chairs. We had to make different shapes with the material as quick as possible. It seemed easy but it wasn't because we had to keep the balance at the same time we set the material. My team lost 3 times in a row. We realized that setting the chairs was more difficult than setting the bricks, But we also lost when we had to walk on the bricks in order to reach to the end of the court.!! The other players were smarter than us.

Miguel's game: Bricks' race!

Maria Jose explained to us her game called "How much time do you need to do it?" One team was inside a circle and the other team was around it and had to throw the ball against their bodies in order to eliminate them. It seemed very easy but it wasn't because MJose gave us only 30'' to do it. The team's success lied in their velocity and good shot because the ball could only touch from the hip to the feet. Mireia's game was very similar to Mariajo's one. This time there was a "Fugitive". A big group had to eliminate the fugitive by touching him with the ball. The main rule was that the person with the ball could not run. During the game we realized that the way to eliminate the fugitive was collaborating between us.

MaJose explainning her game

Nuria's game was called "The meatball" At the beginning it was difficult to understand because we could not put it into practice. But at the end we did it. It consists in making a big meatball with the students and moving all together to the place the teacher told them without talking and separating. It must be funny. We could not play to Didac's game, we needed much more people. When he explained it, we realized that it could be very funny to play in a raining day. The game is called "The chair". I am sure that everybody has played when he was young. We must set a lot of chairs in a circle. Well, not a lot of chairs, we need one chair less than people are (difícil de traducir). Instead of using a radio player, Didac started to play the drums. We had to dance around the chairs while he was playing the drums and when he stopped, we had to try to sit down quickly. The one who missed the chair had to start crying. He had to ask to another classmate: "Can I sit with you?". The answer, of course , was "YES,you can". And he had to sit down on his legs. Each time a chair must be removed and at the end there would be a pair of chairs and brunch of students on them. All keeping the balance!!! Jose Luis explained to us his game. All the students are in a circle. It must be an odd group. The teacher gives a ball. The game consists in passing it to the second classmate on the right or on the left.The game begins with one ball but the teacher gives them more balls. I can imagine if the balls start falling down!! What a mess!!

Susana's game: Transport the ball!

And now it is time to explain my game: "Transport the ball" In teams of four we had to transport a medicinal ball. We had to use 4 sticks and we could not touch the ball. It was a relay race because we had to pass through different obstacles. Didac discovered that it was possible to play also with 3 people. So, we did two teams of three and we played a little. I think it was funny as the other games.

Susana

4th Meeting: Indoor games

Here we are again!

Last February 17th we met at CEIP Miguel Hernández to develop our 4th PE in English meeting and, once more, it was very successful and worthy! Before we started, Nuria asked to be the new reporter and she started to take some notes about the games we developed that afternoon. As I've said, it was a very interesting and worthy meeting because our topic was "Indoor games". Most of valencian PE teachers haven't got any gym at their school, not even a room where they can develop a PE class if the rain shows up. That's the reason we decided that topic. And as I've said, it was very useful to everyone. But I'm not going to say one more word because Nuria did a great report. Before uploading her words though, I would like to remind you the highlights of our next meeting:

DATE: March 31st

HOUR: 17'45am

PLACE: CEIP Miguel Hernández
TOPIC: Cooperative games

Now, it's time for you to read Nurias' great report! By the way, we were so involved and amused with the games we forgot to take any pictures this time. Too bad!

Didac

INDOOR GAMES

Oh, it's raining cats and dogs and we have P.E. class with our pupils. What can we do instead of going outside? First Aida explained on the blackboard a game called “Hung man”, we had to guess the name of a sport by spelling (vowels and consonants). For instance: Is there a B? Yes, there is or no, there isn't. Next was Andreas's game, it was “The gun man”, Miguel added that it was his game too. It was a funny and interesting game. We made a circle and the gun man in the middle shot someone. Susana's game was the “Tube message”, we enjoyed it a lot, it was also a spelling game, we worked in two groups.

Miriam explained her game, “The director of orchestra” in which in a circle we had to do the same movement as the conductor and one of us had to find him/her. My game was “the key thief”, and we tried to steal the key holder without making noise. Jose Luis explained a very similar game to hung man but with a large paper and we had to write with our feet. Finaly, Didac talked about his game called “The clap” just to pay attention. It was really funny. Some of us added different posibilities to this game.

Nuria Ballester