Does Practice Make Perfect?

Last weeks practice lab really aided in my knowledge of how to run a classroom/gymnasium.  You must be able to control all the students to give direction and make the games sound interesting and fun.  If you hold their attention, they will enjoy and comprehend the game itself, and the goals at hand.  I also found that coming up with a dance routine with music in 20 minutes is much harder than anticipated...

Through this exercise I feel as though it helped me to think on my toes with the pressure on.  When you only have  a select amount of time to figure out a game in the gym, or a lesson in the classroom, or in this case, a dance in class, it can be nerve wrecking and frustrating but you need to learn how to deal with that kind of immediate stress.  This exercise definitely allowed me to understand the importance of being ready for anything, especially in an unforeseeable classroom setting.

A week after the rehearsal of games and brainstorming, our skills were put to the test in St. Mary's after school program.  This was the first lab that we had actually planned a series of games and had a good amount of structure.  As prepared as we were, and as confident as we were after practicing how we would go about explaining, demonstrating and performing our games, the group of children we had shot our ideas down.  All these 5th and 6th grade students wanted to do was play basketball.  We eventually came to a small consensus which still did not work out overly well.  We were able to get a large number of students to play the game, Great Wall, but after about five or so minutes of that, they became bored and longed for something better.  Due to the stubbornness of the students to try new games, we ended up playing basketball.  We played for a while and then slowly modified the game to make it a little different, until we were able to transition into playing team handball which was a relatively positive turnout.  Ultimately, no matter how many times you may practice what you want to do, or run through it in your head, you need to have some sort of back up plan and be able to think on your toes in order to make a program or lesson flow smoothly.  Practice helps, but experience is really what makes a lesson perfect.
Lab 2 and Assessment