"Are You The Wolf?"

Every time Miss Ewen goes past Room Two the children ask her excitedly "Are you the wolf?". That's because they love one of the games we've been playing in P.E. It's a bit like "What's the time Mr. Wolf?" except the children have to creep silently behind Miss Ewen and then freeze when she turns around and ask her "Are you the wolf?" If she says no and turns around the children continue to creep quietly after her. When she turns around again they repeat the question, "Are you the wolf?" Eventually she says yes and chases them all back to the start - and if they're not quick enough (or they've crept too close to her and can't get away quickly enough) they might be caught - like Deevon in the photo below!

This week in P.E. we focused on tennis skills (holding a racket correctly with two hands and practising hitting a ball while moving). The children had fun with this and there were some great hits made - we might have some budding future tennis stars in Rooms One and Two! Here are a few photos:

Aden about to make contact with the ball.

Joseph keeping his eye on the ball and about to make a hit.

Valentino after a great shot.

Cyprus aiming carefully for the ball.

Ceazah-Blue giving it a go.

We also continued to work on our throwing and catching skills. This week our focus was on underarm throwing. We had to make our arm like an elephant's trunk and swing our beanbag into the coloured hoop that was called out. The hoops were actually 'battleships' and if we got four beanbags in the targeted hoop we sunk it - this game was lots of fun and we are getting better with our aim and throwing. Well done Rooms One and Two!

 

P.E. with Room One and Miss Ewen

From this week on, every Monday, Thursday and Friday afternoon (apart from those weeks we are going swimming) we will be joining Room One to do P.E. with Miss Ratumaibuca and Miss Ewen. "Why do we do P.E.?" asked Miss Ewen. "Cos we can get healthy," replied Trelia. "And strong", said Joseph. That's two great reasons - and there's lots more. (Comment below to add to our list of why P.E. is important for our tamariki.)

This term our focus is on small ball skills. We will look at skills associated with different sports which use small balls (such as tennis and hockey). This week we focused on learning to catch and throw. We played some really fun games to help us learn these skills.

One of the games we played was called 'Bombs Away'. The children had to drop (not throw) a ball down and then scoop it up again with their hands to catch it after it had bounced. One of the important things the children had to remember was to 'glue' their pinkies together when they caught the ball so it didn't slip through. Some of us are really good at catching and we all had lots of fun practicing.

When we were practicing overarm throwing we had to hold the ball by our ear, make sure our elbows were up and aim with our other arm. Keanu thought we looked like archers with a bow and arrow - he's right!

Each lesson we end with a fun game. 'Pirate Treasure' was a fun game where we had to steal Miss Ewen's treasure while she wasn't looking and freeze when she turned around. It was lots of fun being active and practicing skills. Don't forget to comment below as to why you think P.E. is an important part of learning for our tamariki!