Lab #1: Stability

Tasks
A. To observe the interaction between St. Mary’s students and Cortland students.
B. To get to “know” some of the students at St. Mary’s through play and participation.
C. To make yourself aware of Stability (static and dynamic movements) across the different phases of motor development (Table 1.6, page 21 of Gallahue text)

TODAY IS FAIRLY INFORMAL! Have fun but be purposeful, try to learn a little about your students.

Schedule: GYM CAFETERIA
a. Individual activities within your group a. Fine motor activity (finger twister, coloring, etc.)
b. GET CREATIVE! b. Observation of fine motor activity (eating, coloring, etc.)
*All activities must be planned and approved! c. It Rocks: The Money Train Game

PREK CLASSROOM * Assigned group stays with PreK for entire time – DO NOT rotate with other group
a. Play with kids – parachute activities
b. Fine Motor Activities (coloring, books, story time, etc.)

TASK A – Gross and Fine Motor Observation: Please answer the following questions, all responses must be typed:

Observe the interaction between St. Mary’s students and your peers (Cortland students). Try to get an idea of the behaviors of the St. Mary’s students – Do they listen well? Do they remain on task? What do they attend to? What motivates them to play?

1. Based upon observation, what are the differences in motor behavior and social between the St. Mary’s students you observed? What differences did you observe between grade levels, gender, and ability? Do you think that grade level, gender, and ability have any influence on motor behavior?

Based upon what I observed, I saw that the motor behavior of the students were at the elementary level. When we were playing tag, some of the students running abilities were still at the elementary levels because they were not using their arms correctly, instead of the arm swinging at a 90 degree angle the arm was swinging at a range from 45 degrees to 120 degrees. The social behaviors of the students were typical of their age range. The younger students wanted to play with everyone, including us, and games that really didn’t have any clear objective to them. While the older students wanted to play games that were more organized and had a very clear objective, they also did not care if you played or not, although they did like to show off their skills to us. The differences I observed between grade levels, gender, and ability were the children in 4th,5th and 6th grade stayed on task, listened very well, wanted to play all the games we could think of, and their ability to play the games were at a mature level. It was interesting to motivate the older students liked to have challenges or competitions, while the younger students just liked to play. With the Students in Pre-K, Kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade the students tended to fall of task, not listen to directions, they also hesitated to play games until they saw that everyone was playing and having fun. Gender at the younger grades did not play any role, but at the older grades the students tended to always pass to a boy because they now know that girls are just not as strong as the boys. I do think grade level played a role on motor development and their ability to do certain activities.

2. Based upon your observation, what fine motor activities did you observe (describe these) when watching the St. Mary’s students? Were there differences between age? Gender? Ability?

Based on my observation some fine motor activities that I observed were tying sneakers. The younger students did not have the ability to move their fingers quite as well as some of their classmates. However, I did not see any difference in genders with this fine motor skill.

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Reflection:

This lab was interesting because we got to see how the students fine motor skills were developing. I saw that most of the students when coloring knew how to hold a crayon, but had a lot of trouble with drawing things such as a circle or a straight line without assistance. I also watched the difference between an older child tying his sneaker and a young child tie his sneaker, the big difference was that the older student had a lot more control and was more efficient at moving his fingers than the younger child, who had a lot of trouble moving his fingers to accomplish the task of tying his sneaker.
Playing with the students allowed me to see how their gross motor skills were developing. Most students were at the elementary level for running, which surprised me because I thought that students developed walking and running fairly early and would perfect this skill earlier than what they were.