Franklin Elementary School Physical Education.

We are now well into the school year here at Franklin and what better way to start the school year than a unit on Cooperation in the gym. Although most would agree that Franklin seems to be a very coperative place, the Physical Education setting provides an opportunity to set tasks or "problems" in a very controlled way.

We started our unit with the Money Game. Students were asked to find a partner and sit back-to-back. We talked about how to find a partner: asking nicely, don't just grab someones arm and pull; accepting graciously if someone askes you, even if you would prefer not to be their partner. To add an element of confusion to the game, Chris & Moses offered (play) MONEY to pairs who had done something special! Can you figure out how to get money? Chris would say things like... "This boy and this girl get money. These two boys don't get any money. I'll give a dollar to this girl and a dollar to this boy. Unfortunately, these two girls don't get any money." It typically took four or five rounds of this game for all the kids to figure out that their pair needed to be a boy & a girl to get money! We then talked about making sure that our groups were always mixed with boys & girls. We will continue to reiterate this throughout the year.

For our next cooperative activity, again in pairs, students were asked to use a long rope (about 10 - 12 foot long) to replicate a given shape, letter or number. For example, make the letter L or N or Z or R or M. Make the number 7 or 5 or 9. Make a triangle, square or rectangle. We talked about deciding which one to make; determining the top and bottom, size, proportions, making straight lines with their rope etc. We talked about discussing these things to make it look like the shape on the board.

The letter V.

Some students attempted to make their shapes 3-dimensional.

At this point we were ready to ask the students to do their exercise time with a partner. They used short 12" long pieces of rope that they both had to hold while doing most of the exercise activities.

Some of the older student's used a hoola-hoop and did their warm-up in a group of three...

In another activity, pairs of students each used a 36" long noodle, (just like those use in the water for floating with), to transport a noodle donut from one side of the gym to the other. If they dropped it, they had to pick it up and return to the start and try again. They came up with several solutions.

Another simple but challenging activity we did, in pairs, was to again use a couple of noodles and move a ball from one tin can to another, across the gym. Lots of concentration & communication required.

Moving onto groups of three, again encouraging mixed groups of boys & girls, we asked the groups to take turns keeping a balloon up in the air. This was to get at the "Me, me, me, Self, self, self" approach of younger children. This activity really gets at taking turns. Waiting your turn. Hitting it in a way that helps the next person. What is the record number of hits for your group?

Moving into groups of four is when all of this preliminary stuff starts to make sense and becomes significantly more important. Our first activity had four students standing around a hoola-hoop on the ground. Each student had a noodle which they stood up in front of them gently with their index finger. The group had to figure out how to count to three, leave their noodle standing vertically and get to the adjacent noodle and catch it before it fell over. All very challenging stuff! Who does the count? Which way do we go? Is it ok to dive at the next noodle? What if someone is not ready, can we count anyway? How do we make it easier for the group to be successful? These were some of the questions asked.

"Ready... Set... Go!"