First Lab

Today was our first official lab for our Motor Development class. I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be, since we were informed of what kind of games to come to lab with. At the summer camp I worked at the past summer, we played a different kind of tag game at least once a week. I liked how the lab assistants helped us in the beginning get the kids going into the tag games. Once we had our group on our own, the student's didn't listen as much. We started off playing blob tag, but it didn't work as well, since the student's didn't fully understand the game. A lot of the student's wanted to play other games, such as hide & seek, and duck duck goose. I, then led the students in the game of frozen ant tag, and they played that for a little while. However, they seemed to be easily distracted by the student's playing basketball on the other side of the court. I told the student's that if they played some of our tag games, that we would play duck duck goose when we were done. This motivated them to play a little longer, but the student's wanted to play duck duck goose. We played that until it was time to go to the cafeteria.

The student's were much calmer in the cafeteria, and it gave me a better chance to interact with them more. There was one student J, who I got to know pretty well during a game of checkers. After that, I went over and watched some of the other student's color. I saw a lot of the student's making Valentines day cards, which was nice, since they were drawing something that has to do with a current theme. After this was free time, and I felt that this went very well. I was able to play catch with a student named N, and while we were playing catch, others joined us as well. Some of the student's couldn't throw the ball properly, so I showed them how to properly throw. While they may have not gotten the skill down, they seemed excited to learn it, and to just play catch.

There were a few things I could've done better today. I felt that I could've gotten to know the student's a little better then I did. I was able to get to know a few of them, but I felt I could've found out their interests a little better. This is one thing that I will know that I need to improve on next time. I felt that I was able to find what games they like to play. It was just like my camp, as a majority of the younger student's wanted to play duck duck goose. I felt having prior experience at the camp, that I was able to prepare for this lab the way I did. On my first day of camp, I didn't have a backup plan for the younger campers, and the station did not work at all. I had to bail out, and let them play on the playground for the rest of the station. Here, when blob tag didn't work, I was able to have a game prepared right there for the students. That's one thing with any age group, not just the younger students, you should always have a plan b, c, d, incase something doesn't work out. I enjoyed today's experience, and I feel that I'm going to go into each lab having better knowledge of what to do. I'm going to learn from my mistakes, and I will find out more about the student's interests in the next lab. Always learn from your mistakes, and then fix them.