Welcome to Mrs. Wallace's Class!

Can you believe it's January? Basketball season is upon us!  Grades 1-8 are engaged in many various games that promote the skills of dribbling, passing, shooting and defensive strategies. The CHA CHA SLIDE is a great warm up using basketballs! So challenging but so fun!  King / Queen of the Court, Dribble Tag, Dribble Spots, and Hoop Dribbles all concentrated on the art of.......yes.......dribbling! The passing games of Pass and Go Tag, Pass Relays and Switch all focus on the skill of.....you guessed it.... passing. My class would not be complete without the games of shooting-  Around the World, PIG, Champion Ball, Graduation, and Hot Spot just to name a few. 


This past Friday I hosted my first Teambuilding Day with our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. The stations were taught by our wonderful teachers namely, Mrs. Gallagher, Mrs.Carney, Ms. Miles, Mrs, Piel, Mrs. Crowner along with Mrs. Mascitelli, Mrs. Montie and Fr. Saban.The stations were:
Pass the Frog and Perfect Square
Art Decorating and Building 
Video on theThailand Football Team that changed a small village.
Blind Money
Jumbo Jenga
Stem Challenge
Shoe Tower and Balloon Tower
Magic 11/ and Who Am I?
All students read a pledge before each activity to remind them about the important aspects of teambuilding. They promised to listen to each other, respect each other's opinion, take turns, share,
use kind words and be aware of their body language. Hopefully they are understanding that these skills will serve them well all throughout their lives.  

Thanksgiving Games were a hit with the younger grades as I challenged their creativity by asking them 
to build a turkey using many various equipment pieces. Stuff the Turkey, an annual game favorite , grew excitement with the middle grades. It was a short but active week in PE class!
To honor those who have served in the military, I hosted my 2nd " Boot Camp Week" for grades 3-8.
The Stations included:  "Riding the Jeep" ( scooter and tow rope), "Hands around the World",  "Battle Rope Exercises," "Tire push, roll and flip", "Target Games," "Agility Ladder drills", " Plank builders, wall sits, wheelbarrows, hurdles, army and crab crawls, and trampoline jumps." We salute our brave veterans and thank them for their service! 
I took great advantage of the crisp Fall weather over the last two weeks and traveled to Dermond Field with the Upper School classes. Capture the Frogs ( instead of flags) highlighted the games along with 4 team flag tag. It is always an adventure playing at Dermond! 
Halloween is here!  I just love celebrating this holiday with my students. It doesn't get much better than playing "Ghosts in the Graveyard "and "Trick or Treat" with the kids! We even made some mummies with toilet paper last week!  Three Villanova students also came to observe my classes last Thursday morning and were a great help during our Halloween Seek and Find Adventures.  
Welcome October!  This week we celebrated " Fire Prevention Week" in our preschool, kindergarten, first and second grade classes. The students completed obstacle courses aimed at teaching the core concepts of Fire Safety:
1. Stop, drop and roll if your clothes catch on fire.
2. Crawl low and go when face to face with smoke.
3. Dial 911 but only in an emergency such as a fire.
4. Know two ways out of every room.
5. Have a family meeting place outside and exit plans in case of a fire.
6. Firefighters are our friends. NEVER HIDE FROM THEM in closets or under beds.
7. Never play with matches, lighters, flames from stoves, fire pits, etc..

Week #3- The upper grades learned two new striking games- 4 Square and Catchball.  We concluded the unit in small groups traveling to 5 stations. Eighth grade even had the opportunity to play "Knee Ping Pong".
The youngest students in Pre K 4 and Kindergarten found the game "Builders and Bulldozers" to be loads of great fun!  We also danced around with scarves making them capes to fly, tails of animals, horns of unicorns while learning some great juggling tricks.  The middle grades continued their locomotor movements with the games of Cardio Cups and Hoop Scramble!  

Week #2: Two new games were introduced using the skills of hand striking in the upper grades: Strikerball and Tableball.Talk about taking it to the next level....these games were challenging. Strikerball placed 5-7 students in a circle with cones on either side of them as goals. The object of the game was to hit the ball through an opponent's goal!  So fun to watch them play!  Tableball is a new favorite as the ball is rolled across the table and you must allow it to bounce only once before hitting it back to your opponent... a third student is the referee and rotates in when someone makes an error on the serve, a double bounce or can't make a return! 

The first week was adventurous! Since we have so many new students, I used two activities employing the game of ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS ( RPS). One was a partner game and the other was called RPS Showdown which used 6 teams who traveled along a hoola hoop path. When each  student met an opponent, they did a "RPS" duel. The goal was to get to another team's bucket and award yourself with one of Mr. Wallace's coveted "TIES". SO FUN TO WATCH AND PLAY!
The Primary grades are working on the skills of jumping, hopping and leaping in the game of "Jump the Pond. WOO HOO!  We are off to a great start. Rules are in place, squads all assigned.....Let's have some fun with the Sweatmaster!