Prairie Trail
Physical Education
Ms. Van Meter
Gym Shorts
What's happening now?
Asthma
Many of our students suffer from asthma, but it should not stop them from participating in class on a daily basis. (Weather/multiple attack/bad day issues not included.) Students should take inhalers as they are prescribed and 10 to 15 minutes before they come to class. If any students have an issue, they need to let us know IMMEDIATELY. We often have students tell us, "I can't do that because I have asthma." I often look at the professional athletes who have overcome this challenge. By taking meds, monitoring, and stopping the activity when things don't feel normal, participation should still be an option.
Injuries
If your child gets hurt at home or even here and needs to sit out for a day or two, please send a note with the student to school. The nurse often gets busy, and when students say that they cannot participate because they are injured, we need to send them to her. We can bypass that step if a note is sent in. Also, as much as we try to be safe in class, accidents will happen. We do our best to avoid them, but sometimes collisions occur unexpectedly.
Report Card Grading
What do the numbers mean on the report card? Please see the chart to the left.
Reading/Math
Students need to improve reading and math scores. This means we all need to lend a helping hand to make this possible. Some days, we will be reading or writing about health or physical education topics in class. This means that some days our movement will be limited. We understand that movement is very important at this age level and we are doing everything we can to combine the two areas. We have already adapted numerous games to include nouns and verbs, math flash cards, and making words and sentences.
Students are now being asked to take tests on some of the units we cover in PE. We are also giving reading assignments to help students learn more about health topics. Reading and math are now graded in PE.
Shoes
Students need to wear proper gym shoes to class. Even if we are going outside, a gym type shoe needs to be worn. If the shoe can add a wheel, have open toes, not stay on the foot, have a heel or even mark the floors, it should not be worn to class. The shoe needs to tie or velcro closed. The trend of not tying, but tucking the laces in does not mean safety for class. Students will sit out if shoes are deemed "unsafe". "Skater" shoes also do not have a good arch support. Some students have had sore feet due to the lack of support from these shoes. We do not recommend these for PE.
There is a new secret shoe out there. It looks like a gym shoe, but the foot is in a position as if the student is wearing heels. Why? I don't know. Putting a foot in that position and making it look like a normal shoe is very contradictory to me and not beneficial for the foot at all. Please remind students not to wear these to class. As teachers, we cannot tell what position their foot inside the shoe is like, but it will definitely be a cause for injury if worn to class. The student needs to be responsible and wear the proper shoes.
Old shoes are okay. Some students think we need new shoes every year. As long as the gym shoes are all of the above criteria, we are okay with the older, used versions.