First Basketball Game

Today was the team's first basketball game! This was a perfect opportunity to work collaboratively with my teammates and develop our shooting, dribbling, and passing skills! After playing this game, I realized that my biggest strengths were in dribbling and passing. I am extremely confident in these areas and believe that my confidence is what has helped me excel. On the other hand, I believe an I am a weak shooter. I hope that after a few more practice games I will have more accurate shots! Though we were down about ten points for the majority of the game, we won the game in the end! My team was very excited about this win. It served as the perfect start to what I hope will be an extraordinary season!

Helping Hands

This week in Helping Hands we began a new unit! I planned and initiated activities to teach the children about the weather. We started off with an activity that caused the kids to collaborate in order to reach their goal. The activity I created was one in which each student was given a card with either an image or a word. These words and images were all associated with weather. The following is a picture of the cards I created.

 

After each child received a card, I timed how quickly they could find their match. This was a fun and active game which served as an introduction to learning the new vocabulary! Later, I explain the different weather terminology. Next, the students created a song and motion for the different weather terms. Finally, we went outdoors and played a fun vocab game. For this game I used terms both from this unit and past units such as animals and body parts. The children ran in a circle and I yelled out different vocab terms. They had to react quickly and pretend to be whichever word I yelled. The kids absolutely loved this game and had large smiles on their faces throughout the game. The following is a picture of them pretending to be snakes and running around the court!

Overall I believe that this activity has greatly developed my creativity skills. Each week I have to think of a new and fun way to mix learning and fun!

Developing Back Flexibility Through Yoga

Yoga has grown to be one of my favorite activities. It is incredibly helpful in maintaining a healthy body and mind! This week during yoga we focused on the flexibility of the back. I had previously identified this area as one of my strengths as I am able to do many poses that the rest of the class finds difficult. The following is a picture of me doing the bridge pose. This pose has helped me develop my upper body strengths as well as back flexibility!

I undertook a new challenge when completing a two part motion. In the first motion, I complete the candle stick (shown in the image below). After holding those pose for about a minute and a half, I bring my legs down so that my knees are beside my head and my feet touching the floor. This pose takes a great amount of back flexibility and is very difficult. During my first classes I was unable to complete this pose; however, through committing to yoga and practicing this pose at home, I can now easily roll into this pose!

Helping Hands

This was a very productive and successful week in Helping Hands. We received an entire new group of OSC primary school volunteers. Over the past few weeks we have focused on learning the body parts. This week I put the children’s ability to test! The kids were put in ground and asked to trace a group member’s body on a large piece of paper as shown in the following images.

 After doing so, the children labeled and creatively colored their drawing. Once the drawing was completed, the children presented their work to the class. This activity tested their skills on both writing and speaking. The following is a picture of the students presenting their work!

I was happy to see the OSC and local students working collaboratively! One OSC volunteer led each group in order to help the local students with spelling and pronunciation. This was also done to encourage interaction between the different students. During the first few lessons, the children often feel uncomfortable and shy; therefore, it is important to encourage interaction! In Helping Hands we deal was an issue of global importance: inequality in income distribution. This inequality has contributed a great deal to the increased crime rates and hostile feelings between the upper and lower class. Helping Hands breaks the barrier between the two classes and teaches students from a young age that everyone is the same no matter their socio-economic background!

The Basketball Season Begins

Today I had my very first basketball practice of the season! I have revealed my commitment to the sport through being a part of my school's team for the 6th year in a row! The first practice went very smoothly. Though as a team we have a lot of space for improvement, I believe we have a chance at winning SAISA as we did last year! After the first practice I was able to identify my greatest strengths and weaknesses as a player. My biggest strength is working collaboratively with my teammates; I am in no way a selfish player. At this point the most important goal is developing the less experienced players into better players. This means that instead of always taking the shot, its important to pass to the newer players and allow them the chance to improve their skills. My biggest weakness would be my lack of fitness. For the past few months I have only been doing yoga was exercise. Though this activity is wonderful for flexibility and mental health, it has not helped me keep up my strength and endurance.