For my 15 weeks of student teaching, I had the pleasure of teaching in the Lower Merion School District. I started off in my elementary placement at Belmont Hills Elementary School. Here I taught Physical Education, but I incorporated a small Health lesson into each class. The units I taught were Fitness and Soccer. My fitness unit included the Fitness Five, a 12 station fitness circuit, a lesson on taking your heart rate, and various fun games and activities. I created a Fitness Five bulletin board to go along with my lesson. I taught two soccer lessons. One was on striking, passing, and receiving, and the other was on shooting. I learned so much at the elementary level, with the most important being that young students learn best when you relate the lesson to something they already know and/or are interested in. For example, I related my fitness circuit to offseason training for athletes. The students were thrilled to train like an athlete! 

​

I finished up my student teaching in my secondary education placement at Bala Cynwyd Middle School. I taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students both Health and Physical Education. The Physical Education units I taught were: Frisbee Golf, Flag Football, and Cardiovascular Fitness. The Health units I taught were: Mental and Emotional Well-Being, First Aid, and Social Media Safety. During my Health lessons, I implemented various teaching strategies. For my Mental and Emotional Well Being lesson I had the students walk around the room and find 5 terms. They had to memorize the definition and write it down back at their desk. For my First Aid lesson, I drew a big First Aid Kit on the board and had every student write an item or two they would keep in their first aid kit on a Post-It note and stick in in the First Aid Kit. I also had the students follow along with a safe glove removal activity. Each student got a pair of gloves dipped in fake blood (dish soap mixed with red food dye). My Social Media Safety lesson was all about protecting yourself from online dangers and social media addiction/social media anxiety disorder. We did a snake activity, where every student had to tell the class something the internet knows about us (address, age, name, etc.). The students spoke in order of their seats, following a snake pattern. I learned an incredible amount during my secondary placement. The most important lesson I learned was to keep lessons simple. Explaining complex games, activities, and assignments takes too much time away from game play and/or lesson time, and the students are still learning the same concepts!