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PE Classroom Observation Assignment

Nicholas Anderson

College of Education, Baker College

EDU 1410: Health and Physical Education for Educators

Professor Tresa Reneaud

April 9, 2021
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PE Classroom Observation Assignment

Lesson: Jumping Rope

Grades: Kindergarten, 3rd Grade

Observation location: Oakridge Lower Elementary

Due to the fact these lessons were the same, I will give an overview of the lesson and then break

the observations into the separate grade observations. Our lesson today was jump rope with other

jumping activities. The lesson was straight forward and easy to follow along with both grades. We

started out with 5-10 minutes of stretching that involved stretching legs, butterflies, touching toes,

reach and pull down, lunges, wall push-ups and ending with walk/run exercise. The students would start

out in a walk, and when the teacher said they key word they would run, ninja walk, or return to walking.

The teacher then had the students sit in the middle of the gym and explained what they would be doing

for the day. With the jump rope, she showed the students how to hold the rope properly then had them

demonstrate so she could make sure everyone was all set. Next, she demonstrated the motion of the

jump rope and explained she wanted them to start off with the rope behind them and with holding the

jump rope properly swing it in front of them and not to jump. The third step was to do the jump rope

motion and then step over the rope as it landed in front of them. Finally, putting all the elements

together she demonstrated the jump rope activity with all steps including the jumping. After jumping

the teacher set up three stations for the students to do jumping activities. Station #1 was jumping rope,

#2 were pads on the floor that students were supposed to jump from pad to pad, and #3 were two

hurdles to jump over.

The Kindergarten class was comprised of 16 students. The class was comprised of equal boys

and girls, as in 8 boys and 8 girls. Out of the student population 3 of the students were special needs.

There was no observable differentiation in the lesson with the special needs students. The kindergarten

class was most observably still working on balance. Students demonstrated they could jump rope once
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or twice buy usually when landing on their feet after being successful they would fall to the floor. The

determination was evident in each student. When she transitioned this class to the snake jump after

jumping rope the special needs students were her helpers on keeping the rope moving while the class

jumped over the moving rope, one student at a time. The kindergarten class focus was coordination, and

I could see that in how the teacher approached the lesson. She reminded them not to get upset if they

could not do the jump rope because not everyone can. When the students transitioned to the stations,

station #2 felt like more of a balance activity.

The 3rd grade class was comprised of 23 students, a few were absent. No special needs

students were in this class due to testing during gym class. There were 13 boys and 10 girls in this class.

The same lesson was applied to this class, minus the snake jump. Instead of the snake jump she used

jumping jacks to conclude the warmup activity. The warmup exercises had an easy flow to them. It was

evident that the class had more coordination that the kindergarten class. I think the approach to

teaching the students how to jump rope was more of a refresher. The coordination was exceptionally

good in the class, and I suspect in higher up levels the coordination is even better than what I am

observing. Jumping rope according to the students was easy and fun because they do it at home.

Compiling all this information I feel the teacher knows the common core state standards for

physical education as demonstrated by focusing on motor skills in jumping rope. Her approach to

Kindergarten and the 3rd grade class were slightly different. She demonstrated more for the

Kindergartens than she did for the 3rd grade class. I feel this had something to do with continuing

development of motor skills, especially balance and recovery from doing a jump. The strengths to be

taken away from this lesson were more visible thank weaknesses. Her approach to Kindergarten with

step-by-step explanations and helping those students individually who needed the help was positive.

When in comparison to the 3rd grade class she encouraged the students to keep trying before assisting
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them. I feel her teaching was highly effective. The only noticeable weakness I had seen was when the

Kindergarten students were feigning tired, my evidence being based off the laziness of the male student

who pulled this in my observation class for educational psychology. He would find a way to sneak out

the door into the playground twice, while the door was open before she closed it, and nobody got fresh

air blowing into the gymnasium. There was no aid to help her with this class as there was in the normal

classroom, so she had her hands full with keeping her eyes on everybody.

I find the way this lesson was taught to be a great benefit to my future teachings, even if I am

not a physical education teacher. I could use some of the elements of the lesson when students want a

brain break. I find the most amazing feature of this is how to scale from Kindergarten to 3 rd grade. Most

of my observations have only been with one class or grade. There should be more to the educational

part of doing observations, for example how this assignment was set up to observe two different

physical education classes. I think that classes such as education psychology that do have elements of

information regarding fine motor skills should have to observe more than one class for a better analysis

of the abilities of the students. Regrettably, I did not know that this assignment required notes

otherwise I would have been more diligent in adding them to the conclusion of this paper.