After observing many students at St. Mary’s I believe that both age and gender play a role in a child’s ability to perform certain motor skills. My group started to observe kindergarteners and first graders in the gym. One girl in particular we watched was a five-year-old kindergartener named Casey. Right away I noticed that she was able to run and hop, but struggled when she was asked to gallop. She was standing in a lunge position and just jumping forward. There was no transfer of weight. One of the teachers was able to help her correct what she was doing. This helped her because she was able to gallop better and more properly. I noticed that there was a difference in the performance of the girls and boys. The boys wanted to do everything really fast. The girls were more relaxed and just performed the skill because they had to. I also feel that because of this, the boys didn’t perform things as well as the girls did. We had to watch a boy who was six and seemed to perform the activities relitively well. We then went and worked in the pre-k room. These children seemed to be a little less able to perform the skills as well as the older children. Once again, the boys were a little more wild then the girls. When we tried to have the children hop, they seemed to just jump and skip around. I think that with age the skills will improve and become more develpoed.

When we first arived to saint marys and set up in the gym, I noticed right away they they children were very wild and excited. The first game that we attempted was the with the parachute. Then the game was first set up, the instructors had the children sit down around the parachute to explain the rules and the game. All the children wanted to do was touch and play with the parachute. In my opinion the students should have stayed seated and listened to all the directions before going near the parachute. Because the kids had begun touching and playing with the parachute before the rules were explained, it was very hard to hear the rules and what each child needed to do. I believe that it is best to explain the rules when you have the children quiet and paying attention before you send them to play the game. When the group attempted to change what they were doing it seemed to work better and grab the childrens attention easier. With my game, zanny zoo, we had all the childern line up on a single line and were able to grab their attention. We explained the rules of the game and then separted them evenly to a area where there was a teacher. Once they got there we had them sit down and listen to what we were going to do next. I thought this worked best because the children listened better, payed more attention, and worked better in smaller groups.