I love gymnastics, and I always get very excited when the time comes to teach this unit. This year though, the day before I started the actual unit I broke my ankle and had to be on a cast for four weeks. This meant that for the first ten days I was out of school, which was quite disappointing.
Thankfully, the subs were able to teach the lessons so students did not miss the unit.
For this unit, I wanted to use the meaningful PE approach, and this happened once I got back to class.
With grade four students we agreed on what success criteria would look like.
We have a gymnastics room on the third floor of a building. Students could use different apparatus such as the vaulting, the balance beam, and the floor once they were there with the sub.
When I came back to school after two weeks of the injury, I still had the cast on and it was hard for me to walk that far. So we used one of the gyms, brought lots of mats, and focused on the floor.
The students started to create their movement composition having in mind the success criteria we talked about and agreed upon.
I did something similar in G2, just adjusted it a little bit.
G2 Gymnastics Movement Composition Success Criteria
Central Idea: Balances, rolls, travel, and jumps are elements of a gymnastics performance.
You have to compose a gymnastic movement composition individually or w. Your movement composition must have at least 5 different skills. (balances, rolls, and weight transfers) That would be one of the ways to perform for your audience.
I can compose a gymnastics movement composition (performance) that:
- starts with a balance
- has different rolls ( for example, forward roll, pencil roll)
- has at least different weight transfers ( for example, cartwheel, handstand, headstand)
My performance is continuous throughout (flow)
My performance movements are controlled (control and proper form)
My performance movements have a sequence
My performance has smooth transitions most of the time (style)
My Plan
| Part | Draw or Name your Movement Pattern |
| 1 | Balance (starting position) |
| 2 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | |
| 5 | |
| Optional (add more if you want) |
How can we make this a meaningful experience for them?
Many of us have done movement compositions previously and asked students to perform several skills, so how is this different from what we have done previously?
This year the gymnastics unit was a real CHALLENGE for all. Why?
Well, for the past two years, students have been online during this unit, so they missed many of the experiences in the gymnastics room, using different apparatus and especially the body control. We did practice a few skills while being online however, we were limited to doing balances and rolls for safety reasons.
And I had a cast on, so my mobility was very limited as well as the capacity to demonstrate the skills.
In the gym, we had arranged a few mats for them to practice the skills before they started working on their movement composition, so there were different stations to practice, for instance, rolls, headstands (mats by the wall), handstands (mats by the wall) and cartwheels.
Soon, students started working on their compositions.
When I asked a few 4th graders to show me what they have created so far, they first showed me the paper with their ideas, and I asked them. “Ah, this is nice. Do you know how to do a cartwheel? How about a headstand?” They both struggled with that, so I told them they had to find a way to show that they could transfer the weight from feet to hands.
We agreed that “mule kicks” was something they could work towards too and do. They were much happier and had a “just right” challenge in mind.
We also added blocks to support students who wanted to do headstands or handstands but didn’t have the balance to perform them during their floor routine. For them, knowing that they had those blocks helped them to keep practicing. Some of them did not need them during their actual performance.
Social interaction was huge in this unit too. I let the students choose their groups or do it individually, although most chose to be in a group. Quarantine times were an additional challenge as members of a group would be in and out depending on the week. So the students had to be creative and adjust their routines, learn a new one, join a new group, etc.
We talked about motor competence and what they did to improve their skills. We did peer feedback, teacher feedback, and self-feedback using video so they could understand what we were talking about when we told them: “Bring your hips up, or stretch your legs, point your toes…”
We also had some “check-in” lessons that helped us think about where we were in the unit
Grade two students were very creative and choose to do partner balances which helped to enhance their performance.
In previous years we had invited teachers and admin. to watch the gymnastics performances. We even ran an assembly for the whole ES.
This year was different, but we still got to share our floor movement compositions with families and homeroom teachers through a digital platform called “Seesaw” Grade two had an assembly and several of their performances were added as short clips to the assembly too.
We wrapped our unit with some reflections. I wrote down a few questions to guide the reflection, and students recorded themselves in Seesaw adding their thoughts on this unit.
This is the G2 reflection that I added as an activity in Seesaw.
I forgot to mention that apart from the movement composition, the students were invited to use other apparatus to share a favorite skill or something they improved during this unit. That was optional, yet many students chose to do it, which was great to see!
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