Week One at St. Mary's!

Some observations about social and motor skills:
Clearly, as the students got high up in grade level, their motor skills improved for the most part. However, the older kids were much less receptive to us and therefore less likely to listen and take part in organized games that we planned. Although it was a little difficult getting the Pre-K kids to stand on a line and listen to directions for 2 minutes, they were willing to at least give our ideas a shot. The older kids really weren’t having much of what we were thinking. I noticed that will the Pre-K kids that I was working with, overall the girls were much more social with other girls in the class and us as well. The boys would get a little more physical with us, like grabbing on to us and touching us, but the girls were more talkative and willing to have a conversation with numerous exchanges. I definitely think that the more an individual kids’ motor system is developed, the more likely they are to take part in games. The not so developed kids were the ones who were much less inclined to take part. Which is something that we need to focus on, because it’s the kids who aren’t as physically gifted who need physical educators even more.

Some observations on fine motor development:
I saw all ranges of motor development. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Pre-K kids were able to throw a ball, although it was very basic. For the most part, the older kids were more advanced. I thought that gender really didn’t have that much of an effect with the younger kids. There really wasn’t much difference in skill level between the boys and the girls.