Check out what we did for Halloween and Christmas this year! Scroll through to see all of the fun we had!
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Halloween
Click the Obstacle Course Tab to see our Haunted Course this year!
Witch one is Mrs. Maselli?
Haha Here is Haley Hayes dressed up as Mrs. Maselli and
Mrs. Maselli dressed up as the wicked witch of the North. She nailed it with the hair in a bun, tucked in under armor shirt, super sweet sweat pants and pink and grey sneaks. You go girl!
Witches Cauldron
Dare to trick or treat in these streets! Know when it is safe to leave your house. Watch out for the wicked witches riding around on broom sticks. If they catch you trick or treating, they will sentence you to the cauldron. Work together to stay safe! The team with the most candy wins.
Skills for successful trick or treating:
-basketball shooting
-throwing and catching
-dodging and fleeing
-speed
-cardiovascular endurance
-offensive and defensive sport strategies
Game Day 1: Halloween Stations
The story has it that the wicked witches of the North have cast a spell on our school. Once a year the wicked witches come to Granby school to pick up the poison apples made by the little children. The faster you ride on your broom sticks the more poison is produced in the apple. The spell has it so that two children must work together to ride on the same broom stick. to make it work. If the witches are not satisfied with the amount of poison generated, they will haunt us until next year! Our goal is to ride as fast as we can so we can produce as much poison possible to satisfy the wicked witches of the North. The most valuable apples will be added to the black cauldron with the skin of the toad, eye of the newt and the lizard legs.
Golden Broom Award Prizes given to the fastest riders who produced the most poison in their apples! We have satisfied the wicked witches until... next year!
Did you know that Frankenstein eats only one time a year? In addition to producing the poison apples, it is also the responsibility of Granby school to feed Frankenstein! He is a creature the wicked witches of the North created. If we don’t satisfy the belly of this monster then the wicked witches will be mad and haunt our gymnasium FOREVER.
Game Day 2: Trick or Treat Tag
We went Trick or Treating in the gym for exercises. We reviewed proper trick or treating etiquette. We discussed using our manners and street smarts in terms of crossing the road and candy that is safe to eat. We played a version of tag where the students who were tagged had to go up to a "house" which was a person holding a basket of "candy" or dice. They had to say trick or treat and then perform the corresponding exercise that you see on the left hand side in the picture. If the student did not say "please" or "thank you," than the "house" people were allowed to double their exercise.
Game Day 3: Halloween Treasure Hunt Game
Here the kids worked in groups of 2 to race to capture as many pieces of treasure as they could. We practiced a variety of locomotor movements during this activity. Do you think it would be the fastest kids to win as they would have the most treasure? Nope! I would choose a winner by asking... "Who has the wicked witch?" or "Who has the ghost?" in order to determine a winner. The kids would crack up as they dig through their piles to see if they had it.
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Christmas
Team Ugly Sweater
Snowman Blitz
-Communicate
-Make Decisions
-Share Opinions
-Debate
-Speed
-Agility
-Work Together
-Make Decisions
-Share Opinions
-Debate
-Speed
-Agility
-Work Together
Check out the Granby Rockets!
Game 1: Snow Globe
The Grinch stole Christmas!!!! Calling all elves from every workshop to help save Christmas! Their were different colored teams representing different workshops. If you made it from the North Pole across Grinch territory then you got to get one toy from the Grinch's cave to bring back to your workshop! As a team, you want to try to get back as many toys as you can that were stolen from you. If a Grinch tags you, you get trapped in the snow globe! If you catch a snow ball from a fellow elf than you get back in the game. If you sink a half court shot in the basketball hoop with a snow ball you free everyone from the globe! Good luck little elves! WHOSE READY TO SAVE CHRISTMAS??
Game 2: Christmas Morning
You just woke up and you look outside your window. The ground is covered in a blanket of snow. You see your neighbors outside getting ready to go sleigh riding so you grab your sled and go outside!. Station 1….
Then you realize that the neighborhood next to you is starting to come outside and they are making snowballs. Everyone breaks out in an epic snowball fight! Station 2...
To celebrate the winter season we had an indoor snowball fight as depicted above. We did this with our kindergartners, first graders, and second graders. The students were able to strategize within their teams in order to decide how to best utilize the equipment and form "snow banks" to hide behind. It was a proud moment to hear a kindergarten student say that they chose their design in order to provide shelter for the maximum amount of teammates. The vocabulary word learned was dodge and the physical skills learned were throwing and catching.
Now your freezing so you go inside to your living room to sit by the fire with your hot chocolate to warm up and you realize that SANTA WAS HERE! HE LEFT YOU a brand new toy! Jacks!!! Station 4...
Bummer... Christmas is over we have to take all of our ornaments off of the tree. Here at the Maselli house we package our Christmas ornaments in pairs. Play ornament memory and toy toss to clean up all your new toys. In the Maselli house each toy cleaned is worth points!
Game 3: Ornaments in the Attic
The students get to choose their team members and choose their team ornament. We then play a relay style memory game. There are quite a few different ways I switch this activity up. The kids love it! At the end, we discussed the good, bad, and the ugly. How did it feel when you picked up a card that was not what you were looking for? How did it feel when you found one that you were looking for? What feedback did you get from your teammates? What strategies did you use? What worked? What did not work? Below are two winning teams from Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Bennett's class from 2015.
Game 4: Multiple Variations of
Scooter Christmas Tag
Game 5: Christmas Dodge-ball Style Trench
Here is the holiday version of Trench. Problem solvers are born in the gym!! Check out these students huddling together to come up with a plan. What can we do differently? What did we try that did not work? What are our options? What can we learn from the other team? Why are they more successful? What strategies are they using? How can we utilize our teams strengths to win? What are some weaknesses of the other team that we can take advantage of?
Leaders are born in the gym!! Check out Brielle in the middle of the huddle sharing out and demonstrating her idea/strategy with her group.
Closure stretching
Lets share out some strategies we came up with. What did you share with your group. Was it successful? Why? What would you do differently next time? Was it hard to get your team to listen to you? Why? What are some difficulties we might face? What are some attributes of a good leader?
Lets share out some strategies we came up with. What did you share with your group. Was it successful? Why? What would you do differently next time? Was it hard to get your team to listen to you? Why? What are some difficulties we might face? What are some attributes of a good leader?
We played the holiday version of Traitor. There are 2 teams separated by the black line in the middle of the gymnasium. The traitor is the person who stands in the hula hoop on the side of their opponents and can get people out. The traitor can get you out, but you cannot throw the ball at the traitor to get them out. The only way to get the traitor out is to catch the ball that they throw at you. It is dodge ball style so we learned dodging, and proper throwing and catching technique (Standard 1: Personal Health and Fitness). The way to get back in the game or "saved" is by the 2 doctors on your team. They can come over, touch you on the shoulder and say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" and then you are back in the game! At the end of class, we discussed strategies that the students game up with in their huddles (Standard 1: Personal Health and Fitness). They realized if they got the other teams doctors out they would be able to get their whole team out. Some students even realized that if they blocked the traitor from getting the ball they could eliminate the concern of getting out by a traitor and just have to worry about the other side of the gym. I was super impressed when I heard students say that they were sacrificing themselves to save their doctors for the good of their team.
Earth Day
Happy Earth Day! During our Earth Day lesson, our students learned the importance of recycling and what we can do to help save our planet. They also learned what items are recyclable and which items are trash through 2 super fun games we played. Before our game we watched this video on recycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jixu9zCF0a0
St. Patrick's Day
Happy St. Patrick's Day! Check out Skylar's hair! It's a shamrock!!
To celebrate we played 2 different St. Patrick's day games. The first one was Shamrock Shake Up. Shamrock taggers turned leprechauns into pots of gold. Leprechauns had to free them by giving them high fives and saying "Happy St. Patrick's Day!" The second game we played involved Rainbow taggers looking to get their gold back. All of my little leprechauns got to hold onto a lucky piece of gold. When tagged by a rainbow they had to give them their gold coin, go over to the pot of gold and do 10 pushups or 10 sit ups and get a new gold coin to go back in the game. The most gold coins collected by a rainbow was 23.
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Standard 2: Safe and Healthy Environment
The students get to choose which sportsmanship characteristic they are going to use that day by placing their Popsicle stick with their name on it in the one of the cups depicted below. At the end of class, we pull some of the sticks and discuss whether or not we met our target.
The students get to choose which sportsmanship characteristic they are going to use that day by placing their Popsicle stick with their name on it in the one of the cups depicted below. At the end of class, we pull some of the sticks and discuss whether or not we met our target.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving- We played capture the turkeys. This is a version of capture the gold or capture the flag. This is one of my favorite games and now it is one of my students favorite games. This game involves sprinting and recovering where and when you can, teamwork, bravery, leadership, and selflessness. We discussed how you could play this game at home using just about anything as your six "turkey's" in the baskets. Accessing resources outside of the gymnasium is Standard 3: resource management. Have fun at home and be active!