It All Begins..

Today was my first day at St. Mary's elementary school. It was a lot of fun getting to know some of the kids and watching them play different games. The differences in motor behavior and social between the students are easily observed. The biggest difference I observed where the motor behaviors of the Pre K compared to the older students which ranged up to about fifth grade. The Pre K students would get really excited about a certain game and run off and start screaming before you would even start the game. They would get too excited and be distracted easily. The older students would listen to the rules and then go play. I think grade level has more of an influence on motor behavior rather than gender or ability. You can definitely see a maturity in motor behavior with the older students compared to the students in Pre K. The fine motor activities that I observed watching the students were their ability to run, kick a ball, and eat a snack. I witnessed the older students approximately in the fifth grade play kickball. After watching the way they ran to the bases compared to the Pre K running during a game of tag it was obvious there was a difference in their skill levels. You could clearly see most of the kids in the Pre K were at an initial skill level of running, except for a few who were at an elementary skill level. Most of the fifth grades were at an elementary level with the exception of a couple that could be considered at a mature level of running. The thing that stuck out to me the most was how long it took the Pre K to eat there snacks compared to the older students. From my observations I would have to say that the differences in how they performed these motor activities was because of age rather than gender or ability. It should be interesting to see how the students perform some other motor activities in the next couple of weeks.