Physical Education for the 21st Century
Grade 3 Invasion Games
Central Idea:
Understanding personal qualities enhances the ability to acquire and execute new skills.
Learner Outcomes:
Identity:
- Recognize personal qualities, strengths and limitations
Active Living (Australian Curriculum):
Perform a variety of locomotor movements with and without equipment, alone and with others, moving at different levels, using different pathways, and traveling in different directions
Send and receive objects of different shapes and sizes in different ways, using different body parts, at different levels and using various types of equipment
Retain objects of different shapes and sizes in different ways, using different body parts and equipment
Lesson 1:
I started this unit with a very simple game called Crossover:
Divide the class into 2 teams.
Create your playing space and divide it into 2. A basketball court is a reasonable size.
When a student “attacks” and crosses over onto the opposing teams’ side that attacker can be tagged.
When an attacker is tagged by a defender, that attacker raises their hand, goes out of the playing area, runs to the end of their side and does a punishment of some sort. I usually tell them to do 3-5 jumping jacks.
If the attacker is not tagged, they can cross the baseline of the court, raise their hand and yell, “goal!”
That attacker then goes out of the court and back to their side and can attack again.
I usually set a time limit of 3 minute halves.
Team with the highest score wins.
This game can be layered multiple times.
I love it since it requires minimal preparation but there are so many learning opportunities with a huge amount of physical activity for the kids.
I started with layer 1 of Crossover whereby only one side is attacking and the other team is defending.
After the 3 minute round, I switched the roles of the team.
Once completed, I asked the kids what they thought the new unit was. We just completed a Net Games unit and inquired how this game was different to their previous unit. I gave them a few prompts such as, “What sport do you think this is related to?”
We then went to layer 2 of Crossover, where both sides can attack at the same time. This is usually a disaster since both sides just end up attacking.
After the three minute round, I compared their scores from the first 2 rounds to the second and asked why there were so many more points in the second layer.
These type of probing questions are important as it allows the students to critically think about the situation rather than force feeding information.
They realized that they did not have any defenders. This was a nice lead into the next discussion point – positions. We would be getting into this in more detail next class.
With this in mind, the students had a minute to create a plan for the next and final 3 minute round.
We reviewed the lesson to wrap things up.
Lesson 2:
After reviewing the first lesson we did a round each of Crossover layer 1. Afterwards, I introduced the Central Idea.
We focused primarily on the first half of it, “personal qualities.” We broke this down into strengths and weaknesses. We determined that by knowing our strengths and weaknesses we could find ways to improve our weaknesses and also to use our strengths to assist the team.
We then did a round each of Crossover level 2 paying special attention to their strengths and weaknesses. They were to get a rough idea of what they felt each was and share after 2x 3 minute rounds.
In order to share their task with the class I used Seesaw, specifically their Activities feature. This feature allows me to set a task and the kids respond by creating a short video or writing a note. I can easily look through the responses and find out who has yet to respond.
Since the kids have only done 2 lessons of Invasion Games the responses were not incredibly detailed but it got them thinking of their own qualities and what they can offer the team and what they could work on. I also encouraged the students to look at each other’s responses and find out if anyone is similar to them.
Lesson 3:
We reviewed the central idea further and specifically noted some strengths and weaknesses and how these are important to the unit and ultimately their role in their invasion games team.
We went off to layer 3 of Crossover:
Same premise as the first two layers, however I distributed 5-6 beanbags to the two teams.
These beanbags indicate attackers. Whoever has a beanbag can cross the midline and attack.
People without a beanbag can only defend.
Once a person crosses over to the other side regardless whether they score or get caught needs to give their beanbag to someone else.
This layer encourages the kids to discover strategies in the game, i.e.: positions, attacking/defending tactics, etc.
After a couple of 3 minute rounds, I introduced their learner profiles for the unit: Thinker, Reflective. I then asked how these are related to the unit and how they can apply them.
We did 2 more rounds of layer 3 Crossover and allowed each team to have 1 timeout per round. This is important as it allows them to determine whether their team is successful and also allows me to see who has the leadership to call one.
We reviewed the lesson afterwards.
Lesson 4:
We started the lesson by reviewing the central idea and learner profiles and found ways to implement them into the activities we have done so far.
We then went into our next activity – Slide Tag:
Same premise as Crossover whereby you run across the opponent's territory to score a goal.
Same size playing area as Crossover.
Divide the playing area into 6 areas, alternating between safe and non-safe areas for the attackers.
The non-safe areas are where the defenders position themselves.
How many areas you want is up to you, however I do make the non-safe areas larger than the safe areas to ramp up the challenge.
The attackers start at one side of the field and have to run across the different areas to ultimately score a goal
The defenders once positioned cannot move into another area unless they call a timeout.
We did a round each and then gathered to discover the Approaches to Learning (ATLs) we will be applying into the unit – these are the same skills being applied in the homeroom as one avenue of integration:
Self-Management skills: Safety
Research skills: Planning
Thinking skills: Synthesis
Once identified we went back out to play our 2nd round of Slide Tag and I asked the kids to find ways to apply the skills we just addressed into the game.
Afterwards, the kids shared the ways they showed they applied the skills:
Planning was done before the game to make sure everyone knew their role
Safety – tagging opponents gently, following the rules, etc.
Synthesis – this took a bit more explaining and the kids were still unclear with this skill but we will hit it a bit more later on in the unit.
With all this in mind and the kids having a bit more of an idea of how to apply the ATL’s into the game they went out for the last round of Slide Tag.
Lesson 5:
We reviewed the unit so far by going through the central idea, identifying strengths and weaknesses and the ATLs. We did layer 1 of Slide Tag afterwards.
Afterwards, I then introduced the Attitudes and Learner Profile:
Learner Profile:
Thinker
Reflective
Attitudes:
Independence
Commitment
We followed the same format as the previous lesson by finding out how to apply the Learner Profile and Attitudes to the game of Slide Tag.
I added another layer to the game by reducing the safe areas by 1 – now there were only 2 safe areas.
Lesson 6:
Now that we unpacked the unit I wanted to determine how much the students knew of the unit.
I used Plickers and 8 questions to give me a quick overview of their understanding.
This is a very surface way of identifying understanding since the answers are multiple choice but it does give me some sort of idea how the class is doing.
Afterwards, we went to a new game – 5-pass:
I separated the class into 4 teams and had 2 games happening at once to allow maximum participation by all students.
The object of the game is to successfully pass the ball to your teammates 5 times.
A successful pass is one that is not intercepted or dropped to the ground.
If a team does 5 successful passes then the opposing team does 3 push-ups - or whatever consequence you choose.
We did 5 minutes of this, which is plenty of time since it is a high-paced game and then we gathered to discuss what skills are needed to be successful in this game.
Since I have four grade 3 classes here are all the skills the classes combined chose:
Running
Catching
Passing
Finding space
Shooting
Teamwork
Communication
Defending
Strategy
Each class chose 6 skills that they deemed were important to practice for invasion games.
I then layered 5-Pass into 3-pass & Shoot for their next activity:
Add in a handball goal for this layer
Same concept as 5-pass whereby you need to do successful passes to your teammates however, the teams now need to do only 3 passes
Once the 3 passes are completed the handball goal is now open for a shot attempt to occur.
There is no goalie line and no limit on the number of goalies
We did a couple rounds of this and each time rated how they felt they did for their 6 skills.
We determined that their passing and catching is an area for improvement.