What's up PE Nation! (Check out this AI summary!) Ever found yourself with meticulously laid plans for a sunny day, only to have storm clouds roll in and rewrite your entire schedule? That's a regular occurrence for me, where the weather has a mind of its own. Tune in as I recount the trials and triumphs of managing outdoor activities amid these sudden shifts. I'll walk you through a particularly memorable day where blue skies turned grey, forcing rapid indoor pivots, and share the lessons learned on staying flexible and keeping spirits high despite the weather's curveballs. Discover how I, alongside my fellow teachers, tackle the challenge of finding last-minute indoor spaces, and turn a potential letdown into an opportunity for creativity and collaboration.
The second half of our chat zeroes in on my experiences as a PE teacher who's had to adapt to the indoor confines during uncooperative weather. Gone are the days of rolling out the TV cart with a dusty DVD; now, it's all about harnessing the power of technology to keep our kids active and learning. I'll take you behind the scenes of crafting interactive and engaging lesson plans with Google Slides, converting rainfall into a chance to deep dive into critical topics like water and bike safety. It's less about merely filling time and more about maximizing these unplanned moments to enrich our students' understanding—without relying on streaming services that often get the red light from district policies. Join me for a session filled with stories, strategies, and maybe even a few laughs as we navigate the unpredictable skies together. Dave
What's up PE Nation! (Check out this AI summary!) Ever found yourself with meticulously laid plans for a sunny day, only to have storm clouds roll in and rewrite your entire schedule? That's a regular occurrence for me, where the weather has a mind of its own. Tune in as I recount the trials and triumphs of managing outdoor activities amid these sudden shifts. I'll walk you through a particularly memorable day where blue skies turned grey, forcing rapid indoor pivots, and share the lessons learned on staying flexible and keeping spirits high despite the weather's curveballs. Discover how I, alongside my fellow teachers, tackle the challenge of finding last-minute indoor spaces, and turn a potential letdown into an opportunity for creativity and collaboration.
The second half of our chat zeroes in on my experiences as a PE teacher who's had to adapt to the indoor confines during uncooperative weather. Gone are the days of rolling out the TV cart with a dusty DVD; now, it's all about harnessing the power of technology to keep our kids active and learning. I'll take you behind the scenes of crafting interactive and engaging lesson plans with Google Slides, converting rainfall into a chance to deep dive into critical topics like water and bike safety. It's less about merely filling time and more about maximizing these unplanned moments to enrich our students' understanding—without relying on streaming services that often get the red light from district policies. Join me for a session filled with stories, strategies, and maybe even a few laughs as we navigate the unpredictable skies together. Dave
Hello and welcome to the Super Size Physed ED podcast. My name is Dave and I'm here to talk about rainy days. Yes, those dreaded rainy days that we all can't stand. I'm with you, I hear you, I feel you and I'm going to talk about it next. So here we go. All right, everybody, Welcome in today. I do apologize.
Dave:
I've been kind of sporadic in putting out episodes recently. So if you're tuning in and you're a loyal, devoted fan, I really do appreciate it. I say the word appreciate a lot, but I appreciate you listening in and today's a pretty specific episode. So if you're indoors and you have your own gym, I'd like you to tune in and listen and maybe come up with some ideas, because it is things about doing inside, things we're going to do inside, but this is more about rainy days and what to do when you have them.
Dave:
So, to start off with, rainy days stink. They really do. They're awful, and I know we need rain and I live in Florida and there's times when we have way too much rain and there's times when we have no rain at all for months and months, and months and it just stinks. It stinks because one of my second jobs is playing meteorologist. I have to figure out. Well, can we be outside and I don't know, can we give it a go, or maybe it's too wet, the grass is too wet, or the courts are too wet, or the track is too wet, the pavilion is getting rain sideways, it's just a big old mess. But sometimes we can be outside, Sometimes we can't. Sometimes half the day we're outside and sometimes half the day we're not.
Dave:
Sometimes, like this past Friday, we were outside in the beginning for first grade and then kindergarten started raining pretty hard and by the time of the end of kindergarten, luckily, we were able to get the boys and girls to their classrooms, because we're in outside school and there's no walkways. There's no covered walkways between the pavilion and at least most of the classrooms. So those are all things we deal with. And actually after that we were inside for third grade, inside for fifth grade, but actually the coach, two of the coaches, that's me, and two pairs. The two pairs took two class outside under the pavilion and played that game, rollout, which I just put an episode out about. But we couldn't have four classes out there, so I took two by myself inside a classroom and then we had a little break. I'm just telling you my schedule here real quick. Then we had fourth grade, outside but doing limited things under the pavilion because everything was wet, and then we final our final class is second grade and they were outside. So we were outside for two, inside for two and then outside for two, and it's just kind of crazy.
Dave:
And again, there's times when I don't have a lot of time between classes. I have anywhere between zero sometimes and five minutes between classes, and so I have to make a quick decision and sometimes that decision is wrong. I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes we bring classes back out like, hey, we're okay, and then all of a sudden there's a lightning in the area and we have to go back inside it. Just it gets kind of crazy and sometimes teachers aren't happy. It actually did happen the other day as well, where I called about 10 minutes before I did put on an email saying we're gonna be inside. And then I called the first grade grade level chair and said, hey, can you please contact your team? We're gonna try to give it a go, but we do have accommodations just in case. Everything's set up, just in case.
Dave:
And a couple teachers came out and I could tell especially one wasn't real happy with me. She wasn't like I don't know, but she just wasn't happy and I could tell it was kind of directed towards me or indirectly towards me, that she didn't know she was on her way to the cafeteria kind of thing. And I said I'm sorry, I did texture or I called your grade level chair and she's like, and I think when she picked up her kids she understood that she did get a text, like they have a group text, and she was told to go outside and it was just a big mess. But most teachers understand and again she was, it was fine. It's just one of those things that sometimes it rubs people the wrong way. You're going this way, you're going that way.
Dave:
Sometimes we use her classroom, Sometimes we use the media center. Sometimes she's a cafeteria and sometimes we're just we have nowhere to go. There's been times when we just there's testing. You know there's lunch going on the cafeteria, there's testing the media center. This actually happened the other day and there's four of us. I'm sorry there's four classes but there's three coaches, so again we have to push in like two classes in a classroom and all sorts of stuff and it's just, it's just not ideal.
Dave:
There's also times when there's just random stuff going on, Like we had a bobcat sighting real close so we had to be inside the whole day. They never even found the bobcat Cause. We were like a whole wooded area near our school Like they couldn't do anything about it. There's times when there's testing and my former school there was the pavilion was so close to the building that when there were testing days we had to either go inside, like in the media center and actually not usually we went with the music teacher, pushed in with her if it was rainy day, or we had to go way out in the field, look way out there, where we couldn't be, they couldn't hear us, and it just we're always pushed out, or it seems like we're pushed out of our spots or our PE area sometimes.
Dave:
So, anyways, what do you do? I guess that's a question, and I'd say the first thing is to be flexible. Understand that you might not be right. When it comes to the weather, Again, meteorologists are almost never right and they solve a job for some reason. So be flexible about the weather, about what you need to do, what you can do, what's possible, what is not a good idea, especially if lightning is getting close or anything. There's storm coming, things like that, and you know, I know this drives you crazy. It drives me crazy Just thinking about what to do and no other teacher has to worry about this, right? You know, I was a classroom teacher for over 10 years and I don't have to deal with weather. I didn't have to deal with weather. I don't have to deal with losing my space. It just sometimes these things happen. So let's move on to what you can do, what I do inside on rainy days, because I've heard a lot of things, I've seen a lot of things, I've done a lot of things and hopefully this can help you if you are in that position.
Dave:
So when I first started teaching PE about 12, actually more than that, 13, 14 years ago, there was mostly at least semi-educational DVDs I would put in. On a rainy day We'd all go in the media center All. Actually in this case it was about five classes at a time and it wasn't ideal. It's never ideal being in the media center. Kids are checking up books. The media center person usually isn't super happy with me or us, but it's just the way it is. They know there's no choice. They know I don't wanna be there, but there's nothing we could do. So obviously, have a good rapport with. I always have a good rapport. Obviously I was thinking about the tech person as well. Have a good rapport with the tech person and if there's a media specialist or anybody, that's space you're taking over. Of course. Treat them well, Treat their space as not wholly, but it's their space, so treat it kindly, I should say, and make sure you do a good job there and keep everything cleaned up. At the end, put everything back when you're done. That's just a foregone kind of thing.
Dave:
Conclusion so in the beginning I would show these DVDs, like Bill Nye, some things that are based on human body or bike safety videos, water safety videos, things like that, which I still do. We'll get into that in a little bit, but eventually I kind of ran out. There's so many things I'm like well, what do I do? I was a younger not that younger teacher, but a younger PE teacher, let's just say or more inexperienced, and I try to tie things into the standards. So I just remember eventually becoming more like hey, on Fridays, because it's fun Friday, let's do Disney movies on Friday. So I remember times when we were watching Frozen in there for PE and I don't know. I just I don't like that. I don't like doing something that's just they could do at any time. They could do with any person. So whom I know? I'm just a glorified recess after school person that shows DVD movies Like. I'm not. I'm not going to do that and I used to do that. So that's you, that's OK. I'm just trying to teach you from my experience, or pass this knowledge on from my experience, that it's OK, but I didn't feel right about it. So then it became YouTube. It's called Design Squad and it was really cool. I still as you could find it again. I think it's on Amazon Prime now, but it's like a subscription. You got to pay for it, Some things like that, some seasons, things like that.
Dave:
They would take these kids mostly, I think, high school kids and they would be tasked with building something and I tried to keep it at the sporty kind of thing, Like they had to build a thing to shoot out soccer balls to professional soccer player and there would be team versus team and they judge it and things like that, and I'd tie in questions and things like that to it. There's other ones. I'm not going to all the episodes, but they would build like a hockey goalie thing where target practice kind of thing. It was really cool and I would show that to the kids, that. Or eventually I showed a show called the Kicks. It's on Amazon Prime actually as well, but then we weren't allowed to stream. That became a forbidden thing in our district and I understand we're streaming Amazon Prime or Netflix or something. We can't do that anymore. So these things keep evolving, like DVDs, then streaming, then whatever.
Dave:
So what do you do? And I know it kind of sound almost exasperated, but it is a process and it's hard to go through these phases and be like man I had this and now I lost this. And so the goal is to evolve with not just the streaming things, but evolve with time, evolve with technology and figure out what to do during rainy days. All being said, here's what I did, and this happened especially during COVID.
Dave:
You know a lot of people were teaching remotely, obviously, and you know I'd make these Google slides and the kids would, you know, go through them and answer questions and like that. So I was thinking, well, why don't I just make Google slides for teaching rainy days? And I did that. I made a bunch of Google slides with questions and videos linked in there, and even dance videos, things like that, that I could send to the teachers. And that's what I do I send to the teachers, I share them with all the teachers. They could pull it up on their computers on their permitting boards and then my parents can go in there and teach from there and I give my parents some leeway and latitude. I mean, they can do different things.
Dave:
But you know, I try to teach certain topics certain times and they can go and not miss a beat and it's great and I try to look at this as an opportunity. You know, in a 40-minute lesson and I'm somebody who has less than that I've heard people have like 20-minute lessons Like I don't know how you do that In a 40-minute time frame. I don't always go into great detail on certain topics and certain standards, so I save those for rainy days, and I know I always get rainy days, especially in the beginning of the year, because I'm in Florida. Again, I'm just telling you that's the weather Beginning and end of the year. There's always rainy days. Now it's kind of weird. We have actually had some recently. Like I said, usually don't have those in January, but we have had some.
Dave:
So I use that instead of like just being upset, I use that as an opportunity to teach and cover the standards that I normally don't have time for and I can go more in depth and it's great. So, for example, I know I said water safety and bike safety. Those are two of them. I'll do those, I'll cover them, I'll talk about them, I'll show videos on them. I actually have a video that they gave me, the Corps of Engineers. They gave me a DVD that I show for water safety and I used to have people come in for water safety and bike safety. I think they kind of stopped that for COVID and whatnot and grants, but I cover that.
Dave:
Then, during rainy days, I cover nutrition, diet and exercise, goal setting. I'll show things like what I call game changers, like Tiger Woods and Sean White and other people, not just athletes, but I try to keep it more towards athletes because I'm not a big fan of the game changer. I try to keep it more towards athletes because that's what we're teaching PE and show them how they overcame obstacles, how they set goals, how they reach their limits. I mean, like beyond belief. It's been amazing watching these things and the kids are like, oh my gosh, this is awesome Because when I showed them Tiger Woods, they've heard of him Most of them, especially the older kids. Again, I teach kindergarten through fifth they probably recognize him and everything he went through and you could not like Tiger Woods. I'm just using him as an example. My wife still won't get over his infidelity, but that's another story, Just his greatness.
Dave:
Another one is Alex Honnold, who, if you ever seen the movie Free Solo Again, that's on Disney Plus. I can't stream it, but I've taken clips that are online and showing the kids that, hey, anything's possible. I mean, he climbed El Cap 3000 feet in the air, straight up, pretty much with no ropes and harnesses. That's pretty crazy and please don't ever have the kids attempt that at home. Don't attempt at home kids. But it's something that I show them. So it's like, wow, that's awesome. You know, it's something that I can have different goals and have different dreams and really try to achieve them. So, anyways, I teach those kind of things.
Dave:
I teach cup stacking and, as a matter of fact, I had a sub the other day and I showed him those slides that I made and I had him pick and he's like, well, I want to try cup stacking. Like all right. So here's the slides that go with it. The kids know how to do it. And he only had one class and he brought a bunch of cups into the classroom and he said I want really well, so in a bind, in a pinch. These are great things to have backup plans, links to again, different videos, different ways. In this case it's how to cup stack. Now I know how to cup stack. I've taught all the kids how to cup stack, but the sub, I guess, did not know how to do it. So it's great to have these on slides or somewhere else where they can find them.
Dave:
I also use and I know I've said YouTube, Brain Pop Junior, a lot for different lessons on. Again, we'll go back to nutrition. If you have access to Brain Pop Junior, that's a great resource. It will teach them about nutrition, food groups, things like that. And then they have a quiz. There's an easy quiz, a hard quiz. They can do different things with it and it doesn't take very long. It takes five, six minutes of video and then questions and you can talk about it Again, aligning to the standards, aligning to what you need to cover, but you can't always cover in a regular classroom setting when you don't have a lot of time. I also use Go Noodle, but again not a lot. It's more for a quick link at the end I'll put it in there in the Google Slides for a sub or for more in pairs to just play, for the kids to get a quick break of exercise, things like that.
Dave:
I have slides on scarves. There's how to do the scarves in different movements, so it's all sorts of things they could do in the classroom or in the media center or whatever, wherever you have to go to do rainy days. I'd say another thing is bring different equipment with you, like these very cushy, those kush balls or some soft, real soft ones to do a group juggle or to do silent ball I know that's really old school, but a lot of kids really still like that, I don't know why and just different small movements you could do in a classroom or wherever you need to go. But I would say this don't throw in the towel, Do what you can and try to tie it to the standards and cover what you need to cover to get use those rainy days as, trust me, I don't like them, but use them to enhance your teaching and enhance the kids' learning. I'd say that would be the biggest thing. So now it is time for your cowbell tip of the day. All right, everybody. So your cowbell tip of the day is to email me it's in the episode notes If you'd like me to send you the Google Slides now.
Dave:
They're not perfect and some of the links might not work if you don't have BrainPop Junior for your classroom and things like that if you don't have access to it. But it would help, especially if you're not sure what to do or where to start, or you're a newer teacher and you'd like these slides, or an older teacher like me. Email me if you'd like me to send you the slides, because I will send them to you. I don't want to put necessarily in the show notes just that random link to share to anybody in the whole world. I'd rather just be if you email me and I will send them to you, no cost, no charge, no signing up for anything. I'll send them to you if you want them. If not, that's OK. I just want to make sure you know that they're there for you and I'm here to help you. So hopefully you use them Again, if not, just don't give up on rainy days and just keep going.
Dave:
Teacher standards keep it PE oriented and you got this. So that is your cowbell tip of the day. Thank you everyone for tuning in. I really do appreciate it, as always. Go to Supersizedphysed. com for more information or if you'd like to purchase my book the Teacher, the Chef and the Hockey Player, there is a link in the show notes and there's a website to go to. So take care, PE Nation, you guys and girls are awesome. I hope you have a wonderful day, week, weekend, whenever you listen to this, and let's keep pushing our profession forward.