During a jump rope unit for third graders, students worked in groups of three to practice entering and exiting a turning rope. Our focus was not only on the skill performance, but on the concepts of cooperation and timing.

Before they started practicing, I gave each group a sheet with the critical elements of cooperation listed: follow rules, help less-skilled classmates, have everyone play and succeed, encourage others, try hard to apply skills, play under control, compliment others, control temper, share, show concern for classmates' feelings and work together toward a common goal.

Each group chose the three elements they considered most important and tried to focus on those as they helped each other work through three levels of jump rope:

Level One: Enter and exit the rope without jumping.

Level Two: Enter, jump once, and exit.

Level Three: Enter, jump at least five times and exit.

Each student chose a beginning level based on prior experience and ability and progressed from there. At the end of the practice session, each student gave himself or herself a rating of 1(lowest) to 5 (highest) on their cooperation skills and wrote a sentence on the sheet justifying the rating. Students were encouraged to solicit feedback from other group members to assist with the personal ratings. During the summary, we discussed the roles of cooperation and timing in different sports and fitness activities.

This lesson combines a motor skill with cognitive concepts and helps students make connections between those skills and concepts and lifetime participation in various activities.

The sheet I gave the students is in the book Assessment Strategies for Elementary Physical Education(Human Kinetics 2000) by Suzann Schiemer.

For any more information, contact Brenda.