Hooping

In the late Winter/early Spring I had a field placement in a Junior Kindergarten classroom. It was a wonderful experience. Just where I want to spend my working years as a primary classroom teacher. I truly enjoyed every second of being in that classroom - well, maybe not falling on my face and splitting my lip open during a field trip to an outdoor education centre, but that's a story for another time.

During a gym lesson, the teacher I was working with set up different stations in the gym where the children could experiment with different equipment. One of those stations - hula hoops. Now this was something I hadn't done since I was in elementary school, but I had always assumed it was like riding a bike, as they say. I'm sure that hula hooping game on wii fit didn't help my over confidence in this area either. I quickly realized I had no idea what I was doing and was making quite a fool of myself. Of course this made the gym class all the more fun. Seeing teachers take risks, struggle, and learn new things is a good thing I think. I learn as much, if not more, from my students than they learn from me.

After this experience I made a new goal for myself - re-learn to hoop!

I found this tutorial by Elizabeth Mitchell (who is amazing, really), and decided to make my own hoop. Less than $10 worth of material from my local hardware store, and a hoop that was the perfect size and weight for me. It's much easier to hoop with a heavier hoop!

I'm still far from perfect, but I can keep my hoop going for nearly 10 seconds. And when I get tired? Well teach my dog to jump through it, of course!