Grade 4 Net Games Unit: Pre-Assessment Activity

We have started up a grade 4 net games unit in PE. The unit will run for about 6-7 weeks and have the kids work on a wide range of net games related skills. As many of the students have little experience with net games, it is essential to allow them time to really explore with a racket and work on some simple drills to open the unit with. The great thing is that this type of unit can be easily differentiated to suit all skill levels, but the stress must be more on students being committed to improving rather than focusing only on what they can or cannot do. 


In this blog post, I have included the PYP attitude poster 'Commitment' which I used to initiate discussion about the importance of working hard to improve upon our skills. As much as I will teach the necessary skills needed in this unit, I will consistently stress 'Commitment' as being one of the major keys to success. Kids can often get frustrated if they cannot perform a task that many of the peers can perform, so I am challenging them all to see their way through difficult challenges in this unit. 

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In today's class the students learned the following skills:

• Individual Floor Bounces (hitting the ball up, letting it bounce once, then hitting it up again)
• Individual Pop Ups (hitting the ball up directly from the racket without letting it bounce on floor)
• Individually Hitting Ball Off Wall and Return (from close and from further away)
• Partner Floor Bounces 
• Partner Pop Ups 
• Partner hit and Return Off Wall (from close and from further away)

I encouraged the kids to try and do 30 consecutive times before moving on to the next drill. They assessed themselves as being a Super Star, Thumbs Up, OK, or Not So Good (X) at each of the drills. Each week we will work on different drills and I will allow them to assess themselves as they go. Please see example assessment below.