Ready, Set, Throw! An inquiry into throwing.

To help the kindergarten/grade 1 students prepare for their throwing events in Athletics, we set up a game that allowed them to throw different size and weight dodgeballs back and forth across the court. Without giving away too much, we had the students inquire into the most efficient throwing style  for each sized ball (the only requirement was that they throw the ball as high and far as they could). Upon initial experimentation, we asked them to describe the different style throws they came up with based on the size and weight of the ball. The inquiry led to the kids identifying three different throwing styles:

Underhand throw
Sidearm slinging type throw
Overhand throw

Not judging one as better as they other, we had them figure out what throw that they thought was best. Next lesson we will bring the lower body action into the throwing motion and have them inquire into which foot is better to to push off of when they throw. The aim obviously being to get them to identify that you must step with the foot opposite the throwing hand.