Hockey School!

 

This quote sums up how my students and I felt by the end of the day!

Today was AWESOME!

A few weeks ago I contacted the Washington Capitals organization to see if they could help us out with our hockey movie.  It turns out they have a Hockey School program that they send to schools.  I booked them for the entire first grade.

Today was the day they came out.  Andrew, Jared, and Vinny came down to my room first to discuss how the afternoon was going to go.  Then after setting up in the gym, it was time to get started!

The guys went over 4 things today:  how to hold the stick, stick handling skills, passing & receiving the puck, and how to shoot a goal.  For each skill, they had 10 students come up to practice that skill.  The students LOVED it! 

 

After teaching the skills, there was a quick boys vs girls game!

Then it was teachers vs students!  That was EXHAUSTING - but so much fun!!!!  One of the students scored a goal and his reaction was PRICELESS!!!

Finally, the guys gave us some goodies!

For the school:  a set of hockey sticks, balls, and pucks!  There was also a banner!

For all of the first grade students:  a Washington Capitals t-shirt!

They even had things for my students to use in our movie!

(Before I forget, thank you to my teammates and staff development teacher for taking pictures and sharing them with me!)

Before we left, I thanked Andrew, Vinny, and Jared.  I told them how awesome everything was.  I asked if they saw the rink in my room when they came down earlier.  They said they did and that it was awesome!  One of the guys then told me he fell in love with hockey because of his Kindergarten teacher.  She used hockey to teach them addition.  He said that if I could get at least one student to love hockey because of this project that I am doing something right.  (I think I have closer to 18!) :-P

When we returned to our room, we discussed what we had learned.  Then we had a little bit of time before PE so I set up the net and let each of them shoot the ball into the net.
They cheered each other on!
If someone didn't get it on the first try, they shouted, "You can do it!"
When a goal was scored, they all screamed!

It was truly a day they will NEVER forget!

On a related note, one of my boys made a book for me and gave it to me this morning.  It seems that he now loves the Capitals and TJ Oshie too!  See for yourself:

I've heard him say before that Oshie should be captain!

I couldn't have asked for anything more from today.
What an awesome day.  (I know, I've said "awesome" a lot today!)
What wonderful memories.

I love teaching. :-)
~Mrs. Lynch~

To read more about our hockey movie, click here and here.
To donate to our Donors Choose project for a flip camera to record our movie, click here.