EDU 355 Lab 8

Lab Eight: Communication and Cooperation Using Hula Hoops

1. Explain three important benefits of hoop play. Playing with hula hoops is great for enhancing hand-eye and foot-eye coordination as well as body awareness. The hula hoop is constantly rolling during some activities which incorporates the student to follow and keep up with it. These activities also promote patience and exercise communication skills. Because hula hoops are great to use with partner work, it helps students understand the use of teamwork when trying to accomplish a goal together.

2. Give an example of how hoops can be used to reinforce a cognitive concept linked with classroom learning. The students can practice with making large letters or shapes combining each hoop with others. This is a great way to enhance spelling and creativity for students.

3. Describe how hoops can be utilized to promote growth in the affective domain. With certain activities such as twister, ring pass contest, and finding your way out of the maze, it really aims towards teamwork and patience. The students may feel uncomfortable with certain things such as getting close to others, holding hands, or working with a partner but these hoop activities are fun and relieve the stress of all those worries.

4. Utilize the internet to gather information about ponds and related ecology to use in your field experience teaching or future teaching. Sticking with the hula hoop theme, something I thought of could be a word maze. Each hula hoop would have a laminated card with a picture on the front and the term on the back. All of the terms are about ponds and ecology (wetlands, predator, insect, adaptation) The students can go through a series of progressions to cross over the pond. They must look at the picture and name the correct term before passing! If they can not recall the name, they may do a skill and then ask a classmate for help.