Sum It Up Saturday: Basketball

This is the end of my first week back to blogging here.  My plan on Saturdays is to link to the previous 5 days so that you have the entire unit easily accessible in one post.  Do you prefer it this way or would you rather I just post the entire unit at one time?  If I post entire lessons at once, it may result in more than one unit a week, but I can't promise that.  I also realize that I did not include science in this lesson plan.  I will share some ideas on that in a minute.  In future weeks, I think I will move the fun ideas to the Sum It Up post on Saturday and include science ideas on Fridays.

Basketball

Some science ideas related to basketball:

- Anatomy and Physiology: Learn about the muscles used while playing basketball.  Younger kids can focus on the parts of the body being used (heart, brain, arms, legs, back) and more advanced kids can learn the muscle names, insertion points, etc.  You can also talk about aerobic exercise and how muscle cells work.  Adapt this to whatever ability you are working with.

- Physics: This post on reference.com has some great ideas for exploring physics with basketball, especially in regards to potential and kinetic energy and the law of conservation of energy.

- Scientific Theory:  Practice dribbling the ball.  Make a prediction about what will happen if you dribble ball faster or slower or from your waist level, your knee level, or your chest level.  Try it and make notes of what happened and try a new prediction.  You can do the same thing when practicing making baskets.  Try changing the bend of your elbow before you release the ball, or try closing your eyes when you take a shot.  

Math Monday

Time Travel Tuesday

Writing Wednesday

Think Of Others Thursday

Fun Friday