Cystic Fibrosis Fund-Raiser

This year the PE department will be participating in a series of small fundraisers to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF). The CFF is dedicated to the fight against Cystic Fibrosis (CF).

CF is a genetic disease that affects the lungs and the digestive system. One out of every 3,900 live births in the U.S. is born with CF. In order for a person to be born with CF both of the parents must carry the recessive gene. One of the problems is there are close to 10 million carriers of the disease, but most people have no idea they are carriers.

There is no cure for CF. In the 1950's when the CFF was first founded a person born with CF was not expected to live to see elementary school. Now, thanks to organizations like the CFF a person with the disease could live into their 30's, 40's and possibly even beyond.

For more detailed information on CF and its effects on the body please stop buy the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation web site at: www.cff.org .

As some of your children may have told you, the reason I have chosen to support the CFF is a reason that is most near and dear to my heart. This past July my wife and I had our 3rd child, Bryce. Three weeks after he was born we received a phone call informing us that his mandatory screening came back positive for CF. We went in later that same week and had Bryce tested. The test came back positive.

As a father of a CF child I feel that it is my duty to support the CF world. Please do what you can to help. During the week of April 6-10th we have a few different activities planned. Here is a break down of each one:

Hat passes-
on Tuesday and Thursday hat passes will be sold for 1 dollar. As long as the students have their hat pass sticker on they will be allowed to wear a hat all day!

CF Awareness Bracelets-
Each morning we will be selling blue rubber bracelets to show our support. The bracelets will be sold for 2 dollars each.

JAR WARS!!-
This is a class versus class competition. We are going to challenge each class to bring in different denominations of money each day. The class who raises the most money by the end of the week wins the competition! The winning class will receive a prize...something like a pizza party paid for by me (Coach Jones). The details of the prize are still being nailed down.
Here is the schedule for JAR WARS!
Monday- bring in as many pennies as possible
Tuesday- bring in nickels
Wednesday- bring in dimes
Thursday- bring in quarters
Friday- bring in dollars

All money raised will go straight to the CFF where it will be put to work battling CF.

There is one more thing about our fundraiser! There are many schools across the state of Georgia who will be raising money to help fight CF. That is a whole lot of people supporting Cystic Fibrosis. One of them in particular is Chipper Jones, of the Atlanta Braves. Chipper has signed on as the state's "Celebrity Chair" for the CFF, and will be visiting the school who raises the most money. Let's see if we can get him to come by Davis!

As for school fundraisers I have just one more thing. If any parents would like to help out with our week's activities please feel free to contact me! I would love some extra help. My e-mail is: bryan.jones@cobbk12.org

One last thing, outside of the school fundraiser- My wife and I have registered a team to walk in the Great Strides Walk to benefit Cystic Fibrosis. The walk is scheduled to take place May 16th at GA Tech. If any one would like to go above and beyond we would love the support for our Great Strides team! Please stop by our team's web page:

http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/BryanAndJenniferJones

Once you are there you can click to donate to our team OR you can sign up and walk with us! Again, if you have any questions please contact me!


Bryce says thanks for supporting CF!

Thank you!

Coach Jones

Spring at last..

It has been a little while since our last post. We just wrapped up our volleyball unit. It was awesome. We spent a couple days on some of the "striking skills" (overhead pass and forearm pass), and then we were able to get into some modified games. All the grade levels really got into the games, and they did an outstanding job working with their team mates.

Before that we flew through a decent number of other units- Dance, Jump Rope, and gymnastics. Once again, the Davis students did excellent in all three of these units. The dance unit was a nice surprise- Mrs. Lawson, who is the PE teacher at Keheley and former teacher here, came back for a surprise visit. She taught us some interesting dances! The students had a great time with her.

Up next in the world of PE- 4th and 5th graders are starting up Lacrosse. K-3rd graders are taking a little bit of time to review kicking, and get into some games that incorporate our skills!

We have a couple really big things to get some information out for-

1.) Field Day! Look for some info soon. Once again we will be looking for parent volunteers. With out you guys there is no way field day would be the success it has been over the last couple years!

2.) This one is especially important to me- we are going to be doing a fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF). All proceeds raised will go straight to the CFF and will be used for research, care, and treatment of those living with CF. You can check out their web site http://www.cff.org/ , and/or if you'd like check out my page on the Great Strides Walk- to benefit the CFF: http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/BryanAndJenniferJonesLook for more information about this as well, and please think about volunteering to help!

If you are interested helping out with either one of our events to come please e-mail me! at bryan.jones@cobbk12.org

thanks and look forward to hearing from you!
Coach Jones

U, N, S, O..........P?

As many of you know, this year, the K-2nd graders are using a new report card. It is a Standards-Based report card. It links the scored given to a more direct set of standards. I understand why the person who came up with it did…but man it sure caused some confusion the first time it was used.

I am going to take a second and explain this new report card, which is currently only used for Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grades. 3rd, 4th and 5th your report card is just like it always was, for now- get ready cause it is going to change over the next couple years. OK, so here we go:

In the past (and currently for 3rd – 5th) we have used 2 grades for PE. The first grade was a conduct grade and the second was a participation grade. In each of those two categories, your child could get one of 4 scores: U- unsatisfactory, N- needs improvement, S- satisfactory, and finally O- outstanding. Seems easy enough right? I thought so too.

The new Standards-Based report card uses a different grading system. The Standards-Based report card, for PE, splits our child’s grade into 3 categories. Two of these categories are graded using the same scale: The Categories of “Demonstrates basic manipulative skills” and “Demonstrates and identifies basic locomotor skills” are scored on a 1-3 scale. Here is the official breakdown of the point values:

1- Limited or minimum progress toward meeting the standard
2- Progressing toward the standard
3- Consistent and successful progress toward meeting the standard

* If one of your child’s boxes is greyed out, or crossed out, and contains no score- this simply means that skill is not being assessed this 9 weeks.

The 3rd category on the new report card is “Learning Skills & Behaviors.” This is more of a conduct grade. This portion of the report card is assessed every 9 weeks. The possible scores are:
N- needs improvement (student does not display skills and behaviors that lead to success)
P- progressing (student is progressing; displays appropriate learning skills and behaviors most of the time)
S- successful (student displays appropriate learner skills and behaviors)

I know all of this seems a but confusing, but if you have any questions about your child’s grade please send me an e-mail, and I will be more than happy to answer your question!

bryan.jones@cobbk12.org

Thanks!
Coach Jones

2009!!

Man, the first half of this year has flown by! I can't believe 2008 is almost over. We were able to get some pretty cool stuff squeezed into the first half of this year, but just wait...we have a ton more to do in 2009. Here is what we are looking at when we get back from the break!

-Jump Rope
-Gymnastics
-Dance
-Volleyball (my personal favorite!)

We even have a little surprise instructor who is going to help us out for part of our dance unit! I can't tell you who it is, but I can say- we are glad to have her back...even if it is just for a week!!

Mrs. Georges and I hope you all have a pleasant and relaxing break! See you all in 2009!

Getting Ready for the Break

Basketball has been going awesome! We are getting ready to take a couple weeks off for the Holiday break. So, we ill be slowing things down a little- a little less skill work and a little more games!

I am very impressed with how well ALL of the grades did with our Basketball unit. The really awesome part is we had a guest speaker come in and talk to the entire school this past Wednesday- he used basketball to get his point across! Now, I would like to say that I planned it all out, but...i can't. It was just a really cool coincidence. His performance was called "Totally Courageous Basketball." He talked about setting goals and practicing to reach your goals!

Here is a picture of what he does:

The kids had a great time!

Hope everyone has a great break!

Coach Jones

Basketball

We are moving away from fitness, well sort of. We always have some bit of fitness going on each day, but we are moving into basketball. I figured it would be a good time to jump into the game since all the basketball is starting up now- high school, college, and NBA.

We are going to break our basketball unit into three main focuses- dribbling, passing, and shooting. 1st will be dribbling. We actually started this Monday. Ask your child (3-5) how long they survived in knockout. The little guys and girls (K-2) worked on some basic dribbling skills. We were even able to go over one basic strategy concept with 1st and 2nd- keeping the ball away from other people while dribbling. They picked it up great!

Coming up on the horizon next for us will be passing and then on to everyone’s favorite- shooting. All the kids are doing a great job! Thanks to the school/PTA for making sure we have enough equipment. It is so very nice to be able to work on dribbling and have a ball for every student in PE (one that actually holds air). We are getting to cover a ton!

Thanks
Coach Jones

What have we been doing in October?

3rd – 5th : Fitness is finally over. We had a couple weeks of testing…with a few games mixed in of course, but we got it done. We have fitness scores for every 3rd-5th grader recorded and ready to go. We plan on re-administering the test late in the school year to see how much improvement your students have made.

K- 2nd : Fitness was a little different. We introduced how to the tests, but we just practiced each test once or twice…just to familiarize the students with them. They did a pretty good job! The rest of the time we got to have a little fun. We worked on some locomotor skills and even squeezed in a few large group games just for fun!

We are now on to striking for grades 2- 5. We started this week with some fun tennis relays and games. We will be trying to use striking in as many different games/activities as we can over the next couple weeks.

As for the little ones (K & 1), we are going to work on locomotor skills for a little while longer, but we are also taking a day or two at a time to get some good skills work in on throwing and catching.

Thanks for checking in on the PE blog!
Coach Jones