This week in Physical Education we took an imaginary trip to San Francisco to learn about two landmarks, The Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street. The Golden Gate Bridge, painted "international orange" to help it stand out in the San Francisco Bay fog, is a 1.7 mile suspension bridge that connects the city of San Francisco to Marin County. The building of the bridge began in 1933 and was completed in 1937 at at cost of 35 million dollars (1.2 billion by today's costs). Before the bridge was built, people had to take a ferry to get from one side of the bay to the other. Now over 100,000 cars cross over the bridge every day. The Golden Gate Bridge held the world record for the longest suspension bridge until 1964 when it lost this title to New York's Verrazano-Narrows bridge. To this day, the Golden Gate Bridge remains one of the most beautiful and widely photographed bridges in the world.
In Physical Education we played a game called "bridges and tunnels" which worked on locomotor skills, arm strength, and flexibility. The class was divided in half with one half being the travelers and the other half being either the bridges (in a crab walk position) or a tunnel (in a tummy facing downward arch position). Travelers continually moved about stepping across bridges and crawling through tunnels. Every time this happened, the bridge or tunnel had to flip over to the other position. Students traded places after a while. Arms were tired! Kindergarten and Pre-K students added some ball skills to this activity as they traveled from place to place.
Stepping over bridges and crawling through tunnels, sometimes dribbling a ball.
Click here for more pictures of our Golden Gate Bridge activity.
Click here for more pictures of our Golden Gate Bridge activity.
Learning about Lombard Street was fun. Students learned that it is a one-way down hill street in San Francisco that is noted as the curviest street in America. It has a 27 degree slope with a 5 mile an hour speed limit. Cars line up at the top of the street to take the slow trip to the bottom. There's also walking stairs along the side which present a challenge all their own.
In PE, I set up cones that the children had to weave in and out of while riding a "flying turtle." The children love this piece of equipment, but it takes a little work to learn how to maneuver the handle bars back and forth so the "turtle" moves forward. They're getting the hang of it, though.
Each group had their own Lombard Street as they weaved in out of the
cones on their flying turtle. They jogged a lap around the gym after completing
their trip down Lombard Street and then returned to the line for another turn.
cones on their flying turtle. They jogged a lap around the gym after completing
their trip down Lombard Street and then returned to the line for another turn.
