Journal

=Project Journal =

====**First Weeks of Project**: Within the first month or so of working on my project, I really have just been figuring out exactly what I want to do and picking a mentor that relates to and will help with my project. I decided Mr. Butler would be a good choice because he's a gym teacher in the school and teaches the course "Nutrition, Fitness, and Awareness" which directly relates to my research topic and my project. I also thought about potential dates for the tournament and chose a couple Friday's in November (12th and 19th).====

====**10-18**: Today was the first day I made a big step in getting my project organized and set. Mr. Butler gave me a building request form which I filled out, got the appropriate people people to sign it, and turned it into Mr. Johnston's office so that he could look it over and hopefully accept it! I also talked to Mr. Butler about how the tournament would run and he told me he would get me an example of the brackets I could use. In the next week or so, if my request form is alright, I will start figuring out how to advertise my tournament so that I can get a lot of kids to participate.====

====**10-26**: MY TOURNAMENT WAS APPROVED! =] I talked to Mr. Butler today and the building use form was definitely approved and we decided on November 19th for the date. I got really excited to finally get all the details for my project rolling and start really planning it. I sat down with Mr. Butler for a half and hour or so and talked about how the tournament would run, how many teams we would get, and what the money the teams were going to pay would go towards. The tournament is going to have 8 teams of 10 players; the teams will be first come first serve. He gave me a copy of the bracket we'll be following and we decided we will take the money and order t-shirts for the "champions" of the tournament. I have to make up sign up forms for teams and start advertising for it so we get all the teams decided and organized in time.====

====**10-28:** I worked a lot on my project today in class. I talked to Mr. Butler just to make sure he talked to all the right people about my tournament. We also talked about how we were going to advertise. We are definitely going to make flyers and put an announcement on the morning announcements starting next week. I also made up the team sign up sheet I will hand out to those who are interested in having a team. The sheet looks like this: Next week I will have all the announcements ready and hopefully people will get excited and sign up!====

====**10-29--11/03**: Over the weekend I created all of the flyers I planned on hanging up around the school and they looked really good! I also made copies of the sign up sheets. Coming into school today I planned on putting an announcement on the morning news, hanging up my fliers, and starting to really spread the word about it. BUT Mr. Butler came to me and told me that my request was actually DENIED and I found out that Powder Puff is being held over two days, one of them being November 19th, the day I planned on having my dodgeball tournament. I met with Mr. Butler and we talked about what to do and decided I should aim to hold my tournament on Wednesday, November 17th without teams being charged to play. I emailed Mr. Roy Johnson and asked him if these revisions to my proposal would be accepted so hopefully everything will turn out alright in the next few days so I can revise my fliers and ads and actually start getting this organized.====

====**11/05**: During class today I was able to talk to Mr. Puckett about my tournament and explained that I did not need to charge teams to play. He told me to fill out another building request form for my tournament specifically saying that it was for awareness of childhood obesity. So, I filled out the new form with Mr. Butler and turned it back into Mr. Johnston's office. Hopefully, it will get approved and I will have success with this dodge ball tournament.====

====**11/23**: So, about a week after I turned in my second building request form for my dodgeball tournament, it came back and was accepted! The bad news, I was not aware it was accepted until 2 days before I was supposed to hold my dodgeball tournament. Therefore, I realized that the dodgeball thing probably wasn't going to happen. I freaked out a little, but realized I do have other options. I talked to my mom and with Mr. Butler and Ms. Ward about what else I could possibly do to meet the requirements and have an overall project. My final solution (I think) is to shadow Mr. Butler's gym class every other day during D block and keep journals about what I find. I can also go to Twining Valley with my mom (she is a personal trainer there) and do some observations and journaling through that. I think this idea will work, although I am still disappointed the dodgeball tournament never worked out. I will probably start attending gym classes with Mr. Butler after the Thanksgiving break.====

====**12/13**: I attended a few gym classes with Mr. Butler and thought about its relevance to my project. I think that with my age group in my research being elementary-middle school kids I should be doing something more geared and focused on younger students. I also thought about how I could bring all my hands-on work back to the Let's Move campaign that my project was initially inspired by. I took a look at the website and realized they have a "Let's Move" blog. I thought that if I could check out some of the elementary school gym classes and activities, I could take some pictures and formulate my own blog post highlighting the work done by Springfield Township's elementary school physical elementary school teachers. I emailed Bill Krewson, who is one of the physical education teachers at Erdenheim, and asked if I would be able to shadow his gym classes in the afternoon for a week or so. He agreed that it would be a great idea and I think I am going to go the week we return from break. I am very happy I finally have a solid project and cannot wait to get started!====

12-21: I will be going to see Mr. Krewson and his classes after the break! After I complete that shadowing I will finish up my journal and reflections
====**01-03--01-10**: Since the break ended, and at this point, I have gone to Erdenheim and watched Mr. Krewson's elementary school gym classes. I have already found so much that directly relates to my topic and really correlates well with what I have been trying to learn, and eventually teach with my presentation. I get to watch about 3 classes each day and each class really has its own complex and atmosphere. I brought in some questions to ask Mr. Krewson and got a lot of good answers through him, as well as my own observations. I have seen and heard a lot of what I researched about causes of obesity in children. While having a class discussion about what was done over winter break, a few students in 4th or 5th grade honestly admitted to being a "couch potato" all week and essentially doing nothing but eating, watching TV, and playing new video games. On the other hand, the energy I have seen in these kids has given me enormous amounts of hope in saying that kids want to exercise and move daily. One of my major concerns was whether or not kids were going to participate, because I know that is a big issue in high school gym classes. However, from the times I have visited, I only observed a small handful of students who either claimed gym class was boring, or found sneaky ways to NOT participate. I only have a few more visits until my presentation but I will make it a point to maybe ask some kids questions and take pictures.====