Using Pinterest In the Classroom

As a future physical education teacher, I appreciate any and all creative ideas to get kids active. Until recently, I had been a stranger to Pinterest. Once I made an account I quickly realized how much use I could get out of it. Just typing in "Physical Education" brought up hundreds of pictures and ideas of different lesson plans and activity ideas. I found inspiration for a project based learning assignment through bits and pieces of different lesson plans and game ideas for students. There are countless possibilities that are possible through the use of Pinterest. Some pins that I pinned to my board had pictures of lesson plans that I could use for my class. If the picture in the pin was not enough, I could actually go to the website where many more lesson plans and resources could be found. Pinterest is unique because it can help a teacher come up with creative ideas by just searching key words. You can compare different ideas right next to each other. Once you find neat ideas to use, you can organize them into different boards. So you can search for creative classroom ideas, and then you can organize what you find the way you want it.

When I began brainstorming on a project for students to complete in physical education, I wanted to incorporate an activity that would not only get students active, but get them to think outside the box. When I began looking through Pinterest, I noticed many of the lesson plan ideas involved creative games for students to play. They had clear and concise rules to help the teacher when they present the game to their class. So I took bits and pieces from different pins and decided to have students create their own game. This would require students to think for themselves instead of just following a set of rules. I believe that if you create a game, you have a better appreciation for the reasoning behind rules and a scoring system. If the rules do not correlate well with the objective of a game, it can be very evident and not fun. A common problem in physical education is participation. There are a lot of kids that do not participate for various reasons. This project will not only require students to participate, but it will also allow them to create a game that would be fun to them.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1LNrVp-wHifdW5TXzZfWEk5Vlk/view?usp=sharing

The above link is the PBL assignment I created using some ideas I found on Pinterest.
After I created the assignment I completed it.

The first step was to find some tools to use for the game. I found an empty trashcan, a baseball, and bricks for markers. Because I was not in a classroom setting, I just used some things I found around my house.

The next step was to create a set of rules for my game. I typed up a set of clear and concise rules that could be followed easily for my original game. I also created the objective during this step. The objective of the game was to get as many points as possible by making the ball in the trashcan. I used bricks to mark different scoring spots. Shooting from the further spot got more points.


After that, I created a scoring system. 1 point could be scored by shooting from the closer brick. 2 points could be scored by shooting from the further brick.

The name I came up with for the game was "Trashketball". It correlates with the objective of getting the ball inside the trashcan.


When completing this project, my hope is for students to realize the different opportunities available to create a game and get active. I learned that it is quite possible to make your own fun. That was the point of the assignment. I was able to come up with something that interests me, and I was able to find an opportunity to get active. I believe that students would be able to learn how to participate in life time recreational activities from doing this assignment just like the Arkansas state standard that the assignment is based off of.