Creating an Inclusive Sport Education Tchoukball Tournament for 5th Graders

What's up PE Nation!
What if you could transform a simple physical education class into a vibrant, inclusive sports tournament that fosters teamwork, leadership, and life skills? Join me on the podcast as we embark on a journey to create an unforgettable Tchoukball sport education tournament for fifth graders. Drawing inspiration from the sport education units of Nathan Horn and Jarrod Robinson, we break down the process of progressing from introductory games like bounce and catch to more complex activities such as ultimate and keep-away. Discover the importance of selecting the right equipment and how to tailor games and rules to suit different grade levels, ensuring an engaging and effective learning experience for all students.

In this episode, I also dive into the creative and logistical aspects of fostering team identities and building a dynamic sports education program. Listen in as students vote for team captains, brainstorm team names and slogans, and craft visually appealing posters—all of which contribute to their points in the WASP point system. Learn about the rotation of roles such as referees and scorekeepers, and how these activities build team spirit and instill valuable life skills. Finally, I explore the WASP point system, which emphasizes winning, attitude, sportsmanship, and participation, culminating in a thrilling Final Four showdown. This comprehensive guide will equip you with the tools and insights to create an inclusive and exciting sports tournament that your students will remember for years to come. Let me know what you think.

Dave

This episode is sponsored by my how-to course on creating the Sport Education Tchoukball Tournament- https://gum.co/sported

My website: https://www.supersizedphysed.com

Email me at dcarney1017@gmail.com I'd love to hear from you!

FREE E-Book: https://supersizedphysed.us18.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=289486a5abf1f1b55de651a5e&id=4c476cb01

Leave a review: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-supersized-physed-podcast/id1435115135

My TPT store with Task cards: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Supersizedphysed

Website for the book: https://www.teacherchefhockeyplayerbook.com/

Transcript

Dave: 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Super Size FizZed podcast. My name is Dave and I'm here to talk about Chookball and yes, I've talked about Chookball a lot on the podcast if you've been following along for a little while, and I appreciate if you have. But today is a day where I go through, step by step, how I run my Chookball fifth grade sport education tournament. I'm going to break it down for you. So here we go, all right. So before we begin PE Nation, I do want to say that today's episode is going to be brought to you by my sport education jukeball course. So if you'd like to learn more about this, click on the link in the show notes and you can learn step-by-step everything that we go through today in more detail and in video form. So it might be easier some of the things I explained to you. That being said, let's get moving. So, in order to begin, I want to back up a tiny bit and go over kind of the history that I've had with Chookball and the sport ed tournament and why I chose this and why it might be a good fit or not a good fit for you. So, to start, I saw Nathan Horn do a sport education unit and that was this a long time ago, this 2000, I don't know 15. He did one on hockey and I was like, wow, that's really cool and I love hockey, by the way. But I was like thinking, well, what else can I do to make it? You know, to take it to another level, and I also saw Jared Robinson do sport education in his I think he did volleyball. Robinson do sport education in his I think he did volleyball. So I was thinking, well, again, what can I do in my own program that would fit the needs of my students? Now, I'm not saying volleyball and hockey don't, they absolutely do, but I wanted something that you know, I have some hockey players in my school, like they actually are on in tournaments and they and they, they, they do that for, you know, they travel and they and things like that. And I have volleyball players not a lot, mind you, because that's more of a middle school thing, but I do have some volleyball players and I've a lot of travel baseball players and basketball players and football players. And I was like, well, what can I do to make it a more inclusive kind of game? I guess what I'm trying to say. So I saw people posting about Chookball, which is just a fantastic and inclusive game where anybody can play the skill level. Now, yes, the athletes that have higher skill levels do shine sometimes, but I'll talk about that in a little bit.

Dave: 3:04

But I love the game because it's a throwing, catching game. There's no defense. Now, one year I did play with defense I think my first year and I regretted it because real shoot ball has no defense. It's more about getting in position for if the other team drops it or the other team throws it off the rebounder and how we can get in position to catch it. Now I'm not going to go over all the rules of Chute Ball right now, because that's not what this podcast is about, and I believe yes, I know I put out a Chute Ball podcast not too long ago just about how I begin the unit and how we start playing it, but not the tournament. So I will go over that a little bit.

Dave: 3:47

Basically, I try to start with introduction games and some of it is just bounce off the net and catch it, like play knockout, where I throw it off the net, the next person has to catch it and if they don't, they're out. Things like that. It can get a little competitive. That's okay, it's just bouncing, catching, getting used to the rebounder, getting used to the bounce and the ball. I usually use a regular gator skin ball. There are actual chute balls To me. They're a little harder. Some of the kids can just bounce at the length of the court. That way I want to deaden the ball a little bit. Now we do use the harder harder. I do have a couple, I guess, real chook balls. I use those on super windy days or something like that, where it just it'd be too hard to catch the regular gator skin ball. So next I play a dot game which is like the make it, take it where again, let's, I'm using myself as an example. I throw it off the rebounder, my partner catches it, as they're standing on a dot. So we're trying to figure out angles. And again, a lot of this is covered in a different podcast. So I don't go deep into this.

Dave: 4:54

But I'm just trying to play small games, and ultimate is a great game as well. Actually, before I played ultimate we play games like 4v4, kind of keep away and with warm defense in that case, where they can kind of block it a little bit and intercept it. But if they make four catches in a row, they get a point and that's the other team's ball. If the ball hits the ground, it's the other team's ball, that kind of thing. So it's getting. They're getting used to the chute ball rules that way, and the same thing with ultimate. If the ball hits the ground it's the team's ball and they have to catch it in the end zone or past the line of the basketball court. So these games are getting them ready for shootball and that's part of the planning and playing what I call phase and I'll continue that with third and fourth grade, just basic keep away games, things like that.

Dave: 5:41

And fourth grade I start playing chook ball, where third grade keeps going with like ultimate. So cause I just noticed third grade playing chook ball is like watching paint dry. It's just everybody standing around the rebounder and one person throwing it and everybody going crazy for one ball and it just it's not great. So fourth grade learns fourth grade. Fifth grade learned chook ball, obviously, but third grade does the basic lead-up games so they get ready for the following year. Now, after that I'm kind of watching, I'm learning how they're they're playing and what they're doing. I'm watching strategies, I'm asking questions. So I'm trying to figure out who really understands the strategies and the gameplay of Chookball, especially in fifth grade.

Dave: 6:26

And then I do that around like the second quarter of the school year, basically before, like, let's say, november, december, before Christmas break. I get them learning Chookball and it takes a while because I have, you know, seven actually this year only six classes of fifth grade, so it takes over a week to see each class play it at least. Now this year I did get more Chuk Ball rebounders so I can play with more class at a time. But I was trying to watch one class at a time and so there were times when I had two classes playing simultaneously. So it's hard to watch everything. But the other coaches would play a different game with them. So it just takes a little while. It depends on your schedule.

Dave: 7:10

So during Christmas break I usually make teams. I take the rosters home with me, I print them out and I'll just start breaking up teams. I'll try to put you know the same amount of boys and girls on each team. I know it's not exactly going to work out perfectly, but I try to balance the teams out. In fifth grade. I know most of the kids by now. This is my third year at the school, so I really know unless they're newer or they're maybe a little more quieter or something. But for the most part I know the students, especially in fifth grade, so I can kind of balance the teams out so they're as fair as I can make them. I try not to stack teams. That's not fair of you know. All athletes or all kids that hate PE just are out there just trying to survive, unfortunately. But I try to balance the teams out as best I can and I do that usually with team shake. I'll put the teams in there and just kind of shake up the teams and see what comes out.

Dave: 8:03

Now, if that doesn't work, I've also just done it in pen and paper or pencil and paper and just started taking every name and just put them on four different. Four separate teams, because what I do is I make four teams per class because my average class size is in that mid to high twenties, as far far as fifth grade. So you're talking six or seven players per team, which is perfect. I've actually done before where I had three teams so there's like, but it ended up being like eight or nine on a team. That's just too many for chute ball. So I really think the way to go is about six or seven per team and that's how I started off.

Dave: 8:42

Again over christ, christmas break I made these teams. So when they come back from Christmas break I consider this the pre-season. I tell them their teams and they're excited about it. They want to know who's on their team and so I'll just call off okay, this class, here's your, here's team one, here's team two, here's team three, here's team four. And then I'll have them go do a walk and talk around the track and I go over and I've already gone over previously the jobs.

Dave: 9:08

So in sport education again, this isn't a sport education podcast. I'd be here a long time doing this and I do the best I can. I'm not I'm not a guru on sport education or shoot ball. I kind of do a hybrid, as far as I'm concerned, model that fits my students and my situation. I have four or five classes at a time, so I have to make this work for me and for our students. So the first thing is I go over all the jobs. Now again, I go more in depth with all these things in other podcasts and in the um, the course I have in my, in the episode notes.

Dave: 9:44

So the jobs, um, I'll name some of them. There's captain, co-captain, equipment manager, fitness trainer, photographer, timekeeper, scorekeeper, um, and sub. I think those are the main ones Now, if I think I just named about eight. So if they only have six, uh, students, they have up to two jobs, but everybody's got to have at least one job. And, oh, referee, that's a big one we got to. Every team has to have a referee. So I mean I just I think I just said now about nine jobs, so you can have more than one job, but they can't conflict with each other. So you can be a captain and a referee, but you can't be a referee and a photographer, because I have students taking pictures of the games and referees on the court roughing the other game. So that can't, it can't work that way. But there are some jobs that do go hand in hand or could again captain and fitness trainer, because the fitness trainer just does the warmups with them, they get them ready to play, and other jobs might work as well, like equipment manager, just sets up and cleans up, so they can be a referee as well or something, or captain.

Dave: 10:47

And they talk about these jobs and honestly, it's been pretty good. I know it's crazy to think that six or seven kids might agree on these jobs, but they usually do and they usually get it right. A captain, I tell them, you know, has to take charge. They have to make sure the team's on time, they're doing their jobs, all sorts of things. If there's a problem they come to one of the coaches. Usually they pick really good captains and I tell them it's not a rock paper scissors situation here. You're not just like you're choosing as a team, you're voting as a team and most of them take it really seriously. There have been one or two times where I think the more dominant let's just say students that do cause little problems out at PE they seem to dominate the conversation and the kids are like afraid to say no and they become the captains and sometimes I'll give them a chance, but it usually doesn't work. So I make some changes if I have to, but I usually don't have to. It's been pretty good. So after that they after the walk and talk again.

Dave: 11:46

They talk about their, the jobs they want. They talk about their the team name and like a slogan or things like that and they come back around and they start working on the poster and we give them. You know, I just buy some posters about them in bulk off of Amazon or whatever Hobby Lobby and, um, I have a bunch of markers and pencil you know, colored pencils, things like that and they just start working on the posters and they've they've done a really good job. Some of the posters are amazing. If you've seen me post some like the best one I've ever had has actually been this year of Spider-Man. That's the, that's the team and they actually won the whole thing the, the girl who did the artwork and, yes, she traced a ton of it, but it was amazing the poster and she had the jobs uh, lined up in the buildings and things like that of spider-man jumping on them and there it was. It was just awesome.

Dave: 12:38

But there's been some really creative and really good names. Um, I actually had the guidance counselor say, well, shouldn't you just give them the names like so they don't do anything you know inappropriate or whatever, and know like the lions and the bears and the tigers and whatever? And I said, well, but that stifles their creativity. They've come up with some really cool names and you know, I appreciate that the kids take more pride in that as well, and they come up with a slogan too, like we will bite you. I think was the Cobras last year, or something like that. You know, just really neat kind of stuff, that that I like.

Dave: 13:12

And I give them this. This is their first set of points. Their poster is a first set of points and there's like a rubric I give them that they have to have certain things on there. Again, this is I'm not, I can't go into super detail or this podcast can be really really long, but they have to. That's the first set of points and there's a four point system which they have to. That's the first set of points and there's a four point system which I'll talk about in just a moment. And this is the first set of points. And they have to have, you know, the jobs on there, the colored nicely. It's not an art project, I tell them, but it's got to be nice and neat because we put it up in the cafeteria. I put up all the posters in the cafeteria and it's just a really cool display because all the kids go in. Even the little kids are like oh, I want, of course, they're all rooting for Spider-Man and other teams as well. So it's just a really neat thing for them to come together and make a poster.

Dave: 13:59

Now let me get to the the point system, because during this time we play first. First they play just just games, just play a couple of games amongst themselves, just play, play, play and get used to their team and how they play and who's good at this position, who's good at this position, who's better at slamming the ball and who's better at kind of catching it out in the middle of court, things like that. Now some of them just dominate and I tell them they can't do that because that's part of the point system. But I will let them play a couple preseason games. It just that because that's part of the point system. But I will let them play a couple of preseason games. Just doesn't even count, but during that time.

Dave: 14:33

So here's the sport. I had part of it. Let's say, teams one and two are playing and, by the way, I give them a schedule each day, like on Tuesdays these teams play, on Wednesdays these teams play, but everybody plays. Per day it's a 40-minute class, so we do a little warm-up on the pavilion and then I let them go. Now I and I have two classes by myself at a time playing shoot ball. So let's say, teams one and two play on Monday and then three and four play the second game. So one and two are playing Okay, they're playing the game and at that time three and four are doing the jobs. So if you're on team three and four and you're a time keeper or scorekeeper or referee, you're doing your job. And some students it took a little while for them to understand that they're like well, if I'm a referee, how am I going to play the game? It's like, no, you're not playing when you're roughing. You're roughing the game, you're not playing and you're playing with your team. So all these things have to be talked about so they understand that you're doing your job when you're not playing, and then the other time you're playing. So that is part of the sport education model.

Dave: 15:38

Okay, as far as the point system goes, I do what's called WASP. Now, I made this up, actually my parent and I made this up. They get up to four points per day, and that's not during the preseason, that's during the I guess, the regular season. Four points they get one for the w is win or tie. If you win or tie, you get a point, but that's it. That's the rest of it has to do with your other stuff, like you're and then like this a is attitude did. Did your team have a good attitude? Was your team yelling at the referee? Was? Was your team yelling at each other? Okay, they either get a point for that or don't. And I'll ask the referees and I'll also be monitoring back and forth both games at the same time. So it's hard sometimes for me to monitor everything, but I do ask them and most of them are pretty honest about, well, these kids were yelling at the referee and these two were constantly arguing with each other and things like that. These two were constantly arguing with each other and things like that. So you know, we'll see.

Dave: 16:32

The S is for sportsmanship. Did they say good game at the end? Were they being good sport if they won or lost? So again, that's a point right there. And P is one of the hardest ones. It's participation, because I'll go around and be like, okay, I haven't seen this girl, as usually a girl, not get the ball because the boys tend to dominate and, as usually a girl not get the ball because the boys tend to dominate. And that's just a generalization. I know and, by the way, I've had some amazing and a lot of amazing girls do great at this game, but the boys tend to dominate and sometimes don't pass to the girls.

Dave: 17:03

So I'll ask them did everybody get the ball at least a couple of times? And if the answer is no, they don't get a point for participation. So they can get up to four points a game. And then there are a lot of fours and threes, like if, if this team won but this team lost, that if you won you can get a four, if you lost the highest you get is a three. Now I don't want just fours and threes, because all that means is that somebody won and somebody lost. So I'm actually looking, I'm sometimes I'm pretty, pretty picky on these, these points, because I want there to be. You know, the rest of that has to be important the, the attitude, sportsmanship and participation. So after that we move into the. Well, that's part of the season. We just add up points and I'll do about 10. I'll do as many as I can. This year I think we did 10 total scores. So obviously the highest you can get is 40 points, and after that we move into the postseason. So we'll start the postseason by naming and I have a poster up all the time, they can look at it.

Dave: 18:06

There's usually a team that doesn't do very well at all, like they're yelling at each other, they're just not trying or they're not being cohesive or they're just. There's always one team that just fades, unfortunately. And yeah, there's some really good people on those teams, but it just it happens and stinks. But I always try to give them a good job. Then later on, maybe the final game, which we'll talk about in the next episode, but the usually there's two top teams, two or three top teams, and I'll give them the scenarios. Okay, this team you can't catch. They've have, they have almost all fours, but there's two teams fighting for the second spot because at the end the top two teams play each other for that class, for the class winner. So this whole time for a couple weeks it's actually more like a month they're just playing each other like their own class is just round robin in their class it's, and so they do get to play each team quite a bit and again, I try to get as many scores as I can. So they usually get about two scores a week. So, ok, maybe it was more than a month, but the poster does count as a point, as a score as well. So about nine games plus the poster, and the top two teams then face off and they know they're like okay, so-and-so's class, you're on Monday, you're going to play for the class championship, and then on Tuesday it's this class and on Wednesday and we get class winners from each, each of the six, in this case, classes.

Dave: 19:29

Now, somebody in a 16 bracket is not easy. Somebody gets a buy to actually two teams get a buy into the final four games. I base that off the regular season. Who has the most points? So the top two teams get a buy into the final four and then the other four classes kind of play each other, knock each other out. So then we have a Final Four game. Again, this is in the postseason. We're knocking teams out In the Final Four games.

Dave: 19:56

I make this a big deal. Everybody's watching. As far as the teams, again, if there's four classes out at PE, which that usually is, at least this year at a time, let's say, class A and Class B are playing for the class championship. Well, class C and class D are watching and, yeah, they can walk on the track and I'll have them do a couple of things just to keep moving, but they can watch and get them in that you know atmosphere of wow, there's a lot of people watching me and cheering me on and and things like that, or cheering against, against maybe our class, but for the other team, just getting used to people watching because that the final game is like you know that times well, doubled at least, so down we get it down to two teams Again. These two final four games are really important and the kids really get like excited about it and they're really. They really care about it for the most part, and the worst part, honestly, is seeing tears, which it happens, you know.

Dave: 20:52

We talk about good sportsmanship, we talk about people's feelings during the whole tournament and how you know winning and losing with grace is the most important thing and again, it's okay to be happy. I always say that it's okay to be happy if you win. It's just not okay to make the other team feel bad by throwing in their face or saying anything you know disparaging to them, especially after they just lost and they're upset. And I do tell them also if something happens in the classroom or at lunch or something and people are not being kind, then I'll you know that team will be disqualified or that team will get you know some negative points or whatever. But during the postseason, it's just a knockout round. There's no more points. There's no more points, there's no more wasp. It's you win, you keep going and you lose, you're out and look, I feel bad doing this sometimes because we don't do this a lot, though.

Dave: 21:41

I feel bad knocking teams out. I feel bad because there are some hurt feelings, but we can't do this. I can't get down to the final two teams unless we knock teams out. I can't get down to the final two teams unless we knock teams out. And besides, our kickball tournament which we just finished, by the way, today we knock teams out there too, because the winning class is playing against the teachers and the staff on the final day, which, by the time you hear this, will be done, but still, in a couple of days, the staff is playing against the team that just won, the fifth grade team. So those are the only two times I knock teams out, and I don't want to hurt feelings, but sometimes it happens and I don't want to keep talking about this. But, um, you know that it's a reality, all right. So we get down to two teams and usually I give myself a week to get people prepared for it, so I don't have it like the next day because we do a job, sign up and things like that, which I'll talk about in the next episode.

Dave: 22:36

This one's gone a little longer than I thought, so I'll do the final game. I'll talk about all that stuff in the next episode, but if you have any questions, reach out to me and you know, if you want to take a look at the course, I lowered it to make sure it's affordable for everybody, and that goes step by step. It's a video of everything I do in the sport education unit, with the jukeball game and the teams and everything like that. So if you have any questions, again, reach out to me and I'm not going to do a cobble tip of the day. I think it's just time to go. It's a longer episode for me. So thank you as always, pe Nation, for everything. You are amazing, you're awesome and I appreciate you just tuning in. So have a great day, week, weekend, whenever you listen to this and let's keep pushing our profession forward. Thank you.