Introduction

The Feet in the Gym depicts a day in the life of an elementary- school custodian. We see Bob attempt to keep the gymnasium floor spotless as all kinds of children (doing all kinds of things!) track their messy footprints all over it. This rhyming story offers a look at a busy school and at a busy man who takes pride in his work.

Critical Thinking Questions

Knowledge: Who works at your school? What job do they do?

Comprehension: Why is each of these jobs important?

Application: If you worked in the school, what job would you want to do?

Analysis: What kinds of things might you need to know in order to do the different jobs at your school? What kinds of equipment do you think you would need?

Synthesis: What can you do to help people who work in your school?

Evaluation: What do you think it means to take pride in your work? How do you do the best job you can do?

Related Concepts

Themes/General Impressions

• Consideration for others
• Pride in your work
• School life

The Feet in the Gym offers a lighthearted look at a school custodian's day, but it can also provide a context for discussing such topics as pride in one's work, consideration for others, and the daily life of a school.

"Handy Bob" is someone who takes his work seriously and takes pride on the results. He knows that his job matters and he tries to do it well, despite the difficulties he faces. Talk with the students about what it means to do a job well. What do they think this means? Discuss specific jobs--for instance, what do students think it means to be a good dancer? A good president? Talk with students about the practical requirements of these jobs, as well as the kind of interest and/or talents one might need on order to do them. Each job has its own special requirements, yet the concept of "quality" is applicable to all.

It's easy to speak in platitudes about "doing ones best," and students may already have heard these but as they look carefully at a diverse group of occupations, the idea of "doing one's best" becomes less abstract, more relevant to their lives. It may help students to develop a more immediate sense of what it means to do good work if they can connect it to the concept that people in a community have an impact on each other's well-being.

Students think about the "life" of Lakeside School and compare it to the life of their own school. School is a lesson in community, in how groups of people do jobs (as teachers, custodians, administrators, etc.) That are different, yet interrelated. Each job has its won importance--each person has his or her own role to play within the school structure in order to make it run successfully. Being a student can itself be considered a job.

An important element of a successful community is respect and consideration for others. How do we demonstrate respect? What does it mean to be considerate? Talk about daily life in your school. How can we make life a little bit better for each other? Students can suggest different ways in which they might help each other. Talk about how they can show their appreciation for the jobs that people do.

For Discussion

What kinds of clubs or groups are there in our school? Why are these activities important? What kinds of things do we learn from them?

Different kinds of activities can require different kinds of shoes. Think about the different things you do. What kinds of special clothes or shoes do you wear when you do them?

What kind of jobs do you want to do when you grow up? How will you prepare yourself to do them?

Vocabulary

Selected Vocabulary Words and Phrases

amble	grime	shimmers
brownies	grit	shuffling
cleat	gym	slide trombone
clog	handle	slime
crumby	knobs	specks
curling	light bulbs	spy
dab	lose my wits	strum
delay	mass	suds
douse	planks	swab
figure	plop	swiftly
eights	polka dots	swirling
fling	pride	Swiss cheese
footprints	rainbow	tattered
freeze with fright	rinsing	troupe
galore	sandal
glints	scrape

Independent Learning

To help facilitate independent study, we have provided a starting list of ideas as well as Special Project Planning Sheets to help children get started. Some areas of interest may include the following:

• My Special Learning Project Web
• My Special Project Panning Sheet

Some Independent Learning Topics

1. Shoes
2. Footprints
3. Careers
4. The things we do with our feet
5. Tools used by custodian
6. Sharing: collect shoes for those in need
7. Dance/ Choreography

Interdisciplinary Activities

1. The Feet in Your School

a. Talk to students about how things come in groups. Have students pair up--how many feet are there in a "pair?" How many pairs of feet are there in a group of two students? How many pairs of feet are there in the class? (And how many individual feet are there in the classroom?

b. Post pairs of students in different locations around the school and assign them to count the number of feet that pass during a five-or-ten- minute period. Students may survey different classes: how many kids per class, and how many feet? IRA/NCTE Standards: 4,7

2. Fingerprint Study

As a class, do studies of fingerprints: their individuality, their usefulness as a means of identification, etc. Learn to identify some different elements of a fingerprint (loop, whorls) and discuss how each person's fingerprints are unique. Students can be "fingerprinted" and compare their prints with their classmates'. ELA Standards: 7,12

3. Messy Footprints

a. This activity should occur outside so that cleanup is simplified and students can be hosed down afterward! Fill a series of dishpans with mud, damp sand, tempera, or other substances. Students take turns stepping into each pan and then putting their footprints on a giant roll of paper. Compare the look and texture of their prints, depending on what they've stepped in, and what different patterns they've created.

b. Homework: Have students collect the footprints of pets and/or family members. Bring in prints and classify them (according to type of pet, type of family member, etc.) Create a chart on a bulletin board illustrating the different classifications. Tape or tack the footprints onto it. ELA Standards: 4,7

4. Shoe Chart

a. Have the class examine its shoes. Classify shoes according to type (athletic vs. street, or work vs. play, by season etc.) and create a big graph illustrating how many of each type of shoe can be found in the classroom. Students can then make a list of the different types of shoes they own and add them to the graph.

b. Using crayon, students can make rubbings of the soles of their shoes. Compare and contrast the different patterns you find. Do shoes used for certain purposes have similar soles? IRA/CTE Standards: 4,7

6. Move This Way

a. As a class, make a list of the action words found in Feet and then act them out (shuffle, march, strum, spy, swing, fling, dip, poke, pierce, rush, slide, scrub, sweep, glide, swab, wipe, wash, shine, dust, bend, mop, search). For younger children, it may be fun to turn each word into a variation on the Row, Row, Row, your Boat song, as children move. Example:

• Sweep, sweep, sweep the floor/ gently as we sing/ merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily/ this is how we clean.
• Scrub, scrub, scrub the doors…
• Wash, wash, wash, the walls…
• Swing, swing, swing the mop…
• Mop, mop, mop the mess…
• Poke, poke, poke your toe…
• Fling, fling, fling the crumbs…
• Strum, strum, strum and hum…
• March, march, march along…
• Blot, blot, blot, the dot…
• Walk, walk, walk away…

b. For older students, this activity may be transformed into a game of charades, with each student (or pair) drawing a "secret" action word from the book (the teacher can write action words on slips of paper and put them into a basket or hat from which students can draw). Students act out their words for the class, in hopes that classmates will "guess my verb." IRA/NCTE Standards: 3,4,12

7. Foot Words

a. Older students can use their list of action words from Feet as the basis for a writing exercise by choosing three or four and using them in a paragraph.

b. As a class, identify some different types of words from Feet and in other recently read books--onomatopoeia, comparison words, similes, metaphors, etc. Have students chose one or two of these from around which they can develop short writing assignments. IRA/NCTE Standards: 3,4

8. Tribute to the Custodian

a. Interview the school custodian(s). Find out what they like and dislike about their jobs. What were the best/worst things that have happened to them? What were the biggest messes they ever had to clean up? (As a class or as a group) come up with a list of questions and invite the custodian(s) in for an interview, with the class as the audience. IRA/NCTE Standards: 3,4,5,12

Extended Reading Opportunities

(Note: Preview materials before sharing them with students.)

Books

1. Agell, Charlotte. Dancing Feet
2. Girotti, Euginia. Footwear
3. Hutchins, Pat. Rosies's Walk
4. John, Light. Odd Jobs
5. Keats. The Snowy Day
6. Nobisso, Josephine. Hot-Cha-Cha!
7. Park, Barbara. Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus.
8. Seuss, Dr. The Foot Book
9. Walker, Niki and Bobbie Kalman. Community Helpers From A to Z

Web Sites

1. What Do They Do?
   http://www.webquarry.com/~lgfd/
   "Learn about what people do at work and how they make our world a better place."
2. American Ballet Theatre's Online Dictionary
   http://www.abt.org/dictionary/
   Offers a list of 170 ballet terms (adagio, battement, etc.) illustrated/performed by members of ABT in Quick Time movies.
3. Foot and Shoe Facts! (Bata Shoe Museum)
   http://www.mtarch.com/bsmfacts.html
   For teachers, little-known (and often odd) facts about feet and shoes brought to you by Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum. Many of these will fascinate students.

Museums

1. Bata Shoe Museum
   327 Bloor Street W. Toronto M5S
   1W7 Ontario, Canada
   (416) 979-779
   www.batashoemuseum.ca/
   Located in Toronto, This award-winning museum offers a comprehensive look at the history of footwear, including ancient Egyptian and Roman shoes, medieval boots, 18th-century French dancing pumps, children's shoes and celebrity foot wear.
2. The TUSPM Shoe Museum
   Temple University School of Podiatric Medicine
   Temple University Philadelphia, PA
   (215) 625-5243
   www.pcpm.edu/shoemus.htm
   This small museum owns about 800 pairs of shoes, many of which are on display to visitors. The focus is on the 19th and 20th-century footwear. Among the shoes in this collection are ballet slippers, the shoes of a circus giant, shoes belonging to celebrities and U.S. presidents, and a pair of iron diving boots. Visitors can also look at many other examples of shoes of different cultures(and time periods) as well as those made for special purposes.

Foot Phrases

Compiled by Mrs. Ziccardi's 5th Grade class
Berry Hill Elementary School, Syosset, New York

These phrases are known as idioms, which are expressions with hidden meanings. How many idioms heave you heard?

“Put a sock in it.”	Be quiet.
“Jump in with both feet.”	Take a chance.
“He put a foot in his mouth.”	He insulted someone.
“He has two left feet.”	He can’t dance.
“Put on your dancing shoes.”	Get ready.
“He has one foot in the door.”	He has an “in” or a head start.
“She is flat footed.”	She is slow.
“She has eagle feet.”	She is fast.
“She knocked my socks off.”	She impressed me.
“Get your feet wet.”	Try something out.
“Put one foot in front of the other.”	Start slow and try.
“I’m shaking in my boots.”	Scared to death.
“Step on it.”	Get moving.
“Keep your socks on.”	Be patient.
“Keep your feet on the ground.”	Be careful, think.
“Getting the boot.”	Getting kicked out, fired.
“Jump off a cliff.”	Get lost
“Stop dragging your feet.”	Hurry up.

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