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Ryan Cherry » Mr. Cherry Bio

Mr. Cherry Bio

Ryan Cherry is from Brooklyn, Michigan and attended Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. He is a highly qualified educator who spent the last 15 years working in various educational settings around the Midwest.  After seeing his high school soccer coach be an influential role model in the lives of his elementary students, he studied elementary education in college as he sought to also positively impact the lives of students. This is his 8th year at Decatur. He did his student teaching in 5th grade at Cleveland School in Chicago.  He taught Language Arts and Math in a 5th grade classroom in Brookfield, IL,  all subjects in a 4th through 6th grade room at a public Montessori school in Indiana and at Hibbard Elementary in CPS before coming to Decatur in 2017.

Mr. Cherry is inquisitive and curious about the people and world around him. He enjoys reading as it a great avenue to better understand people and our world. He agrees with Dr. Seuss that "the more you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go." Mr. Cherry is filled with immense excitement about the chance to teach physical education, as it combines his passion for physical activity and sports with the joy of engaging with students and supporting them enthusiastically. He is fascinated by neuroscience and its intersection with physical activity and is grateful for the chance to have students four days each week to encourage their physical activity.

 

He is passionate about seeing students gain confidence in their abilities to be successful in both the classroom and the world and become well rounded individuals who care for others as they care for themselves.  In his free time, Mr. Cherry enjoys playing sports, spending time with friends and family and enjoying a delicious slice of pie with some strong coffee.

 
 

Posts

Sept 16-20, 2024
 
All classes competed in the school wide Fastest Class in the school challenge where each class work together to complete the most laps possible in 5 minutes. It is normed by the number of laps being divided by the number of kids. The 4th grade class was this fall's winners! Congrats to the 4th graders and Ms. Petropoulos! 

Primary Soccer Dribbling

Students practiced a variety of dribbling moves to fine tune their dribbling skills in our soccer unit.
Sept 9-13
 
Students throughout the school completed the Pacer Test where they run as many laps as they can without stopping, adapting to the pace speeding up as it goes on. We talked about goal setting and brainstormed ideas to help us do better when we attempt it again in the spring.
We have a parents soccer night this fall to take advantage of our great turf space and get to know other soccer fans! Come out and join us for our next parent sports event.

Dead Ants Game Sept 3-6

Intermediate students learned a collaborative tag game called Dead Ants where students work together to rescue any "dead ants" by jointly carrying them from the place they were frozen to a hula hoop.

Hula Hut Relays August 26-30

We started the school year doing a series of team building activities where students had to use hula hoops to complete a series of challenges around building hula huts out of the hoops.
We wrapped up our March Madness school tournament for grades 4-8th and Harrison Machemer won the Women’s NCAA Tournament bracket and Troy Gonzalez won the Men’s NCAA tournament bracket for our school. Check out the photo with them and their trophies. Congrats!

April 1-5, 2024 Jr. High Rugby Unit

Jr High students continued their rugby unit by playing a series of rugby build up games and learning about the line out part of the game. Students played games like monkey in the middle, partner score, and rugby tag. Students are using flags instead of being tackled. They learned about different plays to run out of a line out and how to throw a line out pass.

March 11-15, 2024 Pi Day Relays

Students celebrated Pi Day with races around finding the first 7 digits of Pi using uno cards and a relay format.

March 4-8 Team Building Challenges

Students engaged in several team building games called Cross the River and Reverse Centipede. In Cross the River teams had to use 2 fewer poly spots than people on their team to get across the gym from one side to the other. In Reverse centipede students had to hold up a mat with their feet and move the mat across the gym without letting it touch the ground. Groups were timed to see who could make it across in the least amount of time.

March 4-8 Primary Jump Rope Unit

Students started the unit with jumping over a stationary rope to practice the footwork in some of the basic tricks to help ease students into jumping rope.

Chinese New Year Performance Feb 2024

On Thursday primary students had the amazing opportunity to watch in the gym a live Chinese New Year Performance complete with twirling dragon flags. The kids loved trying out these flags after the presentation.
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Name
Ryan Cherry
Position
Physical Education
Email
rrcherry@cps.edu