The ABCD's of Physical Education

I remember an instructor in my undergraduate degree led us on an hour-long hike with a giant moose antler on his pack. He never referred to it, but everyone knew it was there. It was a mild distraction at the beginning of the hike but eventually we could see that it would have great significance to the lessons that were being taught that afternoon. As the lesson was wrapping up we could easily find the answers all had to do with the giant moose antler he'd been carrying that day.

Every time our students at PHS walk into our gymnasium they are often caught gazing up at the words, 'The ABCD's of Phys Ed' above our doors. Little do they know (unless they have begun to read this blog) that these words are a giant moose antler being carried from lesson-to-lesson, ever so visible and soon to carry a lot of meaning.

Alberta Education has set a small list of General Outcomes for the Physical Education program - simply stated, the ABCD's of Phys Ed. It's these outcomes that our students walk by everyday.

Activity

Students will have an opportunity to develop skills through various activities that are relative to their age. It's here that we set the foundations of movement for our students and teach them to draw upon their 'toolbox' of skills participating with confidence and competence in games and activities.

Benefits Health

We all know that being active has health benefits, though this is something that we might take for granted. Likely few of us reading this can actually identify a point in time when we learned the relationship between health and activity. Imaging if we could say that this is a concept we were very familiar with in Kindergarten or Grade 1? Now imagine the impact this early knowledge could have on the lives of children.

Cooperation

One of the hardest skills for many young children to learn is how to interact positively with others. My belief is that if we can provide a variety of situations, a variety of partners and a variety of circumstances for activity we can foster and develop an understanding of positive social interactions. Sure, we ask children all the time to 'get along' or to 'take turns', but unless this is experienced through explicit instruction it can easily be misunderstood.

Do it Daily ... for Life!

It is important to understanding that the common definition of literacy (reading, writing, speaking and listening) is starting to expand. Physical Literacy is the ability for someone to move with confidence and competence in a variety of activities. As a child if we don't develop the skills to throw we will likely not participate in activities that involve throwing. The same can be said for running, catching, swimming and the like. Being able to perform a variety of basic skills as a child will increase our likelihood of being active as we grow older. When is there a better age to instill a love for an active and healthy lifestyle!

Thanks for reading!

-CFM

School-wide Literacy and Phys Ed

For some time now I've wanted to increase the amount of cross curricular learning that occurs in the gym. I've always done my best to incorporate what is happening in the student's homeroom into the lessons they are a part of in Phys Ed. Until now, I've never really found a way to incorporate language arts.

During the first few days of school this year our staff had an opportunity to take part in a Literacy Map inservice put on by two of our colleagues. I've had the opportunity to learn about Literacy Map in the past, actually taught it myself for two years, but have never learned as much as I did in that short session, and this got me thinking ...

... I bet I could find a way to incorporate our school-wide literacy program into what is happening in Phys Ed.

I figured if I took the key words of what I was teaching the students (Fundamental Movement Skills), put them in a prominent spot in our school (in this case as you line up to enter the gym), and use the Literacy Map markings I could increase understanding of not only the words and how they can be spelled, but also increase the students understanding of them in general.

It seems to be working. For the past week I've been asking students if they could remember the Fundamental Movement Skills they have learned the previous day (and throughout the week) and most students were able to recall this information and explain the learning activity that accompanied the movement. It was really interesting to see students who would look in the direction of this bulletin board (from inside the gym the words are not visible) and then could easily remember each skill.

My plan is to continue to support the Literacy Map program and other school-wide and classroom specific initiatives within Phys Ed. The next step in all this is to see how this knowledge, and specifically the grapheme markings, transfer into each student's homeroom.

Until then, thanks for reading!

FitKIDS is back at PHS!

FitKIDS is back at Panorama HIlls School!

Let's face it, after a good workout, a walk at lunch or playing outside after work with our children we often feel refreshed, more focused and ready to take on the next project. This isn't only a feeling an adult gets. Many children can benefit from some extra activity to stay focused in their classrooms, have better social interactions and build their self-esteme.

FitKIDS is inspired by SPARK, Ignite! and CrossFit Kids, three world renowned programs that seen benefits of physical activity before, or coupled with, learning. At PHS our FitKIDS programs will be taking concepts of each and putting them together into a brief 20-30 minute lesson to help set up our students for success.

The general thought is that some students could benefit from some extra activity prior to learning. Now when we say learning we are not discounting the tremendous amounts of learning that occur in Physical Education classes, but rather, the day-to-day learning that occurs in a student's regular classroom.

Stay tuned as we share the excitement of FitKIDS with our PHS community.

Recess Activities at Panorama Hills School

Over the next six days students will have an opportunity to learn and play two age-old recess games - Wall Ball and Four Square. Requiring limited equipment, these two games can be played almost anywhere with just a ball and a few friends.

Both games will continue to develop the fundamental movement skills of our students while working on aspects of team work, cooperation and fair play.

In the coming days, ask your child about their experience with these games. Do their experiences relate to the ones you had as a child? Years separate us in age, but perhaps the memories we had of playing these games will be reflected in the experiences the our students will share with us.

Our goal of focusing on Physical Literacy, and its development of fundamental movements skills, is to encourage life-long activity. The more proficient we are at these skills, running, hopping, throwing, etc., the more likely we are to participate in activities as we grow older. As we explicitly teach the rules of these games in the coming days along with new fundamental skills and modifications for various ages groups we hope to see these activities adopted into the play of our students at recess and during their free time.

PHS - Physical Literacy

Photo: Canadian Sport of Life

Over the next six days students of Panorama Hills School will be introduced to a variety of FUNdamental movement skills, also know as 'locomotor' and 'non-locomotor' movement skills.

- Locomotor skills are movements we do when our feet move our bodies from one place to another place. 

- Non-Locomotor skills are movements we do when we move in one place and usually not move our feet.

Can you think of a 'locomotor' or a 'non-locomotor' movement? Think about activities we've played outside? Or in the gym?

There is a growing trend encouraging families to place importance on a child's ability to be physically literate. We are becoming more aware that the ability to run, catch and throw with some confidence will encourage further participating in physical activities. Similar to reading, writing, listening and speaking (traditional components of being literate), physical literacy is one's ability to move with confidence and copentency in a wide variety of environments (PHE Canada, www.phecanada.ca) . As adults we may have encountered situations where we lacked certain physical skills precluding us from participating in an activity - perhaps we were never taught them or maybe we never felt confident. 

 

At PHS we endeavor to provide students opportunities to develop fundamental skills to become physically literate and to have confidence to tackle physical challenges when faced with them in our daily lives. 

In the next while, we'll do just that! After all, our goal is to set children up for success in their life and to live an Active Life.

Back to School ... oh, and a first post!

It's Labour Day Long Weekend and that means students are back to school on Tuesday (at least students who attend CBE Traditional Calendar Schools) and teachers have been back for a few days now. My emotions are somewhat mixed at the moment after spending my summer break with my wife and 11 month old daughter, however I am excited to be back to work and preparing to tackle many projects.

This year will mark the beginning of my second year teaching Phys Ed and I couldn't be more happy about this unique opportunity. For those that don't know Panorama Hills School, we are a community school in our 5th year of a growing population of nearly 650 students. As the only Physical Education Specialist at our school I have the opportunity to teach and interact with a very large population of students and staff.

Over the course of the year I hope that I can blog about the great bunch of students and staff we have at PHS and their journey in Phys Ed.

Stay tuned for more to come!

-CFM