| This is an idea
that we originally found on PE
Central. It looked like a good idea to try. As it turned out,
it was FANTASTIC! The premise of the idea is that for every set
amount of time that your students exercise, they earn a paper sneaker
that gets taped onto the gym wall.
We decided to tell our kids that for every 30 minutes that they
were involved in some sort of exercise that was outside of the school
day, they would earn one of the paper sneakers. If they were doing
something that was longer than one half of an hour, (at 30-minute
intervals) they would earn more sneakers.
When the kids completed the activity, they came to us and told
us how many they needed. They took those home, colored them in,
labeled them with whatever activity they did and had their parents
sign the back. We didn't accept anything that didn't have the parents'
signature on it.
The activity could be almost everything. It could be dance class,
youth basketball practice, playing outside after school, or shoveling
the driveway. We tell them that anything counts as long as the activity
gets their heart going fast.
We had a few hundred of these paper sneakers printed up, thinking
that was more than enough. Boy, were we wrong. Like most new things,
it started off slow. After a while it exploded! We happened to be
in a tumbling unit so the dividing door in the gym was open. We
ended up filling one of the end walls in the gym. The sneakers reached
from the floor to about 10 feet off the floor. We had to step on
a foam trapezoid that we had to reach the top. We actually started
to fill the adjoining side walls as well.
The kids were not the only ones that participated. My partner and
I added our sneakers daily. Other classroom teachers also joined
it. It was great to see so much interest, not only from the kids,
but from other teachers as well.
We purposely did this idea during the winter, because this time
of year is easy to just go home each day and curl up and wait for
spring. The Sneaker Wall did a great job by making others aware
of all of the activities that are available during the winter months.
It got some good conversations going about what each other was up
to.
Tom Winiecki
Elementary Section Editor
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| Winter
"Fun"derland Bulletin Board
This is a good idea for a bulletin board in the winter months.
It serves to make your students aware of all that there is to do
in the winter to stay active. Begin with a discussion of what there
is to do outside in the snow. I'm sure that your kids will come
up with plenty of ideas.
Next, ask your kids to all bring in a picture of themselves doing
something active during the winter. It can be outside or inside.
It doesn't matter! You will be pleasantly surprised with the responses.
You can even have the other teachers in the building submit a picture.
When the kids see other teachers valuing physical activity, the
whole idea becomes much more realistic to them. Once you have the
pictures, proudly display them on a bulletin board. The kids will
all be excited to see not only themselves up there, but their friends
(and teachers) too.
This will be a tremendous way for you to talk about all of the
opportunities available to your students and their families over
the winter. Who knows, you may actually inspire one of your quiet
students to try something new this weekend. That sure beats sitting
inside waiting for spring to arrive!
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| OUTDOOR FUN! (by webmaster) |
These just look WAY too good to pass up! Check
out these Treehouse
Books. If you want your kids to stay active, use their imagination,
and have fun, these ideas get kids outside and moving like we did
way back when. Also check out Tree
Houses You Can Actually Build: A Weekend Project Book, Rustic
Retreats: A Build-It-Yourself Guide, and Playhouses
You Can Build: Indoor and Backyard Designs. Give your kids some
of their 'own space' and watch them have fun!
Housebuilding
for Children: Step-by-Step Plans for Houses Children Can Build
Themselves. This book provides houses that kids can build themselves.
Has some good reviews, and keeps kids moving. Here are a bunch of
construction
books for kids. A fabulous list of ideas to go through for family
fun! I bookmarked it!
Don't
Hibernate! Some Ideas for Family Winter Outdoor Fun - This winter
season don't let your family hibernate inside. Why not put all that
fresh snow to good use? Bundle everyone up and participate in some
fun activities the whole family will enjoy. Here are some great
ideas.
Here
are some easy to follow directions for building a snow fort. Write
the directions
down and give them to your kids.
Avoid snow castles and sliding
by the roadside
We would like to remind
parents and their children to avoid building forts, tunnels, and
snow castles by the side of the road, as well as avoid letting them
slide or snowboard on snow mounds. This constitutes a real danger
for your kids. Motorists and snow removal trucks don't see your
kids and aren't always able to brake on time.
Furthermore, snow-clearing vehicles can
bury your kids into their castle without even having knowledge of
it! Instead, encourage your youngsters to play and build their snow
structures behind the house where their safety isn't compromised.
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Hi. My name is Luciana, and I teach Elementary PE in an
american school in Brazil. I'd like to know how many classes
PE teachers are used to teach a week. I teach 24 elementary
+ 2 high school a week. I'm feeling overwhelmed and I would
like to know if other PE teachers teach this amount of classes.
Please share in the forum. |
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| Does
your school have a paved area that is used for recess? Is the
snow plowed off of it into huge piles? If so, how about this idea.
Try to build a school wide snow fort. We have done this a few
times over the years. If the plowed up snow banks become pretty
compacted, it works much better. I went out in the morning and
broke up a huge snow bank into manageable (for the kids) sized
snow blocks. I just chopped them up with a square tipped spade
and scattered them around what used to be a snow pile.
As each grade level came out for recess,
they all worked on building a big snow fort. There were no plans,
just kids lifting and carrying big and small snow blocks building
a fort. When one grade finishes recess, the next grade comes out
for their recess time and picks off where the other grade left
off. You will be surprised with the imagination and sweat that
goes into a group project like this. You will end up with tunnels,
rooms of all size, stairs, slides, hallways and much more.
It's not only a great cooperative activity,
but a great physical activity as well. For those of us that have
to shovel heavy snow, you know how much of a work out it is. Well
now, your students are exerting that same energy, but not realizing
it. All they know is that they are designing and building a one-of-a
kind snow structure. It will go on as long as the weather cooperates.
After the fact is when you can teach
to this activity. Ask questions like, "Who helped to build
that huge snow fort at recess?" "Was it fun?" "Did
you work with other kids?" "How big were the snow blocks
that you carried?" "Were they heavy?" "What
muscles did you use to do all that work?" "What might
you be better at, now that you have exercised those muscles outside?"
"What exercises, or activities that we have done work the
same muscles that you used building the fort?"
Student answers to these questions will make the activity both
fun and meaningful to your students. Isn't that what you are working
for anyway? |
| MAKE SLEDDING AN EXERCISE |
| If your school
is anywhere where there is a lot of snow in the winter, this idea
may be for you. I am in Central New York, and we do get our fair
share (and sometimes much more) of snow. If you have ever experienced
"lake effect" snow, you know exactly what I mean.
Many kids use sleds in the winter at recess. Why not use them in
your physical education classes as well? Just add pedometers, and/or
heart rate monitors. If you don't have HRMs, it is easy to teach
the kids how to take their pulse manually.
If you use pedometers, see how many steps your kids take going
up and down the hill. Give them a goal to shoot for. Go half way
through a class and have them look at their step totals. Have them
reset the pedometers and try to get more steps in the last half
of class. Just watch them go! You could also get step totals from
your students, and either figure out the distance yourself, or if
they have the math skills, have them figure that out themselves.
Let's say that they covered 1.5 miles while going up and down the
hill. Then ask them this question, "If I would have told you
that we were going to run 1.5 miles today in class, what would be
the first thing that would have popped into your mind?" You
can probably guess what the response would have been. Now you have
shown them how covering that much distance can be fun to do. You
can integrate heart rates with this exercise as well. Whether they
wear heart rate monitors or not is immaterial. They can easily take
their pulse manually.
The class can begin with a discussion of a target heart rate range.
Once that is set up, the kids can monitor their heart rates while
they are sledding. One thing you can do is have them determine when
their heart rate is higher, going up the hill or going down. Would
they think that their pulse would be higher getting to the top of
a high hill, or a lower one?
That can be tied into the topic of aerobic endurance. If a student
really wants to be good at something where they have to last a long
time (mountain biking, rollerblading, skiing…), trying to
get to the top of a big hill would help their endurance more that
a smaller hill. Besides, the trip down the hill would be a faster
one too. It now makes heart rate more pertinent to each student.
You can see how long they stay within the target range, as well.
When they get tired after going up and down the hill a number of
times, is their heart still beating fast, even though they are slowing
down? These are all ways that you can apply what you teach day in
and day out to a practical activity for your kids.
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Starter
Activities - These adaptable classroom activities suggest various
approaches for introducing and/or extending learning on world health.
They are inspired by a conversation between Bill Moyers and Bill
Gates from the 5/9/03 NOW WITH BILL MOYERS broadcast. Five great
activities
are included at this site.
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What
we teach every day in our classes has obvious connections in our
students' lives. They don't always see that connection as clearly
as they could. Here is an idea that could help you to bridge that
gap. Try to make "New Year PE Resolutions."
All of the skills and concepts we teach
can sometimes turn into information overload if we are not careful.
These "resolutions" could make it easier for your kids
to see how your curriculum can have real meaning to them. It may
also make you more aware of all that you teach, and how you present
that to your students. You may begin to (if you don't do so already)
show those connections between your activities, and the kids'
lives outside of school more than you previously have.
Something as simple as relating the
muscles that are used when you do push ups (triceps) to a game
or sport that is popular with them (throwing a ball, swinging
a bat, holding a handstand, doing a cartwheel…), this can
easily be done.
This can be a class activity, or one
to do as an individuals. That is up to you. When each student
gets involved, they can work to understand that connection to
your skills, concepts to what they want to do, or what they want
to do better.
Lets go back to push ups. They are
always tough to do correctly for elementary kids. Let's say that
a student says they are determined to get stronger arms to "hit
more homeruns" in the spring. In your instruction on exercises
like push ups, you can make that connection for them. You could
say something like, "Your triceps extend your arm.
What exercise can you think of that makes your arm go straight?"
(You could demonstrate that motion for them) Invariably someone
will come up with push ups.
Now is the time to present this difficult
exercise in a way that everyone can do it. Tell them that it doesn't
matter if they go on their knees, or toes, as long as the only
things that bend are your elbows. Also make the point that the
slower they do the exercise, the faster they will get stronger.
This allows all of your kids to pick a level of intensity.
Now, back to that student that is determined
to get stronger arms to be a better hitter on the baseball field.
Throughout the rest of the year, make it a point to encourage
them when they do push ups, or any other upper body work. Saying
things like "I like how you are really concentrating on staying
straight for your push ups. You are bound to get stronger doing
it that way. I can’t wait to see you swing a bat this spring!"
This would go a long way toward motivating that student to continue
to work toward their resolution.
 When you introduce, or reinforce jump
rope skills, you can easily tie in how jumping rope increases
their endurance, as well as their agility and balance. Have them
come up with activities that depend on good endurance, agility,
and balance. I'm sure that they will come up with quite a long
list. Now, tie those activities to their resolutions. Say, one
of your students resolves to be better at playing tag at recess.
They say that they always get caught right away, or they always
seem to tire out sooner than their friends. Here is the connection
to jump ropes.
They can improve their endurance (last
longer) and agility (by changing directions easier to avoid getting
caught) with the jump rope. Again, when you bring the ropes out
(or do any other type of aerobic activity), make sure to make
it a point to show them that you are noticing all of their hard
work with the ropes, especially on those moves that take more
than a few minutes to master. You are not only teaching the specific
jump rope skill, as well as tying it into their resolution; you
are also teaching perseverance.
Put them in a position to see that
all of their practice can, and will pay off. Every time that a
student comes up to me to tell me that they can now do something,
I always try to respond by saying "See, your practice pays
off!" You can also connect their resolution and hard work
by directly stating to them, "I bet you will be harder to
catch now. You will have to tell me how it went at recess today."
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Study:
Obese Kids Have Hardened Arteries. But exercise - if kept
up - can undo damage to blood vessels, researchers say.
(WebMD)
Obese 14-year-olds already have hardening of the arteries, an
early warning of heart disease risk. That finding comes from German
researchers looking deep into the Pandora's box of childhood obesity.
The latest bad news is that by the time they reach their teens,
obese children's blood vessels already are hardening on the outside
and thickening on the inside. Find out more.
Exercise
Should Be Fun For Kids - Len Saunders provides some good info
on motivating kids to move, and check out the other great links
on the right, such as teaching
kids about calories, sleep
is important, drink
water, and more.
State
Differences in Rates of Overweight or Obese Youth - this is
information from a 2003 National Survey of Children's Health.
It show the differences among the states in regard to how fat
our kids are. From Kids
Count.
A
New Problem for Obese Children: Bowel Control - Obese children
seem to be more likely to experience constipation and lack of
bowel control. Find out more. |
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