December Daily Observances

International Day for People with Disabilities (3rd in Australia, 5th elsewhere)

Physical education is uniquely positioned as a content area to teach and reinforce what it is like to live with a disability. Ideas for this day include:

• Play or practice various sports (e.g., basketball, football) using only one arm (simulates amputee) or require that students use their non-dominant hand (simulates neurological and muscular impairments or atrophy).
• Play or practice court games (e.g., modified racket sports with balloons and miniaturized courts; volleyball) on scooters (simulate paraplegia).
• Play HVL (hearing impaired, visually impaired, linguistically impaired). Requires students to group in threes; one wears a blindfold but can hear and speak, one can't speak but can hear and see, and one wears ear stopples and can't hear but can see and speak. Trios negotiate an obstacle course by working together and using the senses they do have to provide information to themselves and partners. Rotate roles over various obstacle courses.

You can evaluate the lesson's effectiveness by finishing class with a quick write in which students in a single paragraph describe what it felt like to be limited and how their physical activity life might have to be altered to accommodate a disability.

Nobel Prize Awards Day (10th)

This is the day Nobel Prizes are actually handed out in Sweden. A prize of approximately $1.3 million is awarded to up to three persons in each prize category. There are Nobel prizes for peace, medicine, physics, economics, chemistry, etc. but none for physical education. Previous awardees have invented the MRI and discovered the structure of DNA. Lead a discussion during warmup or cooldown using the following cues. If there were a Nobel Prize for physical education, what would someone have to do to deserve it?

Bill of Rights Day (15th)

The Bill of Rights embodies the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, was passed in 1791, and guarantees Americans rights such as freedom of religion and speech (Amendment I) and a jury trial (Amendment VI). In honor of these freedoms and as a cross-disciplinary link to civics and social studies, students can draft - either individually or as a class - a physical education Bill of Rights. State and national standards can inform the process and the Bill can be posted in the gymnasium on this day. To celebrate, activities that uphold the Bill's clauses can be delivered (i.e., I will not have to wait in lines for turns; I have a right to have my own piece of equipment).

Winter Solstice (21st)

In the Northern Hemisphere, this day is the shortest of the year. With fewer daylight hours and colder temperatures, this time of year often marks the beginning of physical activity hibernation for the winter. To combat this mindset, moderate-to-vigorous physical activities can be provided and timed for the entire class with a goal of accruing more time in activity than daylight hours. For example, provide a variety of physical activity stations such as jump rope, power walk/jog, stair stepping with musical accompaniment. For motivation, have students partner up, give each pair a stopwatch, and have them time how long they are active during the lesson. Each pair will report their accumulated time and the class overall time will be tallied to determine how close it comes to exceeding the amount of daylight time. During closure or at the next lesson, share results and check students' understanding that perhaps even collectively they could not exceed the amount of daylight and as such should be able to continue to accumulate sufficient physical activity over the winter.

Kwanzaa (begins on 26th for 7 days)

Created in 1966 by Dr. Maulena Karenga for African-Americans to reconnect with their ancestral roots in West Africa, this 7-day festival has gained recognition over the years outside African-American community circles. For example, the US Postal Service issues a Kwanzaa stamp each year; commercial greeting cards are available, etc. The holiday is centered around the Nguzo Saba (Seven Principles in Swahili), which are: Umoja (Unity), Kajchagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperation), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), and Imani (Faith).

This festival is an opportunity for physical educators to present a mini-unit on cooperative/trust activities (e.g. New Games, Project Adventure) and/or teach (possibly in conjunction with a social studies teacher) content thematically related to Africa. Examples may include teaching African dance (i.e., Ghanian Highlife -- available Human Kinetics Multicultural Folk Dance series), African songs, chants, and folk games (http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/africasong.html) and (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Styx/6504/ghana.html)