Happy National Physical Fitness and Sports Month!
May is a great month for fitness, sports, and physical education! It’s National Physical Fitness and Sports Month. And, as part of the month-long celebration on the importance of physical activity, the week of May 1-7 is National Physical Education and Sports Week. This year’s theme is HEALTH. MOVES. MINDS. The mission is to inspire healthy habits, fuel active minds, and to teach children to thrive physically and emotionally. Let’s do our part and spread the word!
In Pre K and Kindergarten classes, students continued to learn locomotor skills and worked on crawling, balancing, skipping, and hopping with warm-up songs, such as Boogie Down and Cruise and Popcorn Calling Me. Pre-K students used bean bags to learn about balance by playing a game of Bean Bag Freeze and continued to develop catching and tossing skills. In kindergarten, students were introduced to jump ropes. They used the jump rope in a variety of ways from interdisciplinary activities, where students used the jump rope to make shapes and letters, to engaging in the basics of individual jump roping through the four-step method of: 1- Ears, 2 – Find it, 3 – Flip it, and 4 – Jump.
In first grade and second grade, students engaged in warm-up activities of yoga and tag games. In the yoga warm-up activities, students performed downward dog, tree pose, cat, and warrior pose to name a few. In station activities, they worked on balancing, coordination, catching, footwork, and endurance using different equipment, such as ladders, scarves, and balance beams. They practiced jump roping skills by using hula hoops, jump sticks, and jump ropes as they developed timing and built up technique.
Our third and fourth grade students focused on five areas of fitness. The five areas of fitness were cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, core strength, muscular strength, and agility. In class, students shared examples of activities in physical education class as well as individual experiences that focus on developing those areas of fitness. Then, they engaged in different exercises from the five areas of fitness, such as planks, downward dog, burpees, wall sit, jumping jacks, and leg lifts. Fourth graders were able to dig deeper into fitness and started to learn “what is the best way to measure fitness” by designing their own fitness trackers in a cross-disciplinary unit with technology and information literacy. Huge thank you to Mr. Robinson and Ms. Sprung.
In fifth grade, students participated in sport-specific units of rugby and tennis. The focus at the start of each unit was skill development through drills and partner activities. The units ended with the students getting an opportunity to play in a friendly game, such as flag rugby and tennis dungeons and dragons.
Physical Education Tip of the Month:
Check the following websites to learn more about National Physical Fitness and Sports Month:
