SHAPE America (Formerly AAHPERD) 2014 St. Louis (Kris Fritz)

SHAPE America (formerly AAHPERD) 2014 – St. Louis (Kris Fritz) “Catch the Energy II – Pre K PE Connecting to the Core”

Pre K PE is drawing more attention in many districts with an emphasis upon Pre K education additions to the K – 12 sequence. The Sheboygan Area School district in WI has had a Pre K programs (ages 3 – 5) housed in one district building (Early Learning Center) for over 20 years. In 2004, an instructional PE component was added that conforms to NASPE Standards. Emphasis is placed upon Standard 1, 4 & 5 delivered through a curriculum that often follows classroom themes and is integrated with basis locomotor, non locomotor, manipulatives, rhythms and age appropriate games.

A basis view of what is done with children can be found in the Nov./Dec. 2007 Strategies article: “Fighting Obesity in 4 Yr. Olds”. If you attended last year’s session, you saw many ‘themed’ activities. This session will illustrate examples of activities that connect to the core such as Literacy, Math; Positive Behavior since these are the core basis of our EC program for some 600+ children.

Lesson 1: Jell-O This is a simple rhythm activity where children move to the words of a CD. As an intro to the activity, I question children regarding jell-o characteristics and we ‘move’ about demonstrating such. Prior to beginning using the CD, we ‘Problem Solve’ a few choices relative to ‘selecting their hoop’. This is more important than the actual physical moving as it ‘connects to our Behavior (PBIS) system’, helps children be safe and develops needed spatial concepts.

Lesson 2, 3, 4; 5 (Literacy) One of the things I often do when giving instructions, is to introduce ‘new words’ (often PE related …. What does a horse do?/gallop, point to your ‘brain’, ‘heart’, or not so familiar body part =knuckles).

3: Alphabet March - Children go to chosen ‘spots’ around a circle. Once the CD begins, they march, tip toe, gallop, etc. around all the ‘spots’ that contain the letters of the alphabet. The physical activity is doing the chosen locomotor movements that we have learned or are working on, while their brains are engaged in identifying letters of the alphabet. Once

Pre K PE II/ 2. identified, they are challenged to tell me a PE /Health word that it represents (i.e. B is for ball; B is for banana). Sometimes we infuse nutritional decision – making based on ‘good/’bad’ for you – thumbs up or thumbs down (carrots or candy). As the activity continues, we use multiple locomotor movements. 4: Pizza Making – Children are in a circle formation and we practice skipping or galloping. I have a large metal pizza pan and I suggest we are going to make pizza. I send 2 children to the ‘kitchen’ to pick out an ingredient (magnetic letters). They must skip or gallop while others march or move in place. Once the letters are brought to me, we identify them and think of a food (preferably a nutritious one) that they represent and the children stick them to my pan. This continues until most of the letters have been chosen. At the end, I talk about taking our pizza to our cook (Ms Mary Jo) for baking and the class will then return to its classroom having participated physically and also ‘worked with letter literacy’.

5: Dr. Seuss - Everyone does Dr. Seuss, but most do “Green Eggs & Ham” or “Cat & the Hat”. We explore the “Foot Book” in PE. Children move at stations while learning language (prepositions) and also making – decisions about exploring space. a. Walk ON the balance beam (variation- take a furry friend along) b. Go OVER the hurdle (variation- run, jump, sneak) c. Little feet ON Big Feet d. Skate AROUND the cones (either by self or in Frisbees) e. Go UNDER the bridge (2 children join hands, others go under x 3 (math), then change roles or means of moving f. Go IN &OUT ( I have a play house that they go into & come out of often waving at others out the windows)

Lesson 6, 7, 8 ; 9 (Math) 6: How does running relate to Math? After we have been running in the large activity area for several weeks, I transition children to a smaller curriculum work area. Before we begin, I ask them which is bigger, big gym or this space. Most will correctly identify the larger area. Then we talk about fast/slow (lots of energy, not so much energy) and transition

Pre K PE II/ 3. that to our new activity area. We then run but do so as ‘little running’ so we can safely move in our new area. Sometimes we also talk about big voices (lions), very quiet (fish); something in between (cats) and which one to use where (part of our PBIS) behavior system.

7: Throwing – After working on mechanics with proper cues : coloring hand, back; stepping foot, we practice throwing a wide variety of items. While taking turns in small groups, we practice counting to 3, 5 ;10 (with successful groups yelling ‘Yahoo’ like lions if they get to the goal). With the help of my translators, we also do this in Spanish & Hmong with appropriate classes. 8: Basket Game – Children are divided into 2 groups (I find that boys & girls work the best or they often forget what group they belong to if you use something else). One boy & one girl are given a basket (I use my Jump Bags) to carry. Within a designated playing area, multiple items are randomly arranged (soft vs hard, different colors, types of food, etc.). On ‘Go’ children will use a designated locomotor movement to move thru the area and pick up assigned items (i.e. girls hard, boys soft) and place it into their respective ‘basket/bag’. On ‘Freeze’, all stop and take their stash of items to a specific area for counting. They are given a couple minutes to organize the counting of items and tell me ‘how many did you get’? Winner of the game is the group with the most. At first they have a difficult time organizing a system to count efficiently as they try to count separately and can’t arrive at a ‘sum’ total. I stop them after the specified time and we often have a ‘tie’ in the game as they don’t have a successful count. I pose a solution to the counting problem as do their teachers & aides and we play again using other locomotor movements and often have better results with the counting thing.

9: Scooters - Our children have an inclined ramp that they use to scooter down. This provides endless activity during ‘free gym’ and I sometimes us the area as an added station on instructional day. I have added a bit of competition to it and infused Math in determining a winner. We place a cone at the spot a person slides to and it is moved with respect to each child to determine ‘who goes further’. At the end, we measure in ‘4 yr. old’ feet to see what the record of the class or day was.

Pre k PE II/ 4.

This helps in their understanding of measurement and adds fun to the physical activity.

10: Gingerbread Run – Literature, Math, Behavior; Science This is my JRFH event. We Read the story, then run or move around the course. I give each child a small paper heart to carry along and explain how I Count ‘hearts’ that they put into my box for laps, and that these laps are Good for our hearts and for others. And, of course, all my children understand the concept of their hearts beating & brains thinking (science) while working together to become a healthy child.

As Physical Educators, we have always been ‘ahead of our time’ doing many of these things that promote other core subjects. In order to successfully advocate for PE, we must make sure that others are aware of what have been doing for a long time. Maybe we need to make certain that the right question is, not ‘what are we doing in PE’, but rather, ‘what are we learning in PE’? “Learn to Move/ Move to Learn”

Kristine (Kris) Fritz, WI [email protected]