Taking the "LEPE" into
Literature Enhanced Physical Education
by: Lynn Hefele,
Huntington Union Free School District, Huntington, New
York Like many elementary school
physical education teachers, early in my career I began
creating an imaginary world in which my students could
practice their skills. Many of the activities simply
changed themes as Disney changed heroes and heroines.
The beauty and brilliance of motivating students through their
imagination is that when young children are pretending, they
aren't embarrassed, intimidated, or fearful of failure because
they have lost themselves in the characters and setting of
their imaginary world. All students - big, small, heavy
or tall will move with purpose when they become Ninja Turtles,
Power Rangers, dinosaurs or Spongebob.
About ten years into teaching, I found myself entertaining
the students with a descriptive fictional scenario of the
activity they were about to engage in when it dawned on me
that there could be more to the story than just the opening
scene. I realized that pushing my curriculum into the
lives of Hollywood cartoon characters was a backward
approach. Developing unique characters and a fantasy
world to fit my curricular needs would be more educationally
sound. A full-length screenplay could do more than just
motivate students to move; it could educate students on
how to move. By taking each unit and developing a
storyline to fit the skills and strategies the students needed
to learn, the philosophy of Literature Enhanced Physical
Education (LEPE) was born.
It has been five years since the first teacher resource,
Clean Up Your Backyard was published. In those
early years, LEPE struggled to find a place in the physical
education community. The idea of reading in the gymnasium
seemed irreverent to many and I struggled to get people to
appreciate my philosophy. Then...along came the Common
Core State Standards and many in the PE world decided to take
a look at this new teaching tool. While the intentions
of LEPE are to motivate and educate children in physical
education, LEPE stories have the ability to meet any number of
Common Core Standards for Listen and Speaking, Literature, and
Informational Text.
The average LEPE story takes about five minutes to read and
can be read by the PE teacher or the classroom teacher prior
to class. Within each story there are visual and verbal
cues for motor skills, physical education specific vocabulary
words, and sport techniques. The 3-5 lesson plans
included with each fictional tale follow the storyline of the
book and include creative ideas for meeting the Common Core
Standards for Math and English Language Arts grades K-3, as
well as rubrics for assessment.
While the total reading time is only five minutes at the
beginning of a unit, the story and the lesson plans provide
for a two to three week, full length, action-packed learning
experience. By copying each page of the book and
displaying them in the gymnasium, teachers can refer back to
the story to point out visual cues or ask questions for
understanding about the physical education concepts embedded
in the story. A word wall can be created with physical
education words from the text and contests that encourage
writing and bulletin board ideas are included in a number of
the LEPE publications.
In addition to fusing the Common Core Standards with the
NASPE National PE Standards, LEPE lesson plans strive to
balance teaching physical education with increasing physical
activity. Each lesson is developed with the intention of
maintaining 100% maximum participation for the entire
class. For lessons in which having every student moving
would be considered a safety hazard (i.e. batting), ideas for
cooperative learning are included.
At the present time, there are seven teacher resources that
are also available in PDF ebook format and as children's
books.
Clean
Up Your Backyard- A whimsical story about two families
making the most of a miserable chore by turning it into a fun
filled throwing game. This resource teaches overhand
throwing and throwing for accuracy.
Cereal
Soccer- The story of a baby who dumps his cereal on the
floor and the group of kitchen mice that use their soccer
skills to return the tasty morsels to their holes. This
resource teaches primary soccer skills and the concepts of
offense and defense.
Ziny's
Driving School- This is the story of an alien girl on her
first day of Quasar Driving School. Students learn how
to travel through space using safe speeds and locomotor
skills.
Widget's
Batting Lesson- In this story, Coby and his friends use
their cooperative coaching skills to teach their alien friend
how to hit off a tee. The lessons in this resource focus
on teaching batting using cooperative learning strategies.
P.E.Under
the Sea- This is the story of a group of sea creatures
playing "Tickle Tag" in P.E. class. While the fish are
trying to touch the toes of swimmers, students are learning
how to underhand roll for accuracy.
Bugs
and Bubbles- This story follows a group of bored teenage
bugs as they practice their volley skills using bubbles.
The resource teaches passing, setting, and spiking using
balloons and punch balls.
Swish- This story chronicles the first day of basketball
season as told through the eyes of Swish the Basketball.
The teacher resource teaches ball handling, passing and
shooting skills.
Cereal
Soccer Explanation- This is a video that illustrates
the applications of one of the ebooks.
Biography: Lynn Hefele is a physical education teacher in
the Huntington Union Free School District in Huntington, New
York. She is the Vice President of the NYS AHPERD Suffolk
Zone. A graduate of Springfield College in Springfield,
Massachusetts, Lynn holds a BS in Physical Education and a MS
in Movement Science with a concentration in Biomechanics. She
lives in Greenlawn, New York with her husband, Steve and sons,
Harrison and TJ.
Lynn is the founder and president of Literature Enhanced
Physical Education (LEPE, Inc.). She published "Clean Up Your
Backyard" in 2009, "Ziny's Driving School" in 2011, "Cereal
Soccer" and "Bugs and Bubbles" in 2012, and "Widget's Batting
Lesson" and "P.E. Under the Sea" in 2013. The children's
editions for "Bugs and Bubbles," "Cereal Soccer," and
"Widget's Batting Lesson," and "P.E. Under the Sea" were
published in 2013. More information on LEPE can be found on
the LEPE website. Lynn
manages the Elementary PE + discussion group on Linkedin.
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