Celebrating Healthy Hearts in PE

written by Laura Zavatto, StageCoach Elementary, Selden NY

February is the month I like to focus on rope jumping skills with my elementary students and the unit culminates with a Jump Rope for Heart event. People will often ask me, "How can you do rope jumping for an entire month?" The answer to that is simple. With my physical education classes meeting only two times per week for all the grade levels (I have 1st through 5th grades), each child actually attends only six classes (and that's if they're not sick or on vacation!). More often than not, I find that six classes is insufficient for this unit as there is so much you can do with rope jumping!

As a general rule (modifications apply for the younger students who are just learning versus the older students who are more advanced), the first week is spent on individual jumping skills (two classes worth); the second week is for partner jumping one day and long jump ropes the next; the third week is jumping stations (two classes). Our Jump Rope for Heart event is scheduled after school the last day of the unit. Tying in the heart with the high level activity of jumping rope is a great way to get more in-depth about the heart and how we can keep our bodies healthy through moderate to vigorous exercise. In years past I have also done a heart obstacle course, which is also fun. There are many examples of how to do this. One such example can be seen at www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FoucFF9lDo? (also shown below).

For the stations, I include a jumping obstacle course that includes broad jump, leaping, low vaulting, plyometrics, hopscotch, and timed zigzag skier jumps. Other station areas include pogo sticks & mini-trampolines, long jump ropes, and short jump ropes (the students can work on their Kangaroo Club sheets here -full description follows!). My unit begins with an overview of how the heart works and why exercise is good for us. If you are a Jump Rope for Heart coordinator you know that there are many terrific resources available in the coordinator kit. The American Heart Association has excellent DVD's with many jump rope skills (individual, partner, and long jump rope) that come with your coordinator kit if you decide to do a Jump Rope for Heart event. You can just google "Jump Rope Skills" for a wealth of resources but here are a couple of websites that show images of tricks:

• How to do jump rope tricks
• Jump Rope Skills

I also discuss with my students what exercise feels like (I have a poster with descriptions such as: "low" level = not sweating, heart beating normal, can talk easily; "moderate" level = starting to sweat but can still carry on a conversation, heart beating faster; and, "exhaustion" level = heart pounding, feel dizzy, sweating profusely, etc.) For grades 3 and up I tend to introduce the pedometers, I got mine through Bonnie Hopper at the Rocky Mountain Pedometer Company which I purchased after applying for and receiving a mini-grant from my local NYS AHPERD Zone. I also use "Amazing Feat/Feet" award certificates as motivators to keep the kids moving (they're literally dripping by the end of my classes). Students attempt to achieve a minimum of 2,400 steps per class and a new certificate is awarded every time a student beats his or her previous score.

For the jumping rope skills part, the students have the opportunity to get into the "Kangaroo Club" (I got this idea from Artie Kamiya's Great Activities newsletter eons ago. See this image for a sample sheet I use). It's also a great way to assess what your students are accomplishing.

I color code the sheets by grade level (i.e.: yellow = 1st grade, green = 2nd grade, etc.) for ease of tracking and keep them in a file box which I take out each class. By the fourth class the students get the opportunity to start showing me their tricks, which I keep track of on the sheets. The tricks to obtain Kangaroo Club status are varied depending on the grade (i.e.: 2 jump tricks, 5x each for 1st grade; 3 tricks 10x each for 2nd grade, etc.). The students get to work on their tricks each class and they are highly motivated to do so.

At the end of the rope-jumping unit, students get to keep their sheets and on the gym wall I post all the names of the kids who are in the club. I've had 5th graders who finally make the list and they are so proud of themselves as it becomes a lifetime lesson on the value of perseverance and goal setting.

If you're limited for time or prefer to simply play a variety of heart healthy games, here is a game I use during my Fitness Unit which brings in the common core with literacy AND math, as well as an awesome heart healthy workout. I modified it from Rob Chapman's ABC Cardio Activities. You could make the cards yourself but I just purchased a set. Rob's contact information is: chapmanr@wdmcs.org or abccardio@hotmail.com.

Here's how I use the cards. I create 6-8 teams (depends on the size of the group) and set them up evenly around the outside of the gym. Each team begins behind a cone. The cardio cards are placed in a slightly scattered way in the center of the playing area (I happen to have a painted circle in the middle of my gym). Each team has a jump rope and a physical education vocabulary list (see Illustration above for the list that I created); each word has a different point value (i.e.: Abs = 3 points; Cardiovascular = 16 points). On the signal, one player from each team jumps rope a designated number of times (I use 5x for 1st & 2nd graders & 10x for 3rd - 5th).

After jumping rope, the jumper hands the rope off to the next person in line and then runs to the center and picks one cardio card. While the lead player is getting a card, the next player in line can immediately begin to jump rope. When the lead player returns to the team, the next player who just jumped rope can now go to the circle and get another card. If you find that the jumpers are jumping too quickly and waiting a long time for the lead person to pick a card and return, you can increase the number of jumps the players have to do. Bottom line: you only want one player from each team in the circle at once to avoid overcrowding.

The "heart card," is a wild card that can be used for any letter the team wants. You can limit the heart cards to two per team per game or one per word or whatever works best for you. Once a team has spelled a word from the list, the teacher checks the spelling and the team then recycles the cards back to the circle and continues spelling other words from the list. The game ends when a team has spelled all the words on the list or when time runs out, whichever comes first. I've never had any team spell all the words on the list because I increased the number of vocabulary words from the original version so we just add up the points for a two-day total. I hold onto the sheets and re-disburse them on the second day.

As you celebrate Heart Month, I hope you and your students enjoy these "Heart Healthy" ideas! Have fun and here's to good health in 2014!

Biography: Laura Zavatto has been teaching physical education (K-12 & Adapted PE) for over 25 years, for the last 17 years at Stagecoach Elementary School in Middle Country New York. She is a graduate of Adelphi and Columbia Universities and an avid blue-water sailor who from 1989-1995 logged over 32,000 sea miles and visited 34 countries with her husband onboard their 42' sailboat "PAL." Laura enjoys photography, stained-glass work, braiding rugs, tennis, kayaking, cooking (vegetarian meals in particular), gardening (particularly my own heirloom vegetable varieties that I start from seed every year), writing, reading the classics, traveling, spending quality time with family and friends and making unique artsy crafts.

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