By Julie M. on Wednesday, May 16, 2001 - 11:46 am: Edit

The time for physical education is already very limited with PE teachers seeing their students maybe once a week. Here in Hawai`i, some PE teachers see their students once every 2 weeks. To also teach other subjects like math, science and topics in language arts would be difficult. However, to reinforce concepts learned in those subjects would not take that much more effort. We use numbers a lot in PE, could we not also count in different languages, use letters instead or some other variation? Movement activities could have students form their bodies into different letter shapes and talk about what kind of pathways are in those letters. We can reinforce so much of what kids learn in the classroom. Crossing the states, where steps (using step counters) could be equated to distances from state to state. On the other hand, it wouldn't hurt classroom teachers to provide movement opportunities in class with concepts the kids are learning. With so few PE teachers in schools, and with the importance of movement to learning, so much more movement can be planned. I've heard about a classroom teacher who has used macaroni with her students to make an art project with a discussion on macaroni and how it could be part of a healthy diet. She then had her students take their projects outside and using their projects as guides, asked the children to shape their bodies to form some of the macaroni shapes they included. Thanks for the question.

By Margaret Sikes on Tuesday, June 19, 2001 - 09:17 pm: Edit

I am looking for articles on exercise science pertaining to middle and elementary age students.

By Anonymous on Saturday, November 17, 2001 - 06:29 pm: Edit

I am looking for information about tranfer fine motor skills to writing and reading skills

By karenj4hoops on Tuesday, November 27, 2001 - 02:42 pm: Edit

I agree that there are many ways to integrate math and language arts into an elementary physical education program. Math works very well; We are always using math terms, such as perimeter or rectangle, and children are often keeping tally sheets or serving as scorekeepers. There are numerous ways to incorporate language into the PE curriculum. For example, today one of our stations
was a simple type of "Spelling Basketball,"as we have six ball-handling stations set up this week.
Math relays and word relays are easy to run, and the children appear to enjoy these types of relays.

By Daniel on Wednesday, March 20, 2002 - 10:59 am: Edit

I am looking for lesson plans with one theme that could be used for an entire quarter,semester,year?
I have heard of schools that used one theme, such as Native Americans,and the teachers had creative lessons that integrated activities into their lessons.