Archive for category: News

When you’re empowering your students to develop their physical literacy, their learning goes well beyond the gym and your P.E. class—it can be seamlessly incorporated into all aspects of your class’s daily schedule. It’s possible for students to read, move and learn, all at the same time. How can we think about physical literacy beyond the gym? An innovative program in B.C. has some ideas!

Learning to love movement through literacy

When kids take part in the free Active Stories program now running in the Nicola Valley, literacy and physical activity go hand in hand. Children learn to use their imagination while moving their bodies, exploring fundamental movements at the same time as developing their improvisation and creativity skills.

As explained by Lia Moyes Larson, chair of Literacy Merritt and the Nicola Valley Society, in a recent news article, Active Stories gives instructors the chance to pair their love of literacy with engaging physical activities. While they listen to the narratives being read aloud, participants get to run, jump, and use their bodies for dramatic play in tandem with the story. By having students move in a way that reflects the meaning of a word, the storytellers can increase comprehension, memory and recall in their audience. At the end of the session the kids get to choose a book to take home with them.

Additionally, children who typically have issues with sitting still have their need to move addressed in a positive way. Engaging with books in this fun way helps them to get their wiggles out, all while taking in new information.

Using School Physical Activity and Physical Literacy resources

Programs like Active Stories are great inspiration for the ways we can all incorporate physical literacy across the school day! If you’re looking for more ideas on how to get your kids moving in new environments, here are some ways to increase their physical activity and develop their physical literacy from our resources Developing Physical Literacy on the Playground, Physical Literacy in the Classroom: Activities to Keep Your Students Moving! and Cross-curricular Activities.

5,4,3,2,1: This is a great way to get students physically engaged between lessons. Have your students do an activity for each number in a countdown. 

Example: 

• Five jumping jacks, 
• four squats, 
• three hops on one foot, 
• two laps around the classroom, and 
• one high five.

If you like: This activity involves quizzing students about their preferences and getting them to perform physical actions based on their answers. Ask your students questions about what they like, and have them perform an action based on their answer. 

Examples: 

• “If you like going to the beach, hop on one foot.” 
• “If you like summer more than winter, do three squats.” 
• “If you have a dog, do a stretch on both sides of your body

Grip strength: Create some stress balls by filling balloons with sand or flour, then have students squeeze them while reading poems, practicing spelling or multiplication tables, or rehearsing rhymes or chants. This activity will help them develop the strength they need to use an outdoor play structure.

Let’s make a math story: 

• Brief students on how they’re going to make a math story as a group. First talk about different kinds of movements they can do and demonstrate them as a group (e.g., lunges, jumping jacks, high knees). Ask students if they know any other movements they could do. 
• Now that you have some ideas of movements, write on the whiteboard (or just use hands and memory if outside or in the gym), and call on students to share a number and a movement (e.g., “Jake says we’re going to do 5 pushups, how many more do we need to make 10?”). 
• Have students call out numbers and movements until they complete the full math story (e.g., “Okay, we have 5 push-ups, 3 jumping jacks, and 2 squats. Did we make 10? Let’s check.” And count up as a group). 
• Have the students complete their math story by doing all of the movements! (e.g.,“Now that we’ve made 10, we can do all of the 10 movements together. Count with me and let’s go!”).

Looking for more activities to try with your students? PLAYBuilder has hundreds of free, curriculum-based activities, free for BC educators! Even better? PLAYBuilder can build a whole term plan for you, with just six clicks. Sign up today: https://spa-pl.playbuilderapp.com/signup

We may be heading into the winter, but the beautiful game of soccer is in the air! Since the 2022 FIFA World Cup is well underway in Qatar, we’ve decided to highlight some of our favourite soccer activities from the PLAYBuilder platform. These activities will get your students moving and learning fundamental skills—all while having a blast!

PLAYBuilder Picks:

Link

Duration: 5 Minutes

Age range: 6-12

Setup: 

• Place participants into groups that provide for the maximum amount of movement, participation, and safety. Line them up on the end line of the playing area. Give each participant a ball.
• Place about six cones or poly spots in a line in front of each group with just less than one meter apart between cones or poly spots. Stress that this is not a race.

Instructions & Cues:

• The first person in each line dribbles forward and weaves in and out of the cones or poly spots to the other end line and back. Then the next person in line goes. While participants are waiting for their turn, they can dribble back and forth on the spot to increase their movement.
• Continue for an allotted time period. You can challenge the participants to speed up little faster as they become more comfortable.

Link 

Duration: 7 Minutes

Age range: 10-13

Setup: 

• Participants are spaced around a circle 10 yards in diameter with 2 players in the center.

Instructions & Cues: 

• The object of the game is to keep the people in the center from touching the ball.
• The ball is passed back and forth as in soccer.
• If a center player touches the ball with a foot, they are awarded a point.
• No player may hold the ball longer than 3 seconds in order to keep the ball moving.
• Rotate two new players in the center after every 30 -60 seconds. 

Link

Duration: 5 Minutes

Age range: 6-9

Setup: 

• All students should have a soccer ball.
• Use cones to mark the playing field. 20×20 meters is recommended. Adjust accordingly to number of students, age, and skill level,
• Pick two students to be noodle stoppers.
• Noodle Stoppers start with noodles in their hands in the middle of the playing field.

Instructions & Cues: 

• Students with soccer balls try to dribble across the playing field without a noodle stopper taking the ball away from them.
• Noodle stopper’s goal is to hit the ball of the students dribbling with their noodles.
• If your ball is hit by one of the noodle stoppers, you must grab a noodle and become a noodle stopper.
• Goal of the activity is to be the last student still dribbling their soccer ball.

Now that you’ve seen a few of the soccer activities available on the SPA-PL PLAYBuilder platform, it’s time to get playing! Click on any of the three PLAYBuilder picks to see more and start planning your soccer activities.

Increasing knowledge on Indigenous perspectives of health and wellness to support Indigenous students in a culturally safe way, is something we can all do as educators to create welcoming spaces for students and learn more about the land where we each live, work and play today. 

In celebration of Indigenous Ways of Knowing, and with International Inuit Day on November 7, here are three Inuit games and activities to try with your students: 

Two Foot High Kick

A traditional Inuit game focusing on jumping, balance and coordination. 

Setup 

• Tie one end of a rope around a beanbag and the other end through a basketball hoop or have students hold a floor hockey stick with the rope tied to the end away from their body. The beanbag should hang just above the knee. 
• If you tie a piece of faux fur to a string tied to a long stick, that is an excellent representation of the Inuit game piece. 
• Place mats around the area where students are jumping in case they fall. 
• Educators are encouraged to take students through a dynamic warm up focusing on the major muscles in the legs (quads, hamstrings). 

Instructions 

• Place students in groups of 4-5. 
• Students line up, and face either the student holding the rope or the beanbag hanging from the basketball hoop. 
• On the educator’s signal, those students must jump off the ground with both feet, kick the beanbag with one foot, and land on two feet. 
• Switch students holding the rope so everyone gets a turn. 
• Increase the beanbag height with the progression of skill. 

Cues for Jumping and Kicking 

• Bend your knees to increase explosive power in the legs for jumping. 
• The higher your jump, the more time you have to kick the beanbag. 

Safety 

• Ensure students are kicking the beanbag one at a time. 
• Make sure holders of the rope have their arms extended to avoid being kicked.

Cultural Awareness 

• Teamwork, bonding and good energy are Indigenous views. 
• Students should be aware that hunters always went out as a team and the success of the hunt depended on them all working together. When doing the activity, students should be encouraging each other, not seeing who is the best.

Dog Sled Races

Fun activity developing cooperative skills. 

Setup 

• Divide students into teams of 4-6. 
• Use cones to mark the distance teams must travel. 
• Teams start at one end of the gym, single file, and must travel the full distance of the gym before returning to the start position. 
• If playing on the land, teams start at the designated start line single file, and they must travel 20-metres before returning to the start position. Instructions 
• The first student on each team runs the full distance of the gym (or 20 metres), turns around, and runs back to their team. 
• The following student in the line holds onto the first student’s shoulders, creating the sled; both students face forward. 
• Students will then run the designated distance and back to their team, still holding onto the shoulders of the student in front of them. 
• Each time the sled returns to the team, they pick up another student and run the designated distance, maintaining contact at the shoulders with the student in front of them. 
• If the sled breaks, teams must start all over from the beginning. 

Cultural Awareness 

• Inuit people depend on the team; it’s the strength of the bond, not the race, that is important. 
• The bond we create helps the survival and cooperation of people in our circle on whom we depend. Bring good energy and positive thoughts for each other and ourselves. 
• Honesty and integrity are more important than winning. 
• Teamwork, bonding and good energy are Indigenous views. 

Toe Jump Relay

Students work on balance, hopping and body control. 

Setup 

• Using cones, mark a playing field. 
• Divide students into teams of 4-6.; divide those teams into two subgroups. 
• Subgroups start on opposite sides of the playing field. 

Instructions 

• Toe jump relay starts with one student from each team holding one set of toes while hopping across the playing field. 
• Teams try to complete as many successful relays as possible within the time limit. 
• Educators are encouraged to have students switch hands and toes. 
• Students can hold onto their ankles if it’s too challenging to hold their toes. 

Cultural Awareness 

• The Inuit have always enjoyed a variety of games and sports. 
• Skills developed by these games were often those necessary for everyday survival in a harsh environment. 
• Thus, the game aims to develop physical strength, agility and endurance.

These and more Indigenous activities can be accessed through the downloadable resource Games Celebrating Indigenous Ways of Knowing or on PLAYBuilder—sign-up for PLAYBuilder is free for B.C. educators! 

REGISTER TODAY

The School Physical Activity and Physical Literacy project’s Indigenous resources have been created in partnership with the Indigenous Sport, Physical Activity and Recreation Council (I·SPARC). I·SPARC is committed to meeting with communities for input and knowledge-sharing surrounding these resources and their delivery, to ensure B.C. educators have access to relevant resources that consider the First Peoples’ Principles of Learning.

 

We all know and experience how busy educators are. Between teaching, lesson planning, assessment, supply shopping, etc.,  having some simple shortcuts to get tasks done makes our days a lot easier! 

With its new Term Planner feature, PLAYBuilder is an essential tool in your teaching toolkit–and a quick, simple way to build out your plan for PHE this year.

Planning out your term can be a time-consuming process due to the intricacies associated with developing a meaningful plan that covers the curriculum. Luckily, PLAYBuilder can build out a PHE term plan tailored to your favourite activities in just a few clicks!

Simply log into your PLAYBuilder account and click “New Term Plan”. You will then be guided through a series of steps that help the feature design a plan that fits your customized request. 

Don’t have an account yet? Create your account today:

CREATE YOUR PLAYBUILDER ACCOUNT

Term Planner is a feature that will continue to grow and improve as it develops. Please feel free to try it out, and let us know how it’s going through our feedback form!

As students come back from the summer break, a great way to encourage physical activity is to get out and enjoy those last days of sunshine! And while the playground has the obvious benefits of being a play space to explore individually, you can also encourage your students to develop their physical literacy with more structured activities. 

Even the most basic playground can be used to develop physical literacy and keep students physically active. All that is needed is a bit of creativity! Here are a few great ideas you can use your school’s playground in fun, engaging ways: 

Playground Games 

Do your students know how to use their playground? Playground games such as tag on the play structure or challenges like traversing the playground without touching the ground show students play possibilities that they can use during recess or lunch breaks. Introduce your students to traditional games like four square, hopscotch, kickball, gaga ball, British bulldog, and red rover. 

Softball Diamonds

Softball diamonds are great for warmups and developing different locomotor skills. Run forward to first base, side shuffle on the left to second base, mini-step backwards to third base, and side-shuffle on the right to home base. Try Follow the Leader around the bases, where the leader changes movements at each base. 

Playground Circuits  

Your playground structure is great for circuits! Be creative in how you use what you have. Try including exercises like balance walks on beams or stumps, push-ups on benches, hanging from bars, or running up the slide. Use these as a themed circuit.

Amazing Races 

Have your students explore the entire schoolyard with an Amazing Race challenge, incorporating various tasks that use different equipment and obstacles. Activities should have students climbing, jumping, running, etc. In all, students should be using a variety of equipment in the schoolyard to use different fundamental movement skills.

Looking for more ways to use your playground and develop physical literacy? Download Developing Physical Literacy on the Playground and share it with your school! And, if you’re looking for more ways to incorporate physical activity in your class, sign up for PLAYBuilder for free! You’ll gain instant access to an online platform that has 900+ cross-curricular games and activities to implement into your school schedule.