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A physically educated person is one who has mastered the necessary movement skills to participate confidently in many different forms of physical activity, values physical fitness, and understands that both are related to health and well-being. The most basic element of a child’s development is learning to move. Even before birth children begin learning to move and learning through movement. The process continues throughout childhood and into adolescence.

In the primary grades, children are learning the fundamentals of physical education, becoming more skillful, and deriving pleasure from learning new skills. At this level, development of physical and motor fitness attributes is emphasized, including agility, flexibility, and coordination. This level emphasizes such basic skills as walking, running, hopping, jumping, sliding, galloping, skipping, throwing, kicking, balancing, bending, and stretching. Also important are such fitness attributes as cardiovascular fitness and muscular strength and endurance.

Children in kindergarten are solo learners. They focus primarily on moving within space, including general space around them and their own personal space. Non-locomotor skills (remaining in place and maintaining balance while moving parts of the body) include how the body moves on its axis and locomotor skills (moving the body from one place to another) include moving in open space. Once the children are able to move effectively in their space, they focus on objects, for instance, equipment, supplies, and materials. They also learn about and interpret their environment through play. They should move in a safe environment that helps them look forward to positive experiences in physical education.

A program of physical education should provide developmentally appropriate activities to students using a variety of teaching methods based on each student’s individual needs. Teachers must plan programs for all students regardless of race, gender, home language, disability, or cultural or economic backgrounds. Adaptations or modification of the program, activities, or types of equipment can be beneficial to all students. In addition, a variety of assessment tools should be used to determine each student’s level of performance.

The vision is for all students to be physically educated and have fun while moving. Students who participate in quality physical education programs receive a variety of benefits including the development of 1) a variety of motor skills and abilities related to lifetime leisure activities, 2) improved understanding of the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle, 3) improved understanding of movement and the human body, 4) improved knowledge of rules and strategies of particular games and sports, and, 5) self-confidence and self-worth as these relate to physical education and recreation programs.

(See PE Scope and Sequence for K - 5)

CONTENT STANDARD 1

1. Movement Skills and Movement Knowledge

• The student in grade three will be competent in many movement activities.

Performance Indicators

1.3.1 Combine a variety of physical activities, such as combining various travel patterns in relation to music.

1.3.2 Dribble a ball continuously, using the hands or feet to control it

1.3.3 Maintain flexibility by combining shapes, levels, and pathways into simple sequences.

Examples of specific activities or tasks that give students the opportunity to demonstrate that they can meet the standard:

• demonstrate how to combine a balance, a roll, and a traveling action into a tumbling sequence. The sequence must include all the components and a clear beginning and ending with smooth transitions between the various skills. Have students demonstrate ability to execute this movement.

CONTENT STANDARD 2

2. Movement Skills and Movement Knowledge

• The student in grade three will understand how and why they move in a variety of situations and use this information to enhance their own skills.

Performance Indicators

2.3.1 Recognize similar movement concepts in a variety of skills ( for example, and underhand movement can be used in a variety of activities

2.3.2 Identify critical elements of locomotor movement

2.3.3 Use feedback to improve performance

2.3.4 Understand how to stop and start movement

2.3.5 Learn to focus on important cues

Samples of specific activities or tasks that give students the opportunity to demonstrate that they can meet the standard:

• show students photographs of professional dancers, elite gymnasts, or other sports performers in action and ask them to identify the movement patterns they have been studying in class and the critical elements that contribute to successful performance of the movement.. Students must identity the basic movement patterns and identify the critical elements leading to successful performance.

CONTENT STANDARD 3

3. Movement Skills and Movement Knowledge

• The student in grade three will achieve and maintain a health-enhancing level of physical fitness

Performance Indicators

3.3.1 Identify the components of health-related fitness

3.3.2 Describe the importance of warming up and cooling down

3.3.3 Participate in aerobic activity for extended periods of time

Examples of specific activities or tasks that give students the opportunity to demonstrate that they can meet the standard:

• have students demonstrate that they are able to sustain moderate, vigorous physical activity for more than ten minutes. Students will demonstrate appropriate warm-up and cool-down activities, and explain the use.

CONTENT STANDARD 4

4. Self-Image and Personal Development

• The student in grade three will exhibit a physically active lifestyle and will understand that physical activity provides opportunities for enjoyment, challenge, and self-expression.

Performance Indicators

4.3.1 Identify benefits gained from participating in physical activity

4.3.2 Participate regularly in physical activity

4.3.3 Using physical activity as a means of self- expression

Examples of specific activities or tasks that give students the opportunity to demonstrate that they can meet the standard:

• ask students to express a variety of feelings ( e.g., happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, joy) during a creative movement or dance lesson through the use of variety of shapes, postures, and movements. Ask students to discuss with the class situations in physical activity that bring about these feelings. Have students use movement to communicate feelings and verbally express feelings that result from participation in physical activities.

CONTENT STANDARD 5

5. Self-Image and Personal Development

• The student in grade three will demonstrate responsible personal behavior while participating in movement activities

Performance Indicators

5.3.1 Work independently and on-task for short periods of time

5.3.2 Under adult direction, follow rules, procedures, and etiquette

Examples of specific activities or tasks that give students the opportunity to demonstrate that they can meet the standard:

• The teacher monitors on -task and off- task activity for each student several times during a unit and records the extent of on-task activity. Each student is observed at least once in four intervals of one minute set aside for this purpose. The goal is for student to stay on task 90 % of the time.

CONTENT STANDARD 6

6. Social Development

• The student in grade three will demonstrates responsible social behavior while participating in movement activities. The student will understand the importance of respect for all others.

Performance Indicators

6.3.1 Play and assist others in activities in groups of three

6.3.2 Work productively with a partner

6.3.3 Invite a peer to take his or her turn at a piece of apparatus before repeating a turn

6.3.4 Identify differences in other’s physical activity

Examples of specific activities or tasks that give students the opportunity to demonstrate that they can meet the standard:

• have students create a game in which a person who is blind could compete equally with a sighted person, and describe the challenges they encountered when developing the game. Have students demonstrate an understanding of the similarities and differences of persons with disabilities.

CONTENT STANDARD 7

7. Social Development

• The student in grade three will understand the relationship between history and culture and games, sports, play, and dance.

Performance Indicators

7.3.1 Explain how the physical activities in which they play have changed before and throughout their lives.

Examples of specific activities or tasks that give students the opportunity to demonstrate that they can meet the standard:

• assign students a familiar game and ask them to show how the game might be changed or altered if they were living in a different period of time or if they were living in a different climate (where the weather is very hot or very cold). Have students accurately describe how the game would be modified and why?

Revised January 2001

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