Division of Instruction

Physical Education Best Practices & Demonstrations

How PE Supports Literacy

• Active learning
• ABC’s of Movement (Resource)
• Alphabet letters – letter identification, thematic units (letter of the week)
• Assessments—self/peer/teacher
  • Rubrics, written reflections, brief constructive response
• Body spelling—shaping letters with the body or manipulative i.e. jump rope
• Charts/Diagrams/Bulletin Boards—visualize how to complete a task (e.g., agility dots)
• Classroom library—magazines, sports books, health topics
• Crossing the midline of the brain w/cross-lateral activities—brain gym
• Demonstrating the correlation between the writing process and the PE process
• Direction, speed, vocabulary produces meaningful vocabulary
• Eye-hand coordination with tracking in reading
• Fitness goals—written
• Goal setting and analysis
• “How to” and Active Learning—build your own game, written rules, use of a template, publish, diagram, writing descriptive paragraphs
• Kinesthetic learning
• Life assessment project—Discovering me (health) timeline
• Log sheets – exercise, walking, weight room
• Magazine articles
• Movement helps to grow brain cells
• Nutrition and health
• Oral language development—saying and using meaningful vocabulary
• Playbooks—sport strategies developed by teams
• Problem solving—refining and editing skills
• Reading rules and following directions
• Reflection of work—quick writes
• Rules/Study guides
• Summarizing
• Task Cards—warm-ups, circuit training
• Reading and writing information on white board and lap boards—words of the day, relays, scoring
• Three-week written evaluation
• Tracking with Dance-Dance-Revolution®
  • Eye-foot coordination, watching and moving with the arrows
• Verbal cues to organize thinking
• Word walls
• Literature-based field day
• Comprehensible input throughout the gym to support second language learners
• Cooperative learning structures

How PE Supports Math

• Addition and subtraction—yardage, weight, scoring
• Angles—yoga, push ups, racquet sports, weight lifting, throwing
• Conversions—laps into yards
• Counting by 2’s, 3’s, 4’s, scoring, music
• Estimating
• Calculating: body mass index, heart rate, height in feet and inches,
  • pedometer measurements—high, low, average, range
• Fitnessgram® assessments
• Fractions: ½ , ¼
• Game scoring
• Game strategies
• Geometry: lines, shapes, patterns, angles
• Graphing Fitnessgram® data, record keeping
• Hypertrophy—increase strength, overload principle
• Measuring distances: lap length/yards/feet/meters, square feet, area
• Multiplication & division – grouping, patterns
• Nutrition - calories
• Orienteering
• Pacing – passing/failing – times, mile run
• Part to whole relationships – skills to game, - bigger, faster, stronger –
  • Technique to movement mastery
• Pedometers – odd & even numbers, averaging, basic math facts, activity time
• Percentages - weights – reps/sets/max/%
• Power – phase of strength training – skill related fitness
• Proportions
• Problem solving – team building
• Ratios
• Sequencing movement
• Splits, prediction, rounding, data analysis, shapes, geometry (trajectory)
• Symmetry in weight training, dance, sport skills
• Time/timing
• Weight % for lifting
• Wilkes Coefficient – Equalizes all students for strength and conditioning percentage