During Friday’s lesson, we focused on the topic of “Physical Literacy”. Although a variety of definitions were examined, I connected with Margret Whiteheads the most. She notes physical literacy as the “motivation, confidence, competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for engagement in physical education for life”. I was drawn to this definition, because it made me look at physical education from a different perspective. Growing up, I only ever thought of gym as a fun activity that we did every other day or so in school. Learning about the important impact that it had on my health and wellbeing didn’t come until later in life. With that being said, I feel it is important that children have a good understanding of physical literacy early in life. Rather then just attending gym class, student should understand its purpose. This includes being literate in body awareness, nutrition, and active living. Younger generations need to mindful that physical literacy isn’t just limited to school, but that it can be applied to everyday life as well. Whether it be choosing to go outside over playing a video game, or eating a banana over candy. These are all aspects that children should be conscious of. In my future classroom, I hope to incorporate physical literacy as much as possible. This could range from teaching students about healthy eating/living, all the way to utilizing the outdoors as part of a lesson plan.

On Tuesday, our group presented our lesson plan on Target Games. Being the first group to go was nerve-wracking, especially having to present right after going through all the evaluation rubrics! However, all in all, I think the lesson went well with the help of all our supportive classmates.

During our planning process, we had a lot of different ideas. There were a lot of things we had to keep in mind: PLOs, our target audience, physical/cognitive/affective development, fun, time management, evaluation and assessment, etc. How could we convey all the objectives, information, and instructions to the class, ensure there was a high enough participation time factor, and evaluate learning all within half an hour? It made me reflect on the reality of physical education in schools and how there really isn’t enough time set aside for something so important. It also made me excited to think about the ways in which I could incorporate physical activity in my classrooms throughout the day.

I noticed that the planning came easier to me than the teaching. I was able to research instant and warm-up activities that were simple yet relatable and then tie them together with the main lesson and learning objectives. The actual teaching part was a little more difficult – shout out to Lisa, Tina, and Claire (who did an amazing job leading the instant activity). Again, there were many things to keep in mind and a few hiccups along the way. Transition time was something we had difficulty with, especially with getting the equipment and going outdoors for some activities. Something I have to remember is to wait for the entire class to come in after an activity before providing new instructions, especially when in a large, outdoor space.

Overall, I think the lesson went well. The class played along and laughed at our silly skit, but I think they were really able to see how our whole lesson was structured and tied together.

Each time I come to our PE class I get so excited thinking about what I am going to get to teach this year during practicum! I was especially pleased that we covered physical literacy this week. Physical literacy is such an important aspect of a child’s overall health and I really think that with a focus on this we will be able to encourage more children to participate in an active lifestyle and enjoy their PE experience.

I think physical literacy really ties in to some of the reaccuring themes in our other classes. In particular its focus on specific skills relevant for our everyday lives rather than just focusing on skills relevant for a specific sport. In our other classes we have talked about assessment and expanding from the traditional test based model to incorporate activities that allow a variety of students to excell. A focus on physical literacy feels like a step towards expanding assessment in PE. Although Whitehead suggests that physical literacy is not something we can assess, it gives us another ruler on which to measure our classes advances in healthy, active living and drives us away from just assessing how well students are able to play a given sport.

Lastly I really enjoyed the volleyball lesson that this weeks group of teacher candidates put on. The ‘shuffle monkey’ activity was a particularly good example of a physical activity that is useful in a variety of sports and also a variety of everyday activities!

Physical literacy is an important skill not only in P.E but in all classes and aspects of life. These movements will help the child in their future. Therefore it is important to implement physical literacy into your other lesson plans as well. I grew up playing many different sports. I found they each help my performance in other sports. It allowed me to bring other movements and abilities into other game play. For instance, I went to Cirkids (a circus program) which improved my balance, strength and flexibility for all other sports. Soccer improved my endurance for Cirkids. Steve Nash was a great example of this. I have never seen his soccer ability before. They blew me away! He did not just grow up playing basketball everyday. He skateboarded and played soccer as well (and who knows what else) but each of these sport movements helped the other sport This allowing him to be the best basketball player as well as a very skilled soccer player.

P.s I loved the tic tac toe game as a warm up. Very creative!

I was surprised when I read through all the ‘‘Physical Education Hall of Shame’’ articles. I don’t agree with some of the games in the PEHOS article. I wasn’t expected to see that there was a high likelihood for danger or injury during the games. Games such as Kickball are based on to get players out by hitting them as hard as possible with thrown a ball. Teacher with poor teaching practice and the lock of emphasis on teaching motor was the big issue. I’m wondered how is the student going to be participating and have fun during the class? I think it is important for the physical education teachers to have the knowledge of what to teach and how to teach to students in the class. It is also their responsibility to understand students’ social and emotional needs in the class.

On Tuesday, we learned about target games. There were two things I really liked from this class. One was the warm-up at the beginning before we enter the target game. The warm-up was filled with emotions, movements, imagination, and creativity. I have never done any of instant activity when I was in grade 10. This is so new to me. Another one I liked about was using the self-talk (‘‘I can do this.’’) during the games. I found the self-talk was quite useful for me. It does help me to success at the end of the game. Now I’m looking forward to participating and seeing what other groups going to do for next week.

Tuesday was our first group teach session about target games. The group teach along with the Hall of Shame article led me to reflect on the considerations physical education teachers make when creating conditions for student learning. After reading the Hall of Shame article, it made me realize how damaging a particular physical activity may be to a child’s development. Games such as Red Rover are based around humiliation and isolation of the weaker students in class. They are not meant to celebrate good sportsmanship, team work,  physical development or increase the level of physical activity in a child’s life.  Physical Education teachers have a responsibility to instill passion in children in order to continue physical activity in the future. They need to create safe but also challenging conditions for student learning which is related to the high support high challenge environment tailoring to each specific child.

Participating in Group 1’s activity was a great example of a fun, safe, inviting and active environment to learn about physical education. I enjoyed how they set different levels of difficulty in order for teams to determine what level they are comfortable with. It was an excellent way to avoid isolating the students that may struggle with the concepts of an underthrow and hand/eye coordination.  By splitting up the class into small groups we were free of the pressures to perform for the group which truly made me feel more comfortable actively participating. I started out throwing at the closer pylon but after a few trial throws, I felt ready to challenge myself from the second and third pylon points. Since starting this program, I have been struggling with the habit of overthinking our assignments. Thus, participating in Group 1’s lesson helped me grasp the idea that if you keep it simple and stick to one theme, then the teachings will be more effective. Looking forward to seeing what Group 2 has in store for us next week!

After Tuesday’s class I thought about the question, “Do I need to be an ‘expert’ to teach PE?” and although I think perhaps my answer would have previously been a yes, my thinking is changing in this area. I saw the ways that Group 1 did their team teach, as new teachers, and coming from varying backgrounds of physical education or physical literacy. The ways in which they tackled the objectives, came up with many different ideas to help us learn target games and have fun while we did it made me see that you don’t need to be an expert in PE, but perhaps just an expert teacher. To me, that means being open to learning, taking risks and overcoming challenges in order to educate learners. In my case, I am open to learning how to teach PE and I think many of us feel like it will be a stretch out of our comfort zone. As we have learned, it is entirely too common among educators to shy away from teaching PE for the very same fears many of us probably share. Seeing Group 1 dive head first in to teaching a PE lesson was really encouraging and motivating for me.

It also made me think of the many ways in which movement can be joyful, as one of our guiding questions asked. There is joy in movement and sharing those experiences of movement with others. And that idea doesn’t necessarily have to only be applied to team sports. I think we all experienced, during our target games lesson, how fun and joyful it was to learn a skill together, practice together, support one another, motivate one another and share small victories (even if it was just hitting a disc with a bean bag!). I am excited to expand my understanding of PE, as well as my students’, and to build my confidence about being qualified to teach it.

Week 2 of PE this week marked the beginning of our journey into actually being Physical Education Teachers! Great job, Group 1 – Lisa, Tina, Claire and Agnes!

I would like to discuss some of the guiding questions from the syllabus as I think about what kind of PE class I want to teach. The biggest challenge may be that we do not see ourselves as “experts” in PE, or even as very athletic or sporty – but the truth is we don’t need to be good at PE to still have fun doing it. Enthusiasm and good attitude are the most important aspects, and it may be hard to always feel confident during the class (especially if we are teaching 18 year old athletes), but it is our attitudes that will inspire the class and promote learning – more than skill.

PE teachers need to find a way to keep everyone involved. I think as we have become adults the ideas of being active and healthy have changed so that we are free to pursue activities that we are more personally interested in, and all of these activities are valued (for example, yoga, rock climbing and paddleboarding). We need to draw attention to the fact that moving around is good for our brains, bodies and stress levels. The increased awareness of physical health and mental health is also something I am very interested in learning and I want to learn more ways to keep people active, healthy and enjoying PE. I can see how much happier it makes me everyday and these are habits we need to develop in our classes.