The weather is great and we all have fitness on our minds. Here are some opportunities for you and your students to get moving!

Lesson Plans

Internet Links

P.E. Central

Lesson Plans

Lesson plans and activities for teachers divided by grade range and topic.  The lessons also include recommended books and links on fitness.

K-2 Lessons:

• Caillou: Come Play with Me - Learn the importance of exercise by role-playing exercising, playing movement games and listening to one's own heartbeat.
• Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: Growing Takes Time - Discover that living things grow by planting seeds, watching them grow and talking about what is observed. Talk about the important things people need to grow, both inside and out.
• Winter Games: Health: Winning with Nutrition - Use the Food Guide Pyramid to select a balanced and nutritious diet. Participate in an exercise session to burn off the calories consumed in this lesson.

3-5 Lessons:

• Concepts Across the Curriculum: Summer Sports - Research summer sports associated with the Olympics, how politics have influenced the games, poems and songs about sports and sports injuries. Use math skills to investigate exercises and the game of baseball.
• ZOOM: Drinking Straw Pulse Measurer - Measure the human pulse by counting the movements of a drinking straw attached with clay to the pulse point on the neck. Predict activities that affect pulse rate, and compare your pulse with another person's.

6-8 Lessons:

• It's My Life: Solo Sports - Discuss the benefits of sports and which sports students enjoy playing. Identify various solo sports that offer alternatives to traditional competitive athletics.
• PBS Mathline: Health: Healthy Hearts - Calculate your resting heart rate in beats per minute, and estimate how long it would take for your heart to beat a billion times. Compute your average maximum heart rate, and attempt to reach your target heart rate zone while exercising.

9-12 Lessons:

• NewsHour Extra: Design and Implement a Personal Fitness Plan - Exhibit a physically active lifestyle, and begin to participate in and establish lifetime health and fitness habits and goals. Establish, apply, implement, monitor and adjust personal fitness goals.
• Scientific American Frontiers: Losing It: Healthy Choices 9-12 - Calculate your total daily energy expenditure to see how many calories you burn in a day. Make inferences about the relationship between caloric intake and daily energy expenditure.

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Internet Links

Fitness and Kids
An excellent site for students, parents and teachers to promote fitness and good exercise and nutrition habits for adults and children.  Includes links to exercise equipment, articles on health and nutrition, videos and more.

Kid’s Health
This site provides doctor-approved health information about children from before birth to adolescence.  There are separate sections for parents, kids and teens.

The President’s Challenge 
The President’s Challenge is a program that encourages all Americans to make being active a part of their everyday lives.  The site includes information and links for teachers, kids, teens, adults and seniors.

Kid’s Health and Fitness
This site sponsored by Kellogg’s, the Heart Foundation and The Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation is full of information, links and lesson ideas for students, parents and teachers.

Amateur Sports 
An excellent site on exercise for children and parents.  Included are links and information about sports and exercise, nutrition and guides for measuring success.

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P.E. Central

The premier web site for health and physical education teachers, parents and students.  This site includes lessons and assessment ideas and provides the latest information about developmentally appropriate physical education programs for children and youth.

K-2 Lessons:

• Hokey Pokey Aerobics:  Try a new spin on an old favorite and get some exercise while having fun!
• Scooterville:  Work on fitness development, safe driving on the scooter, and following the "rules of the road."

3-5 Lessons:

• Pedometer Partner Fitness Fun:  Enhance fitness through the use of stations, working with another, and technology (e.g., pedometers).
• Fun Push Ups:  Help students increase muscular strength and endurance.

6-12 Lessons:

• Let's Make a Deal:  Increase students' knowledge of the importance of overall physical fitness through the use of a game.
• Roam the Halls for Fitness:  Walk as many steps as possible during a class period while using a digi-walker or pedometer.

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