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Moving With Words & Actions
Physical Literacy for Preschool and Primary Children
by Rhonda L. Clements and Sharon L. Schneider
Series: SHAPE America set the Standard
272 Pages
The earlier that children develop a love for physical activity, the better able they are to acquire the healthy habits that will serve them well throughout their lives. Moving With Words & Actions is designed to help them develop that critical physical literacy.
Moving With Words & Actions offers early childhood and physical education teachers more than 70 lesson plans that can be used immediately or can be used as models for creating additional lessons. The plans reinforce both physical literacy and language literacy; they use words related to children’s academic learning and understanding of their immediate environment to entice them to move. The lesson plans
• Use an interdisciplinary approach, integrating academic concepts from language arts, math, science, health and nutrition, community awareness, and environmental awareness
• Are highly adaptable for various settings, including those working with individualized education programs and 504 accommodation plans as well as those teaching in limited spaces
• Offer great noncompetitive activities that are perfect for use by recess, lunchtime, and before- and after-school specialists
• Have been field tested according to best practices to ensure age appropriateness
Each lesson plan includes three learning tasks that help children apply a variety of action words and movement concepts to the moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activities prescribed in the tasks. Most tasks are easy to implement, requiring no equipment or specialized setting. What’s more, all lesson plans address SHAPE America’s National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education, so preschool children will have a head start on their kindergarten learning.
This SHAPE America book, based on the authors’ classic Movement-Based Learning, has been completely revamped with new lessons and new material to reflect current research, address the new standards and outcomes, and emphasize physical literacy. Part I offers expert guidance in selecting age-appropriate content, creating and implementing lesson plans, making the most of every lesson, and assessing your students’ learning and progress. In part I, you’ll explore the importance of words in young children’s lives and learn what constitutes an appropriate learning task and how that understanding should inform your teaching. These chapters also highlight two primary instructional strategies for this age group, identify five teaching practices to help student teachers create preservice lessons, and outline three assessment techniques for teachers in early-childhood settings.
Part II supplies the lesson plans themselves, categorized by these units:
• Healthy Bodies (examining body parts and the ways they move, and increasing awareness of healthy nutrition)
• Our Community (enhancing children’s understanding of community helpers in familiar roles)
• Living Creatures (helping children appreciate animals by imitating their movements, behaviors, and characteristics)
• Science and Math (using action rhymes, riddles, and games to learn math and science concepts)
• Language Arts (expanding on children’s language artss and movement vocabularies with alphabet challenges, action poems, movement riddles, and more)
Moving With Words & Actions will help you plan lessons with confidence, use sound instructional strategies, and assess your students effectively as they learn how their bodies function, move, and grow in healthy ways. Children will enjoy the movement activities, which are fun in and of themselves; but, more importantly, they will be taking a solid first step toward becoming physically literate learners who will gain the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to move with competence in multiple environments and lead active lives.
Human Kinetics is proud to publish this book in association with SHAPE America, the national organization that defines excellence for school-based health and physical education professionals across the United States.
Preface
Acknowledgments
Part I: Setting the Standard With Age-Appropriate Content, Instruction, and Assessment
Chapter 1: Selecting Age-Appropriate Content
The Power of Words
Physical Literacy and National Standards
Guidelines and Frameworks
Movement Concepts as Age-Appropriate Content
The Young Child’s Physical Skills
Manipulative Skills
Considerations for Content
Summary
Chapter 2: Creating and Implementing Lessons Plans
Behavioral Objectives
Central Focus
Learning Tasks (Ages 3-8)
Making Smooth Transitions Between Learning Tasks
Creative Ways to Form Groups
Structuring the Learning Environment to Be Physically Safe
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
Personal Community and Cultural Awareness
Instructional Strategies
Planned Supports for Children With Special Needs
Providing Differentiated Instruction
Academic Language
Summary
Chapter 3: Making the Most of Every Lesson
A Typical Lesson Plan
Making Lessons Plans More Purposeful
Instructional Materials/Props
Special Safety Considerations
Provisions for Special Needs
Students’ Prior Knowledge
Health-Enhancing Components of Physical Activity
Motivating Physically Literate Learners
Instructional Cues and Prompts
State Education Standards
Summary
Chapter 4: Assessing Children’s Ability to Move With Words & Actions
Evidence 1: The Child’s Perspective
Evidence 2: Responses to Higher-Order Questions
Evidence 3: Written Summaries and Progress Reports
Summary
Part II: Lesson Plans for Moving With Words & Actions
Chapter 5: Moving With Words & Actions to Create Healthy Bodies
Content Knowledge for Enhanced Physical Literacy
Strong Bones
Twisting Body Parts
My Special Body Parts
Muscle Actions
Body Expressions
Jumping Jills
Time, Force and Flow . . . On the Go
Body Outlines
Active Fruits and Vegetables
Fruit Salad Toss-Up
Sizzling Vegetables
Healthy Lunchtime Foods
Chapter 6: Moving With Words & Actions in Our Community
Community Helpers
Farm
Fire Station
Toy Store
Park
Schoolyard
Food Market
Pet Shop
Gas Station and Repair Shop
Train Station
Car Wash
Pizza Parlor
Construction Site
Laundromat
Library
Airport
Beach
Building Structures
Wintertime Holidays
Chapter 7: Moving With Words & Actions Like Living Creatures
Living Creatures Near and Far
Animal Actions
Under the Sea
Crustaceans
Feathered Friends
Penguins
Eagles and Chickens
Spider Web Formations
Insects and Bugs
Bumblebees
Life Cycle of the Butterfly
Horses
Learning About Nature
Chapter 8: Moving With Words & Actions in Science and Math
Science
Substances, Surfaces, and Textures
Power Sources
Wave Actions
Undersea Travel
Life Cycle of a Tree
Cave Structures
Wind Patterns
Vines Found in the Jungle
Rock Formations and Water
Math
Jumping With Words and Numbers That Rhyme
Hopping With Words and Numbers That Rhyme
Moving With Words and Numbers That Rhyme
Geometric Shapes
Puzzle Shapes
Body Triangles
Measuring Horses
First and Last
Creations
Chapter 9: Moving With Words & Actions in Language Arts
Alphabet
Alphabet Stretches A to Z
Alphabet Letters
Alphabet Treasures
Alphabet Rhythm
My Body Can Form Letters
Brain-and-Body Connection
Body Language
Twisting and Twirling Actions
Halloween Objects
Movement Narratives
Places in Our Community
Super Bodies
Fairy Tale Actions
So Very Small
The Letter S
Small to Tall
Objects in Our House
Amusement Park
Ice Rink
Sports Stadium
Hardware Store
Racetrack
Shoe Store
Magical Powers
Rainbow Magic
Machines
Space Travel
Science Museum
Rhonda L. Clements, EdD, is a professor and the director of the master’s of arts in teaching (MAT) program in physical education and sport pedagogy at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York. At Manhattanville College, she collects data regarding early childhood play activities and teaches about historical and sociocultural issues in sport and physical education.
Clements is the author of 10 books on movement, play, and games. She is past president of the American Association for the Child's Right to Play, a United Nations–recognized association composed of experts in play, games, and sports from 49 countries. The association’s primary purpose is to protect, preserve, and promote play and leisure activities throughout the world.
Clements has written numerous articles related to physical education, including 20 on sport and play factors. She is also a consultant for several manufacturers of sport equipment and playthings and has been interviewed by more than 300 journalists regarding children's right to leisure and physical play. She has presented at 40 international or national conferences and over 60 state or local conferences on topics related to cultural understanding through play and sport. Clements lives in New York City.
Sharon L. Schneider, MS, is an early childhood adjunct assistant professor at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York. At Hofstra University, she teaches all the required courses for undergraduate and graduate students pertaining to child movement, music, rhythm, and play and their integration into academics for early childhood and elementary educators. In addition, she has been a keynote speaker, a consultant for numerous groups, and a visiting scholar at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Schneider has served as a national physical activity consultant for Head Start Body Start and the National Center for Physical Development and Outdoor Play, and she has served as a facilitator for I Am Moving, I Am Learning (IMIL). She has been an officer and member of the executive board of the American Association for the Child’s Right to Play, for which she also served as an alternate representative to UNICEF and the United Nations Early Childhood Care and Development in Emergencies Working Group.
Schneider enjoys family adventures, her grandchildren, and the bragging rights she earns playing in her family’s fantasy football league.
Strong Bones
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
- Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
- Standard 2. The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Instructional Materials/Props
Picture or plastic skeleton of the body (optional)
Central Focus
To isolate and name different body parts that can serve as specified targets in a vigorous movement activity.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will point to bones in different parts of the body and indicate how they move.
- Affective: The child will show signs of developing a positive self-concept after moving.
- Psychomotor: The child will demonstrate that he or she can collapse safely to the ground after moving vigorously.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered in self-spaces.
Challenge the children to perform the following actions while saying this rhyme:
My muscles and bones are inside of me. (Point to chest.)
My goal is to make them as strong as can be. (Flex biceps.)
So I happily gallop, slide, skip, and jump. (Perform movements.)
When finished, I use my bones to pound and thump! (Pound arms on chest.)
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Let's divide our bodies into different areas or zones.
- Show your partner how you can make three upper-body parts move one after the other as you both count the moves. Your partner imitates you, and then you exchange roles.
- Move two body parts on the right side of your body. Make one of those body parts the highest part of your body.
- One partner points to two lower-body parts. See if you can make those two lower-body parts move at the same time. Exchange roles.
- Both wiggle one body part that is on the left side of the body.
Learning Task 3: Bones, Bones, Everywhere
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
- Ask the children to designate a specific body part or body area to serve as a target (e.g., elbow, shoulder, below the knees, hip, or between the shoulder blades).
- Select two or more chasers, depending on the size of the group.
- Challenge the remainder of the children to scatter and flee from the chasers.
- When a child is tagged, he or she collapses into a "pile of bones." After everyone is tagged, select new chasers, or call out, "Strong bodies!" Children who are tagged continue in the game.
Assessment Questions
- Which body part was the most difficult to tag?
- Show me the movements you used to keep your body from being tagged (e.g., dodging and darting).
- Who can remember a time when your bones needed to rest? How did you feel? Do you remember what you had been doing?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to explore the various body areas that are appropriate to serve as a space for tagging.
- Vocabulary: Collapse, elbow, hip, shoulder blades, strong
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal exchange concerning how to collapse and fall to the ground safely.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content.
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content. This understanding was missing in earlier times, before the realization that students in kindergarten through grade 12 learn best through active engagement in their individual ways. This awareness is sometimes referred to as knowledge of students to inform teaching, and many early childhood professionals have adopted this thinking for their lesson planning (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity [SCALE], 2016). They recognize that effective teachers take into account many factors that can influence the success of a lesson, such as a child's limited English ability, or differences in travel experiences, or even how much sleep a child had before coming to class. Therefore, the following lists identify characteristics of preschool and kindergarten students you should consider when planning age-appropriate lessons. This will increase the likelihood that your students will be able to participate more fully in the lessons.
What Young Children Can Remember
- Colors, shapes, letters, and figures described in movement tasks
- Objects associated with a particular setting
- The names of story characters
- Past experiences to yield new movement patterns
- The names of locomotor and nonlocomotor skills
How Young Children Can Practice Creative Thinking
- Pretending to move like an object or thing
- Imagining that the body is manipulating an object to complete a task
- Visualizing items that cannot be seen
- Discovering a novel way to move
- Following an imaginary pathway
How Young Children Like to Solve Simple Problems
- Recognizing how things are different and alike
- Working out a movement response
- Finding ways to improve the movement response
- Using the body to show how different objects feel when touched
- Discovering how to link movements
Young Children's Beginning Language Development
- Identifying the names of the body parts
- Demonstrating the meaning of words to a poem, song, or story
- Discussing facts related to objects or things
- Assuming the language of an imaginary character
- Making wants known
- Conveying words that express emotion
How Young Children Understand Themselves
- Using specific body parts to show how they feel
- Using specific body parts in the development of a game
- Realizing they have the ability to control the speed with which their body moves
- Learning the roles of people who influence their life
- Realizing that the body can perform movements related to specific animals
How Young Children Can Interact With Peers
- Switching roles with a classmate
- Manipulating a partner's body to move in specific ways
- Working with classmates to form a large object with their bodies
- Demonstrating cooperation with classmates
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Toy Store
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
Instructional Materials/Props
Pictures of or actual play objects found in the toy store (optional)
Central Focus
To imagine their bodies have become their favorite playthings.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will acquire information regarding classic toys and playthings and participate in the actions associated with these objects.
- Affective: The child will express an interest in using his or her body and the body of a partner to imagine that he or she is a classic toy or plaything.
- Psychomotor: The child will enthusiastically participate with classmates and explore movements and actions common to toys.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered throughout general space.
Present the following: Toys are objects created for the enjoyment of children. Let's begin by moving like several favorite toys. Challenge the children to perform these actions:
- Who can show me how to spin like a top?
- Can you pretend to wiggle a Hula-Hoop around your waist?
- How high can you bounce your body into the air like a rubber ball?
- Jumping rope helps the heart grow stronger. Make believe you are jumping rope.
- The wooden toy rowboat has two oars. Raise your arms and pretend to row the boat down the river.
- The wooden rocking horse has been a favorite toy for many children. Place one foot in front of your body. Try to rock back and forth.
- The ballet dancer doll stretches up and walks on his or her toes. Find a way to walk on your toes and twirl around like the dancer.
- Show me how you can march like the toy robot.
- Let's pretend to strap on a pair of ice skates. Can you slide and move as if you were skating on slippery ice?
- Superhero dolls wear costumes in their adventure roles. Pretend to step into your costume and show me how strong you can make your body.
- Toy rockets blast off on a count of 10. Ready, lower your body and then spring up like a rocket.
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Children quickly find partners. To form a make-believe scooter, one child stands very tall and places his or her fists on the chest. The other child stands behind this person and grasps the partner's elbows.
- Together, partners move forward by taking sliding steps without bumping other sets of partners. Exchange roles.
- Explain to the children that wagons carry children'stoys. To begin, one partner clasps his or her hands together to form a circle in front of the body. This is the handle of the wagon.
- The other partner grasps the handle and pulls the wagon along. Exchange roles.
Learning Task 3: A Classic Toy
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
Present the following:
Divide the children into two groups. Explain to them that they can use their bodies to form a large jill- or jack-in-the-box. Some of the children form the box by standing side by side to make a square. Within the box is a group of children who stoop low to the floor like a folded Jack or Jill. These children grasp their knees while balancing on their toes as they stoop. One child must stand outside the box to crank the handle as the children forming the box recite this poem:
Jack-in-the-box,
Jill-in-the-box,
Tucked down in your box today,
We'll crank the handle so you'll
Come out and play!
The Jills and Jacks spring up on the word play. Exchange roles.
Assessment Questions
- Build a large soft toy using a partner's body.
- Is it possible to name a toy that uses technology and show your classmates how it might move?
- Who can think of a toy we did not see today and show us how it moves?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to guide a partner in movements that imitate the physical actions associated with a classic toy or plaything.
- Vocabulary: oars, strap, spring, crank, the names of a variety of classic playthings
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal interchange to conclude that a classic toy or plaything moves in a particular manner or can be formed using the bodies of several classmates.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Strong Bones
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
- Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
- Standard 2. The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Instructional Materials/Props
Picture or plastic skeleton of the body (optional)
Central Focus
To isolate and name different body parts that can serve as specified targets in a vigorous movement activity.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will point to bones in different parts of the body and indicate how they move.
- Affective: The child will show signs of developing a positive self-concept after moving.
- Psychomotor: The child will demonstrate that he or she can collapse safely to the ground after moving vigorously.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered in self-spaces.
Challenge the children to perform the following actions while saying this rhyme:
My muscles and bones are inside of me. (Point to chest.)
My goal is to make them as strong as can be. (Flex biceps.)
So I happily gallop, slide, skip, and jump. (Perform movements.)
When finished, I use my bones to pound and thump! (Pound arms on chest.)
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Let's divide our bodies into different areas or zones.
- Show your partner how you can make three upper-body parts move one after the other as you both count the moves. Your partner imitates you, and then you exchange roles.
- Move two body parts on the right side of your body. Make one of those body parts the highest part of your body.
- One partner points to two lower-body parts. See if you can make those two lower-body parts move at the same time. Exchange roles.
- Both wiggle one body part that is on the left side of the body.
Learning Task 3: Bones, Bones, Everywhere
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
- Ask the children to designate a specific body part or body area to serve as a target (e.g., elbow, shoulder, below the knees, hip, or between the shoulder blades).
- Select two or more chasers, depending on the size of the group.
- Challenge the remainder of the children to scatter and flee from the chasers.
- When a child is tagged, he or she collapses into a "pile of bones." After everyone is tagged, select new chasers, or call out, "Strong bodies!" Children who are tagged continue in the game.
Assessment Questions
- Which body part was the most difficult to tag?
- Show me the movements you used to keep your body from being tagged (e.g., dodging and darting).
- Who can remember a time when your bones needed to rest? How did you feel? Do you remember what you had been doing?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to explore the various body areas that are appropriate to serve as a space for tagging.
- Vocabulary: Collapse, elbow, hip, shoulder blades, strong
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal exchange concerning how to collapse and fall to the ground safely.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content.
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content. This understanding was missing in earlier times, before the realization that students in kindergarten through grade 12 learn best through active engagement in their individual ways. This awareness is sometimes referred to as knowledge of students to inform teaching, and many early childhood professionals have adopted this thinking for their lesson planning (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity [SCALE], 2016). They recognize that effective teachers take into account many factors that can influence the success of a lesson, such as a child's limited English ability, or differences in travel experiences, or even how much sleep a child had before coming to class. Therefore, the following lists identify characteristics of preschool and kindergarten students you should consider when planning age-appropriate lessons. This will increase the likelihood that your students will be able to participate more fully in the lessons.
What Young Children Can Remember
- Colors, shapes, letters, and figures described in movement tasks
- Objects associated with a particular setting
- The names of story characters
- Past experiences to yield new movement patterns
- The names of locomotor and nonlocomotor skills
How Young Children Can Practice Creative Thinking
- Pretending to move like an object or thing
- Imagining that the body is manipulating an object to complete a task
- Visualizing items that cannot be seen
- Discovering a novel way to move
- Following an imaginary pathway
How Young Children Like to Solve Simple Problems
- Recognizing how things are different and alike
- Working out a movement response
- Finding ways to improve the movement response
- Using the body to show how different objects feel when touched
- Discovering how to link movements
Young Children's Beginning Language Development
- Identifying the names of the body parts
- Demonstrating the meaning of words to a poem, song, or story
- Discussing facts related to objects or things
- Assuming the language of an imaginary character
- Making wants known
- Conveying words that express emotion
How Young Children Understand Themselves
- Using specific body parts to show how they feel
- Using specific body parts in the development of a game
- Realizing they have the ability to control the speed with which their body moves
- Learning the roles of people who influence their life
- Realizing that the body can perform movements related to specific animals
How Young Children Can Interact With Peers
- Switching roles with a classmate
- Manipulating a partner's body to move in specific ways
- Working with classmates to form a large object with their bodies
- Demonstrating cooperation with classmates
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Toy Store
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
Instructional Materials/Props
Pictures of or actual play objects found in the toy store (optional)
Central Focus
To imagine their bodies have become their favorite playthings.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will acquire information regarding classic toys and playthings and participate in the actions associated with these objects.
- Affective: The child will express an interest in using his or her body and the body of a partner to imagine that he or she is a classic toy or plaything.
- Psychomotor: The child will enthusiastically participate with classmates and explore movements and actions common to toys.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered throughout general space.
Present the following: Toys are objects created for the enjoyment of children. Let's begin by moving like several favorite toys. Challenge the children to perform these actions:
- Who can show me how to spin like a top?
- Can you pretend to wiggle a Hula-Hoop around your waist?
- How high can you bounce your body into the air like a rubber ball?
- Jumping rope helps the heart grow stronger. Make believe you are jumping rope.
- The wooden toy rowboat has two oars. Raise your arms and pretend to row the boat down the river.
- The wooden rocking horse has been a favorite toy for many children. Place one foot in front of your body. Try to rock back and forth.
- The ballet dancer doll stretches up and walks on his or her toes. Find a way to walk on your toes and twirl around like the dancer.
- Show me how you can march like the toy robot.
- Let's pretend to strap on a pair of ice skates. Can you slide and move as if you were skating on slippery ice?
- Superhero dolls wear costumes in their adventure roles. Pretend to step into your costume and show me how strong you can make your body.
- Toy rockets blast off on a count of 10. Ready, lower your body and then spring up like a rocket.
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Children quickly find partners. To form a make-believe scooter, one child stands very tall and places his or her fists on the chest. The other child stands behind this person and grasps the partner's elbows.
- Together, partners move forward by taking sliding steps without bumping other sets of partners. Exchange roles.
- Explain to the children that wagons carry children'stoys. To begin, one partner clasps his or her hands together to form a circle in front of the body. This is the handle of the wagon.
- The other partner grasps the handle and pulls the wagon along. Exchange roles.
Learning Task 3: A Classic Toy
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
Present the following:
Divide the children into two groups. Explain to them that they can use their bodies to form a large jill- or jack-in-the-box. Some of the children form the box by standing side by side to make a square. Within the box is a group of children who stoop low to the floor like a folded Jack or Jill. These children grasp their knees while balancing on their toes as they stoop. One child must stand outside the box to crank the handle as the children forming the box recite this poem:
Jack-in-the-box,
Jill-in-the-box,
Tucked down in your box today,
We'll crank the handle so you'll
Come out and play!
The Jills and Jacks spring up on the word play. Exchange roles.
Assessment Questions
- Build a large soft toy using a partner's body.
- Is it possible to name a toy that uses technology and show your classmates how it might move?
- Who can think of a toy we did not see today and show us how it moves?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to guide a partner in movements that imitate the physical actions associated with a classic toy or plaything.
- Vocabulary: oars, strap, spring, crank, the names of a variety of classic playthings
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal interchange to conclude that a classic toy or plaything moves in a particular manner or can be formed using the bodies of several classmates.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Strong Bones
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
- Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
- Standard 2. The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Instructional Materials/Props
Picture or plastic skeleton of the body (optional)
Central Focus
To isolate and name different body parts that can serve as specified targets in a vigorous movement activity.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will point to bones in different parts of the body and indicate how they move.
- Affective: The child will show signs of developing a positive self-concept after moving.
- Psychomotor: The child will demonstrate that he or she can collapse safely to the ground after moving vigorously.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered in self-spaces.
Challenge the children to perform the following actions while saying this rhyme:
My muscles and bones are inside of me. (Point to chest.)
My goal is to make them as strong as can be. (Flex biceps.)
So I happily gallop, slide, skip, and jump. (Perform movements.)
When finished, I use my bones to pound and thump! (Pound arms on chest.)
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Let's divide our bodies into different areas or zones.
- Show your partner how you can make three upper-body parts move one after the other as you both count the moves. Your partner imitates you, and then you exchange roles.
- Move two body parts on the right side of your body. Make one of those body parts the highest part of your body.
- One partner points to two lower-body parts. See if you can make those two lower-body parts move at the same time. Exchange roles.
- Both wiggle one body part that is on the left side of the body.
Learning Task 3: Bones, Bones, Everywhere
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
- Ask the children to designate a specific body part or body area to serve as a target (e.g., elbow, shoulder, below the knees, hip, or between the shoulder blades).
- Select two or more chasers, depending on the size of the group.
- Challenge the remainder of the children to scatter and flee from the chasers.
- When a child is tagged, he or she collapses into a "pile of bones." After everyone is tagged, select new chasers, or call out, "Strong bodies!" Children who are tagged continue in the game.
Assessment Questions
- Which body part was the most difficult to tag?
- Show me the movements you used to keep your body from being tagged (e.g., dodging and darting).
- Who can remember a time when your bones needed to rest? How did you feel? Do you remember what you had been doing?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to explore the various body areas that are appropriate to serve as a space for tagging.
- Vocabulary: Collapse, elbow, hip, shoulder blades, strong
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal exchange concerning how to collapse and fall to the ground safely.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content.
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content. This understanding was missing in earlier times, before the realization that students in kindergarten through grade 12 learn best through active engagement in their individual ways. This awareness is sometimes referred to as knowledge of students to inform teaching, and many early childhood professionals have adopted this thinking for their lesson planning (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity [SCALE], 2016). They recognize that effective teachers take into account many factors that can influence the success of a lesson, such as a child's limited English ability, or differences in travel experiences, or even how much sleep a child had before coming to class. Therefore, the following lists identify characteristics of preschool and kindergarten students you should consider when planning age-appropriate lessons. This will increase the likelihood that your students will be able to participate more fully in the lessons.
What Young Children Can Remember
- Colors, shapes, letters, and figures described in movement tasks
- Objects associated with a particular setting
- The names of story characters
- Past experiences to yield new movement patterns
- The names of locomotor and nonlocomotor skills
How Young Children Can Practice Creative Thinking
- Pretending to move like an object or thing
- Imagining that the body is manipulating an object to complete a task
- Visualizing items that cannot be seen
- Discovering a novel way to move
- Following an imaginary pathway
How Young Children Like to Solve Simple Problems
- Recognizing how things are different and alike
- Working out a movement response
- Finding ways to improve the movement response
- Using the body to show how different objects feel when touched
- Discovering how to link movements
Young Children's Beginning Language Development
- Identifying the names of the body parts
- Demonstrating the meaning of words to a poem, song, or story
- Discussing facts related to objects or things
- Assuming the language of an imaginary character
- Making wants known
- Conveying words that express emotion
How Young Children Understand Themselves
- Using specific body parts to show how they feel
- Using specific body parts in the development of a game
- Realizing they have the ability to control the speed with which their body moves
- Learning the roles of people who influence their life
- Realizing that the body can perform movements related to specific animals
How Young Children Can Interact With Peers
- Switching roles with a classmate
- Manipulating a partner's body to move in specific ways
- Working with classmates to form a large object with their bodies
- Demonstrating cooperation with classmates
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Toy Store
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
Instructional Materials/Props
Pictures of or actual play objects found in the toy store (optional)
Central Focus
To imagine their bodies have become their favorite playthings.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will acquire information regarding classic toys and playthings and participate in the actions associated with these objects.
- Affective: The child will express an interest in using his or her body and the body of a partner to imagine that he or she is a classic toy or plaything.
- Psychomotor: The child will enthusiastically participate with classmates and explore movements and actions common to toys.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered throughout general space.
Present the following: Toys are objects created for the enjoyment of children. Let's begin by moving like several favorite toys. Challenge the children to perform these actions:
- Who can show me how to spin like a top?
- Can you pretend to wiggle a Hula-Hoop around your waist?
- How high can you bounce your body into the air like a rubber ball?
- Jumping rope helps the heart grow stronger. Make believe you are jumping rope.
- The wooden toy rowboat has two oars. Raise your arms and pretend to row the boat down the river.
- The wooden rocking horse has been a favorite toy for many children. Place one foot in front of your body. Try to rock back and forth.
- The ballet dancer doll stretches up and walks on his or her toes. Find a way to walk on your toes and twirl around like the dancer.
- Show me how you can march like the toy robot.
- Let's pretend to strap on a pair of ice skates. Can you slide and move as if you were skating on slippery ice?
- Superhero dolls wear costumes in their adventure roles. Pretend to step into your costume and show me how strong you can make your body.
- Toy rockets blast off on a count of 10. Ready, lower your body and then spring up like a rocket.
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Children quickly find partners. To form a make-believe scooter, one child stands very tall and places his or her fists on the chest. The other child stands behind this person and grasps the partner's elbows.
- Together, partners move forward by taking sliding steps without bumping other sets of partners. Exchange roles.
- Explain to the children that wagons carry children'stoys. To begin, one partner clasps his or her hands together to form a circle in front of the body. This is the handle of the wagon.
- The other partner grasps the handle and pulls the wagon along. Exchange roles.
Learning Task 3: A Classic Toy
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
Present the following:
Divide the children into two groups. Explain to them that they can use their bodies to form a large jill- or jack-in-the-box. Some of the children form the box by standing side by side to make a square. Within the box is a group of children who stoop low to the floor like a folded Jack or Jill. These children grasp their knees while balancing on their toes as they stoop. One child must stand outside the box to crank the handle as the children forming the box recite this poem:
Jack-in-the-box,
Jill-in-the-box,
Tucked down in your box today,
We'll crank the handle so you'll
Come out and play!
The Jills and Jacks spring up on the word play. Exchange roles.
Assessment Questions
- Build a large soft toy using a partner's body.
- Is it possible to name a toy that uses technology and show your classmates how it might move?
- Who can think of a toy we did not see today and show us how it moves?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to guide a partner in movements that imitate the physical actions associated with a classic toy or plaything.
- Vocabulary: oars, strap, spring, crank, the names of a variety of classic playthings
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal interchange to conclude that a classic toy or plaything moves in a particular manner or can be formed using the bodies of several classmates.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Strong Bones
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
- Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
- Standard 2. The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Instructional Materials/Props
Picture or plastic skeleton of the body (optional)
Central Focus
To isolate and name different body parts that can serve as specified targets in a vigorous movement activity.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will point to bones in different parts of the body and indicate how they move.
- Affective: The child will show signs of developing a positive self-concept after moving.
- Psychomotor: The child will demonstrate that he or she can collapse safely to the ground after moving vigorously.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered in self-spaces.
Challenge the children to perform the following actions while saying this rhyme:
My muscles and bones are inside of me. (Point to chest.)
My goal is to make them as strong as can be. (Flex biceps.)
So I happily gallop, slide, skip, and jump. (Perform movements.)
When finished, I use my bones to pound and thump! (Pound arms on chest.)
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Let's divide our bodies into different areas or zones.
- Show your partner how you can make three upper-body parts move one after the other as you both count the moves. Your partner imitates you, and then you exchange roles.
- Move two body parts on the right side of your body. Make one of those body parts the highest part of your body.
- One partner points to two lower-body parts. See if you can make those two lower-body parts move at the same time. Exchange roles.
- Both wiggle one body part that is on the left side of the body.
Learning Task 3: Bones, Bones, Everywhere
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
- Ask the children to designate a specific body part or body area to serve as a target (e.g., elbow, shoulder, below the knees, hip, or between the shoulder blades).
- Select two or more chasers, depending on the size of the group.
- Challenge the remainder of the children to scatter and flee from the chasers.
- When a child is tagged, he or she collapses into a "pile of bones." After everyone is tagged, select new chasers, or call out, "Strong bodies!" Children who are tagged continue in the game.
Assessment Questions
- Which body part was the most difficult to tag?
- Show me the movements you used to keep your body from being tagged (e.g., dodging and darting).
- Who can remember a time when your bones needed to rest? How did you feel? Do you remember what you had been doing?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to explore the various body areas that are appropriate to serve as a space for tagging.
- Vocabulary: Collapse, elbow, hip, shoulder blades, strong
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal exchange concerning how to collapse and fall to the ground safely.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content.
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content. This understanding was missing in earlier times, before the realization that students in kindergarten through grade 12 learn best through active engagement in their individual ways. This awareness is sometimes referred to as knowledge of students to inform teaching, and many early childhood professionals have adopted this thinking for their lesson planning (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity [SCALE], 2016). They recognize that effective teachers take into account many factors that can influence the success of a lesson, such as a child's limited English ability, or differences in travel experiences, or even how much sleep a child had before coming to class. Therefore, the following lists identify characteristics of preschool and kindergarten students you should consider when planning age-appropriate lessons. This will increase the likelihood that your students will be able to participate more fully in the lessons.
What Young Children Can Remember
- Colors, shapes, letters, and figures described in movement tasks
- Objects associated with a particular setting
- The names of story characters
- Past experiences to yield new movement patterns
- The names of locomotor and nonlocomotor skills
How Young Children Can Practice Creative Thinking
- Pretending to move like an object or thing
- Imagining that the body is manipulating an object to complete a task
- Visualizing items that cannot be seen
- Discovering a novel way to move
- Following an imaginary pathway
How Young Children Like to Solve Simple Problems
- Recognizing how things are different and alike
- Working out a movement response
- Finding ways to improve the movement response
- Using the body to show how different objects feel when touched
- Discovering how to link movements
Young Children's Beginning Language Development
- Identifying the names of the body parts
- Demonstrating the meaning of words to a poem, song, or story
- Discussing facts related to objects or things
- Assuming the language of an imaginary character
- Making wants known
- Conveying words that express emotion
How Young Children Understand Themselves
- Using specific body parts to show how they feel
- Using specific body parts in the development of a game
- Realizing they have the ability to control the speed with which their body moves
- Learning the roles of people who influence their life
- Realizing that the body can perform movements related to specific animals
How Young Children Can Interact With Peers
- Switching roles with a classmate
- Manipulating a partner's body to move in specific ways
- Working with classmates to form a large object with their bodies
- Demonstrating cooperation with classmates
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Toy Store
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
Instructional Materials/Props
Pictures of or actual play objects found in the toy store (optional)
Central Focus
To imagine their bodies have become their favorite playthings.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will acquire information regarding classic toys and playthings and participate in the actions associated with these objects.
- Affective: The child will express an interest in using his or her body and the body of a partner to imagine that he or she is a classic toy or plaything.
- Psychomotor: The child will enthusiastically participate with classmates and explore movements and actions common to toys.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered throughout general space.
Present the following: Toys are objects created for the enjoyment of children. Let's begin by moving like several favorite toys. Challenge the children to perform these actions:
- Who can show me how to spin like a top?
- Can you pretend to wiggle a Hula-Hoop around your waist?
- How high can you bounce your body into the air like a rubber ball?
- Jumping rope helps the heart grow stronger. Make believe you are jumping rope.
- The wooden toy rowboat has two oars. Raise your arms and pretend to row the boat down the river.
- The wooden rocking horse has been a favorite toy for many children. Place one foot in front of your body. Try to rock back and forth.
- The ballet dancer doll stretches up and walks on his or her toes. Find a way to walk on your toes and twirl around like the dancer.
- Show me how you can march like the toy robot.
- Let's pretend to strap on a pair of ice skates. Can you slide and move as if you were skating on slippery ice?
- Superhero dolls wear costumes in their adventure roles. Pretend to step into your costume and show me how strong you can make your body.
- Toy rockets blast off on a count of 10. Ready, lower your body and then spring up like a rocket.
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Children quickly find partners. To form a make-believe scooter, one child stands very tall and places his or her fists on the chest. The other child stands behind this person and grasps the partner's elbows.
- Together, partners move forward by taking sliding steps without bumping other sets of partners. Exchange roles.
- Explain to the children that wagons carry children'stoys. To begin, one partner clasps his or her hands together to form a circle in front of the body. This is the handle of the wagon.
- The other partner grasps the handle and pulls the wagon along. Exchange roles.
Learning Task 3: A Classic Toy
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
Present the following:
Divide the children into two groups. Explain to them that they can use their bodies to form a large jill- or jack-in-the-box. Some of the children form the box by standing side by side to make a square. Within the box is a group of children who stoop low to the floor like a folded Jack or Jill. These children grasp their knees while balancing on their toes as they stoop. One child must stand outside the box to crank the handle as the children forming the box recite this poem:
Jack-in-the-box,
Jill-in-the-box,
Tucked down in your box today,
We'll crank the handle so you'll
Come out and play!
The Jills and Jacks spring up on the word play. Exchange roles.
Assessment Questions
- Build a large soft toy using a partner's body.
- Is it possible to name a toy that uses technology and show your classmates how it might move?
- Who can think of a toy we did not see today and show us how it moves?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to guide a partner in movements that imitate the physical actions associated with a classic toy or plaything.
- Vocabulary: oars, strap, spring, crank, the names of a variety of classic playthings
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal interchange to conclude that a classic toy or plaything moves in a particular manner or can be formed using the bodies of several classmates.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Strong Bones
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
- Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
- Standard 2. The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Instructional Materials/Props
Picture or plastic skeleton of the body (optional)
Central Focus
To isolate and name different body parts that can serve as specified targets in a vigorous movement activity.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will point to bones in different parts of the body and indicate how they move.
- Affective: The child will show signs of developing a positive self-concept after moving.
- Psychomotor: The child will demonstrate that he or she can collapse safely to the ground after moving vigorously.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered in self-spaces.
Challenge the children to perform the following actions while saying this rhyme:
My muscles and bones are inside of me. (Point to chest.)
My goal is to make them as strong as can be. (Flex biceps.)
So I happily gallop, slide, skip, and jump. (Perform movements.)
When finished, I use my bones to pound and thump! (Pound arms on chest.)
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Let's divide our bodies into different areas or zones.
- Show your partner how you can make three upper-body parts move one after the other as you both count the moves. Your partner imitates you, and then you exchange roles.
- Move two body parts on the right side of your body. Make one of those body parts the highest part of your body.
- One partner points to two lower-body parts. See if you can make those two lower-body parts move at the same time. Exchange roles.
- Both wiggle one body part that is on the left side of the body.
Learning Task 3: Bones, Bones, Everywhere
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
- Ask the children to designate a specific body part or body area to serve as a target (e.g., elbow, shoulder, below the knees, hip, or between the shoulder blades).
- Select two or more chasers, depending on the size of the group.
- Challenge the remainder of the children to scatter and flee from the chasers.
- When a child is tagged, he or she collapses into a "pile of bones." After everyone is tagged, select new chasers, or call out, "Strong bodies!" Children who are tagged continue in the game.
Assessment Questions
- Which body part was the most difficult to tag?
- Show me the movements you used to keep your body from being tagged (e.g., dodging and darting).
- Who can remember a time when your bones needed to rest? How did you feel? Do you remember what you had been doing?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to explore the various body areas that are appropriate to serve as a space for tagging.
- Vocabulary: Collapse, elbow, hip, shoulder blades, strong
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal exchange concerning how to collapse and fall to the ground safely.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content.
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content. This understanding was missing in earlier times, before the realization that students in kindergarten through grade 12 learn best through active engagement in their individual ways. This awareness is sometimes referred to as knowledge of students to inform teaching, and many early childhood professionals have adopted this thinking for their lesson planning (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity [SCALE], 2016). They recognize that effective teachers take into account many factors that can influence the success of a lesson, such as a child's limited English ability, or differences in travel experiences, or even how much sleep a child had before coming to class. Therefore, the following lists identify characteristics of preschool and kindergarten students you should consider when planning age-appropriate lessons. This will increase the likelihood that your students will be able to participate more fully in the lessons.
What Young Children Can Remember
- Colors, shapes, letters, and figures described in movement tasks
- Objects associated with a particular setting
- The names of story characters
- Past experiences to yield new movement patterns
- The names of locomotor and nonlocomotor skills
How Young Children Can Practice Creative Thinking
- Pretending to move like an object or thing
- Imagining that the body is manipulating an object to complete a task
- Visualizing items that cannot be seen
- Discovering a novel way to move
- Following an imaginary pathway
How Young Children Like to Solve Simple Problems
- Recognizing how things are different and alike
- Working out a movement response
- Finding ways to improve the movement response
- Using the body to show how different objects feel when touched
- Discovering how to link movements
Young Children's Beginning Language Development
- Identifying the names of the body parts
- Demonstrating the meaning of words to a poem, song, or story
- Discussing facts related to objects or things
- Assuming the language of an imaginary character
- Making wants known
- Conveying words that express emotion
How Young Children Understand Themselves
- Using specific body parts to show how they feel
- Using specific body parts in the development of a game
- Realizing they have the ability to control the speed with which their body moves
- Learning the roles of people who influence their life
- Realizing that the body can perform movements related to specific animals
How Young Children Can Interact With Peers
- Switching roles with a classmate
- Manipulating a partner's body to move in specific ways
- Working with classmates to form a large object with their bodies
- Demonstrating cooperation with classmates
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Toy Store
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
Instructional Materials/Props
Pictures of or actual play objects found in the toy store (optional)
Central Focus
To imagine their bodies have become their favorite playthings.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will acquire information regarding classic toys and playthings and participate in the actions associated with these objects.
- Affective: The child will express an interest in using his or her body and the body of a partner to imagine that he or she is a classic toy or plaything.
- Psychomotor: The child will enthusiastically participate with classmates and explore movements and actions common to toys.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered throughout general space.
Present the following: Toys are objects created for the enjoyment of children. Let's begin by moving like several favorite toys. Challenge the children to perform these actions:
- Who can show me how to spin like a top?
- Can you pretend to wiggle a Hula-Hoop around your waist?
- How high can you bounce your body into the air like a rubber ball?
- Jumping rope helps the heart grow stronger. Make believe you are jumping rope.
- The wooden toy rowboat has two oars. Raise your arms and pretend to row the boat down the river.
- The wooden rocking horse has been a favorite toy for many children. Place one foot in front of your body. Try to rock back and forth.
- The ballet dancer doll stretches up and walks on his or her toes. Find a way to walk on your toes and twirl around like the dancer.
- Show me how you can march like the toy robot.
- Let's pretend to strap on a pair of ice skates. Can you slide and move as if you were skating on slippery ice?
- Superhero dolls wear costumes in their adventure roles. Pretend to step into your costume and show me how strong you can make your body.
- Toy rockets blast off on a count of 10. Ready, lower your body and then spring up like a rocket.
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Children quickly find partners. To form a make-believe scooter, one child stands very tall and places his or her fists on the chest. The other child stands behind this person and grasps the partner's elbows.
- Together, partners move forward by taking sliding steps without bumping other sets of partners. Exchange roles.
- Explain to the children that wagons carry children'stoys. To begin, one partner clasps his or her hands together to form a circle in front of the body. This is the handle of the wagon.
- The other partner grasps the handle and pulls the wagon along. Exchange roles.
Learning Task 3: A Classic Toy
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
Present the following:
Divide the children into two groups. Explain to them that they can use their bodies to form a large jill- or jack-in-the-box. Some of the children form the box by standing side by side to make a square. Within the box is a group of children who stoop low to the floor like a folded Jack or Jill. These children grasp their knees while balancing on their toes as they stoop. One child must stand outside the box to crank the handle as the children forming the box recite this poem:
Jack-in-the-box,
Jill-in-the-box,
Tucked down in your box today,
We'll crank the handle so you'll
Come out and play!
The Jills and Jacks spring up on the word play. Exchange roles.
Assessment Questions
- Build a large soft toy using a partner's body.
- Is it possible to name a toy that uses technology and show your classmates how it might move?
- Who can think of a toy we did not see today and show us how it moves?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to guide a partner in movements that imitate the physical actions associated with a classic toy or plaything.
- Vocabulary: oars, strap, spring, crank, the names of a variety of classic playthings
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal interchange to conclude that a classic toy or plaything moves in a particular manner or can be formed using the bodies of several classmates.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Strong Bones
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
- Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
- Standard 2. The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Instructional Materials/Props
Picture or plastic skeleton of the body (optional)
Central Focus
To isolate and name different body parts that can serve as specified targets in a vigorous movement activity.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will point to bones in different parts of the body and indicate how they move.
- Affective: The child will show signs of developing a positive self-concept after moving.
- Psychomotor: The child will demonstrate that he or she can collapse safely to the ground after moving vigorously.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered in self-spaces.
Challenge the children to perform the following actions while saying this rhyme:
My muscles and bones are inside of me. (Point to chest.)
My goal is to make them as strong as can be. (Flex biceps.)
So I happily gallop, slide, skip, and jump. (Perform movements.)
When finished, I use my bones to pound and thump! (Pound arms on chest.)
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Let's divide our bodies into different areas or zones.
- Show your partner how you can make three upper-body parts move one after the other as you both count the moves. Your partner imitates you, and then you exchange roles.
- Move two body parts on the right side of your body. Make one of those body parts the highest part of your body.
- One partner points to two lower-body parts. See if you can make those two lower-body parts move at the same time. Exchange roles.
- Both wiggle one body part that is on the left side of the body.
Learning Task 3: Bones, Bones, Everywhere
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
- Ask the children to designate a specific body part or body area to serve as a target (e.g., elbow, shoulder, below the knees, hip, or between the shoulder blades).
- Select two or more chasers, depending on the size of the group.
- Challenge the remainder of the children to scatter and flee from the chasers.
- When a child is tagged, he or she collapses into a "pile of bones." After everyone is tagged, select new chasers, or call out, "Strong bodies!" Children who are tagged continue in the game.
Assessment Questions
- Which body part was the most difficult to tag?
- Show me the movements you used to keep your body from being tagged (e.g., dodging and darting).
- Who can remember a time when your bones needed to rest? How did you feel? Do you remember what you had been doing?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to explore the various body areas that are appropriate to serve as a space for tagging.
- Vocabulary: Collapse, elbow, hip, shoulder blades, strong
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal exchange concerning how to collapse and fall to the ground safely.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content.
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content. This understanding was missing in earlier times, before the realization that students in kindergarten through grade 12 learn best through active engagement in their individual ways. This awareness is sometimes referred to as knowledge of students to inform teaching, and many early childhood professionals have adopted this thinking for their lesson planning (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity [SCALE], 2016). They recognize that effective teachers take into account many factors that can influence the success of a lesson, such as a child's limited English ability, or differences in travel experiences, or even how much sleep a child had before coming to class. Therefore, the following lists identify characteristics of preschool and kindergarten students you should consider when planning age-appropriate lessons. This will increase the likelihood that your students will be able to participate more fully in the lessons.
What Young Children Can Remember
- Colors, shapes, letters, and figures described in movement tasks
- Objects associated with a particular setting
- The names of story characters
- Past experiences to yield new movement patterns
- The names of locomotor and nonlocomotor skills
How Young Children Can Practice Creative Thinking
- Pretending to move like an object or thing
- Imagining that the body is manipulating an object to complete a task
- Visualizing items that cannot be seen
- Discovering a novel way to move
- Following an imaginary pathway
How Young Children Like to Solve Simple Problems
- Recognizing how things are different and alike
- Working out a movement response
- Finding ways to improve the movement response
- Using the body to show how different objects feel when touched
- Discovering how to link movements
Young Children's Beginning Language Development
- Identifying the names of the body parts
- Demonstrating the meaning of words to a poem, song, or story
- Discussing facts related to objects or things
- Assuming the language of an imaginary character
- Making wants known
- Conveying words that express emotion
How Young Children Understand Themselves
- Using specific body parts to show how they feel
- Using specific body parts in the development of a game
- Realizing they have the ability to control the speed with which their body moves
- Learning the roles of people who influence their life
- Realizing that the body can perform movements related to specific animals
How Young Children Can Interact With Peers
- Switching roles with a classmate
- Manipulating a partner's body to move in specific ways
- Working with classmates to form a large object with their bodies
- Demonstrating cooperation with classmates
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Toy Store
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
Instructional Materials/Props
Pictures of or actual play objects found in the toy store (optional)
Central Focus
To imagine their bodies have become their favorite playthings.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will acquire information regarding classic toys and playthings and participate in the actions associated with these objects.
- Affective: The child will express an interest in using his or her body and the body of a partner to imagine that he or she is a classic toy or plaything.
- Psychomotor: The child will enthusiastically participate with classmates and explore movements and actions common to toys.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered throughout general space.
Present the following: Toys are objects created for the enjoyment of children. Let's begin by moving like several favorite toys. Challenge the children to perform these actions:
- Who can show me how to spin like a top?
- Can you pretend to wiggle a Hula-Hoop around your waist?
- How high can you bounce your body into the air like a rubber ball?
- Jumping rope helps the heart grow stronger. Make believe you are jumping rope.
- The wooden toy rowboat has two oars. Raise your arms and pretend to row the boat down the river.
- The wooden rocking horse has been a favorite toy for many children. Place one foot in front of your body. Try to rock back and forth.
- The ballet dancer doll stretches up and walks on his or her toes. Find a way to walk on your toes and twirl around like the dancer.
- Show me how you can march like the toy robot.
- Let's pretend to strap on a pair of ice skates. Can you slide and move as if you were skating on slippery ice?
- Superhero dolls wear costumes in their adventure roles. Pretend to step into your costume and show me how strong you can make your body.
- Toy rockets blast off on a count of 10. Ready, lower your body and then spring up like a rocket.
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Children quickly find partners. To form a make-believe scooter, one child stands very tall and places his or her fists on the chest. The other child stands behind this person and grasps the partner's elbows.
- Together, partners move forward by taking sliding steps without bumping other sets of partners. Exchange roles.
- Explain to the children that wagons carry children'stoys. To begin, one partner clasps his or her hands together to form a circle in front of the body. This is the handle of the wagon.
- The other partner grasps the handle and pulls the wagon along. Exchange roles.
Learning Task 3: A Classic Toy
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
Present the following:
Divide the children into two groups. Explain to them that they can use their bodies to form a large jill- or jack-in-the-box. Some of the children form the box by standing side by side to make a square. Within the box is a group of children who stoop low to the floor like a folded Jack or Jill. These children grasp their knees while balancing on their toes as they stoop. One child must stand outside the box to crank the handle as the children forming the box recite this poem:
Jack-in-the-box,
Jill-in-the-box,
Tucked down in your box today,
We'll crank the handle so you'll
Come out and play!
The Jills and Jacks spring up on the word play. Exchange roles.
Assessment Questions
- Build a large soft toy using a partner's body.
- Is it possible to name a toy that uses technology and show your classmates how it might move?
- Who can think of a toy we did not see today and show us how it moves?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to guide a partner in movements that imitate the physical actions associated with a classic toy or plaything.
- Vocabulary: oars, strap, spring, crank, the names of a variety of classic playthings
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal interchange to conclude that a classic toy or plaything moves in a particular manner or can be formed using the bodies of several classmates.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Strong Bones
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
- Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
- Standard 2. The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Instructional Materials/Props
Picture or plastic skeleton of the body (optional)
Central Focus
To isolate and name different body parts that can serve as specified targets in a vigorous movement activity.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will point to bones in different parts of the body and indicate how they move.
- Affective: The child will show signs of developing a positive self-concept after moving.
- Psychomotor: The child will demonstrate that he or she can collapse safely to the ground after moving vigorously.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered in self-spaces.
Challenge the children to perform the following actions while saying this rhyme:
My muscles and bones are inside of me. (Point to chest.)
My goal is to make them as strong as can be. (Flex biceps.)
So I happily gallop, slide, skip, and jump. (Perform movements.)
When finished, I use my bones to pound and thump! (Pound arms on chest.)
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Let's divide our bodies into different areas or zones.
- Show your partner how you can make three upper-body parts move one after the other as you both count the moves. Your partner imitates you, and then you exchange roles.
- Move two body parts on the right side of your body. Make one of those body parts the highest part of your body.
- One partner points to two lower-body parts. See if you can make those two lower-body parts move at the same time. Exchange roles.
- Both wiggle one body part that is on the left side of the body.
Learning Task 3: Bones, Bones, Everywhere
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
- Ask the children to designate a specific body part or body area to serve as a target (e.g., elbow, shoulder, below the knees, hip, or between the shoulder blades).
- Select two or more chasers, depending on the size of the group.
- Challenge the remainder of the children to scatter and flee from the chasers.
- When a child is tagged, he or she collapses into a "pile of bones." After everyone is tagged, select new chasers, or call out, "Strong bodies!" Children who are tagged continue in the game.
Assessment Questions
- Which body part was the most difficult to tag?
- Show me the movements you used to keep your body from being tagged (e.g., dodging and darting).
- Who can remember a time when your bones needed to rest? How did you feel? Do you remember what you had been doing?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to explore the various body areas that are appropriate to serve as a space for tagging.
- Vocabulary: Collapse, elbow, hip, shoulder blades, strong
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal exchange concerning how to collapse and fall to the ground safely.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content.
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content. This understanding was missing in earlier times, before the realization that students in kindergarten through grade 12 learn best through active engagement in their individual ways. This awareness is sometimes referred to as knowledge of students to inform teaching, and many early childhood professionals have adopted this thinking for their lesson planning (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity [SCALE], 2016). They recognize that effective teachers take into account many factors that can influence the success of a lesson, such as a child's limited English ability, or differences in travel experiences, or even how much sleep a child had before coming to class. Therefore, the following lists identify characteristics of preschool and kindergarten students you should consider when planning age-appropriate lessons. This will increase the likelihood that your students will be able to participate more fully in the lessons.
What Young Children Can Remember
- Colors, shapes, letters, and figures described in movement tasks
- Objects associated with a particular setting
- The names of story characters
- Past experiences to yield new movement patterns
- The names of locomotor and nonlocomotor skills
How Young Children Can Practice Creative Thinking
- Pretending to move like an object or thing
- Imagining that the body is manipulating an object to complete a task
- Visualizing items that cannot be seen
- Discovering a novel way to move
- Following an imaginary pathway
How Young Children Like to Solve Simple Problems
- Recognizing how things are different and alike
- Working out a movement response
- Finding ways to improve the movement response
- Using the body to show how different objects feel when touched
- Discovering how to link movements
Young Children's Beginning Language Development
- Identifying the names of the body parts
- Demonstrating the meaning of words to a poem, song, or story
- Discussing facts related to objects or things
- Assuming the language of an imaginary character
- Making wants known
- Conveying words that express emotion
How Young Children Understand Themselves
- Using specific body parts to show how they feel
- Using specific body parts in the development of a game
- Realizing they have the ability to control the speed with which their body moves
- Learning the roles of people who influence their life
- Realizing that the body can perform movements related to specific animals
How Young Children Can Interact With Peers
- Switching roles with a classmate
- Manipulating a partner's body to move in specific ways
- Working with classmates to form a large object with their bodies
- Demonstrating cooperation with classmates
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Toy Store
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
Instructional Materials/Props
Pictures of or actual play objects found in the toy store (optional)
Central Focus
To imagine their bodies have become their favorite playthings.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will acquire information regarding classic toys and playthings and participate in the actions associated with these objects.
- Affective: The child will express an interest in using his or her body and the body of a partner to imagine that he or she is a classic toy or plaything.
- Psychomotor: The child will enthusiastically participate with classmates and explore movements and actions common to toys.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered throughout general space.
Present the following: Toys are objects created for the enjoyment of children. Let's begin by moving like several favorite toys. Challenge the children to perform these actions:
- Who can show me how to spin like a top?
- Can you pretend to wiggle a Hula-Hoop around your waist?
- How high can you bounce your body into the air like a rubber ball?
- Jumping rope helps the heart grow stronger. Make believe you are jumping rope.
- The wooden toy rowboat has two oars. Raise your arms and pretend to row the boat down the river.
- The wooden rocking horse has been a favorite toy for many children. Place one foot in front of your body. Try to rock back and forth.
- The ballet dancer doll stretches up and walks on his or her toes. Find a way to walk on your toes and twirl around like the dancer.
- Show me how you can march like the toy robot.
- Let's pretend to strap on a pair of ice skates. Can you slide and move as if you were skating on slippery ice?
- Superhero dolls wear costumes in their adventure roles. Pretend to step into your costume and show me how strong you can make your body.
- Toy rockets blast off on a count of 10. Ready, lower your body and then spring up like a rocket.
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Children quickly find partners. To form a make-believe scooter, one child stands very tall and places his or her fists on the chest. The other child stands behind this person and grasps the partner's elbows.
- Together, partners move forward by taking sliding steps without bumping other sets of partners. Exchange roles.
- Explain to the children that wagons carry children'stoys. To begin, one partner clasps his or her hands together to form a circle in front of the body. This is the handle of the wagon.
- The other partner grasps the handle and pulls the wagon along. Exchange roles.
Learning Task 3: A Classic Toy
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
Present the following:
Divide the children into two groups. Explain to them that they can use their bodies to form a large jill- or jack-in-the-box. Some of the children form the box by standing side by side to make a square. Within the box is a group of children who stoop low to the floor like a folded Jack or Jill. These children grasp their knees while balancing on their toes as they stoop. One child must stand outside the box to crank the handle as the children forming the box recite this poem:
Jack-in-the-box,
Jill-in-the-box,
Tucked down in your box today,
We'll crank the handle so you'll
Come out and play!
The Jills and Jacks spring up on the word play. Exchange roles.
Assessment Questions
- Build a large soft toy using a partner's body.
- Is it possible to name a toy that uses technology and show your classmates how it might move?
- Who can think of a toy we did not see today and show us how it moves?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to guide a partner in movements that imitate the physical actions associated with a classic toy or plaything.
- Vocabulary: oars, strap, spring, crank, the names of a variety of classic playthings
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal interchange to conclude that a classic toy or plaything moves in a particular manner or can be formed using the bodies of several classmates.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Strong Bones
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
- Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
- Standard 2. The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Instructional Materials/Props
Picture or plastic skeleton of the body (optional)
Central Focus
To isolate and name different body parts that can serve as specified targets in a vigorous movement activity.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will point to bones in different parts of the body and indicate how they move.
- Affective: The child will show signs of developing a positive self-concept after moving.
- Psychomotor: The child will demonstrate that he or she can collapse safely to the ground after moving vigorously.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered in self-spaces.
Challenge the children to perform the following actions while saying this rhyme:
My muscles and bones are inside of me. (Point to chest.)
My goal is to make them as strong as can be. (Flex biceps.)
So I happily gallop, slide, skip, and jump. (Perform movements.)
When finished, I use my bones to pound and thump! (Pound arms on chest.)
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Let's divide our bodies into different areas or zones.
- Show your partner how you can make three upper-body parts move one after the other as you both count the moves. Your partner imitates you, and then you exchange roles.
- Move two body parts on the right side of your body. Make one of those body parts the highest part of your body.
- One partner points to two lower-body parts. See if you can make those two lower-body parts move at the same time. Exchange roles.
- Both wiggle one body part that is on the left side of the body.
Learning Task 3: Bones, Bones, Everywhere
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
- Ask the children to designate a specific body part or body area to serve as a target (e.g., elbow, shoulder, below the knees, hip, or between the shoulder blades).
- Select two or more chasers, depending on the size of the group.
- Challenge the remainder of the children to scatter and flee from the chasers.
- When a child is tagged, he or she collapses into a "pile of bones." After everyone is tagged, select new chasers, or call out, "Strong bodies!" Children who are tagged continue in the game.
Assessment Questions
- Which body part was the most difficult to tag?
- Show me the movements you used to keep your body from being tagged (e.g., dodging and darting).
- Who can remember a time when your bones needed to rest? How did you feel? Do you remember what you had been doing?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to explore the various body areas that are appropriate to serve as a space for tagging.
- Vocabulary: Collapse, elbow, hip, shoulder blades, strong
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal exchange concerning how to collapse and fall to the ground safely.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content.
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content. This understanding was missing in earlier times, before the realization that students in kindergarten through grade 12 learn best through active engagement in their individual ways. This awareness is sometimes referred to as knowledge of students to inform teaching, and many early childhood professionals have adopted this thinking for their lesson planning (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity [SCALE], 2016). They recognize that effective teachers take into account many factors that can influence the success of a lesson, such as a child's limited English ability, or differences in travel experiences, or even how much sleep a child had before coming to class. Therefore, the following lists identify characteristics of preschool and kindergarten students you should consider when planning age-appropriate lessons. This will increase the likelihood that your students will be able to participate more fully in the lessons.
What Young Children Can Remember
- Colors, shapes, letters, and figures described in movement tasks
- Objects associated with a particular setting
- The names of story characters
- Past experiences to yield new movement patterns
- The names of locomotor and nonlocomotor skills
How Young Children Can Practice Creative Thinking
- Pretending to move like an object or thing
- Imagining that the body is manipulating an object to complete a task
- Visualizing items that cannot be seen
- Discovering a novel way to move
- Following an imaginary pathway
How Young Children Like to Solve Simple Problems
- Recognizing how things are different and alike
- Working out a movement response
- Finding ways to improve the movement response
- Using the body to show how different objects feel when touched
- Discovering how to link movements
Young Children's Beginning Language Development
- Identifying the names of the body parts
- Demonstrating the meaning of words to a poem, song, or story
- Discussing facts related to objects or things
- Assuming the language of an imaginary character
- Making wants known
- Conveying words that express emotion
How Young Children Understand Themselves
- Using specific body parts to show how they feel
- Using specific body parts in the development of a game
- Realizing they have the ability to control the speed with which their body moves
- Learning the roles of people who influence their life
- Realizing that the body can perform movements related to specific animals
How Young Children Can Interact With Peers
- Switching roles with a classmate
- Manipulating a partner's body to move in specific ways
- Working with classmates to form a large object with their bodies
- Demonstrating cooperation with classmates
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Toy Store
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
Instructional Materials/Props
Pictures of or actual play objects found in the toy store (optional)
Central Focus
To imagine their bodies have become their favorite playthings.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will acquire information regarding classic toys and playthings and participate in the actions associated with these objects.
- Affective: The child will express an interest in using his or her body and the body of a partner to imagine that he or she is a classic toy or plaything.
- Psychomotor: The child will enthusiastically participate with classmates and explore movements and actions common to toys.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered throughout general space.
Present the following: Toys are objects created for the enjoyment of children. Let's begin by moving like several favorite toys. Challenge the children to perform these actions:
- Who can show me how to spin like a top?
- Can you pretend to wiggle a Hula-Hoop around your waist?
- How high can you bounce your body into the air like a rubber ball?
- Jumping rope helps the heart grow stronger. Make believe you are jumping rope.
- The wooden toy rowboat has two oars. Raise your arms and pretend to row the boat down the river.
- The wooden rocking horse has been a favorite toy for many children. Place one foot in front of your body. Try to rock back and forth.
- The ballet dancer doll stretches up and walks on his or her toes. Find a way to walk on your toes and twirl around like the dancer.
- Show me how you can march like the toy robot.
- Let's pretend to strap on a pair of ice skates. Can you slide and move as if you were skating on slippery ice?
- Superhero dolls wear costumes in their adventure roles. Pretend to step into your costume and show me how strong you can make your body.
- Toy rockets blast off on a count of 10. Ready, lower your body and then spring up like a rocket.
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Children quickly find partners. To form a make-believe scooter, one child stands very tall and places his or her fists on the chest. The other child stands behind this person and grasps the partner's elbows.
- Together, partners move forward by taking sliding steps without bumping other sets of partners. Exchange roles.
- Explain to the children that wagons carry children'stoys. To begin, one partner clasps his or her hands together to form a circle in front of the body. This is the handle of the wagon.
- The other partner grasps the handle and pulls the wagon along. Exchange roles.
Learning Task 3: A Classic Toy
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
Present the following:
Divide the children into two groups. Explain to them that they can use their bodies to form a large jill- or jack-in-the-box. Some of the children form the box by standing side by side to make a square. Within the box is a group of children who stoop low to the floor like a folded Jack or Jill. These children grasp their knees while balancing on their toes as they stoop. One child must stand outside the box to crank the handle as the children forming the box recite this poem:
Jack-in-the-box,
Jill-in-the-box,
Tucked down in your box today,
We'll crank the handle so you'll
Come out and play!
The Jills and Jacks spring up on the word play. Exchange roles.
Assessment Questions
- Build a large soft toy using a partner's body.
- Is it possible to name a toy that uses technology and show your classmates how it might move?
- Who can think of a toy we did not see today and show us how it moves?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to guide a partner in movements that imitate the physical actions associated with a classic toy or plaything.
- Vocabulary: oars, strap, spring, crank, the names of a variety of classic playthings
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal interchange to conclude that a classic toy or plaything moves in a particular manner or can be formed using the bodies of several classmates.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Strong Bones
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
- Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
- Standard 2. The physically literate individual applies knowledge of concepts, principles, strategies and tactics related to movement and performance.
Instructional Materials/Props
Picture or plastic skeleton of the body (optional)
Central Focus
To isolate and name different body parts that can serve as specified targets in a vigorous movement activity.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will point to bones in different parts of the body and indicate how they move.
- Affective: The child will show signs of developing a positive self-concept after moving.
- Psychomotor: The child will demonstrate that he or she can collapse safely to the ground after moving vigorously.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered in self-spaces.
Challenge the children to perform the following actions while saying this rhyme:
My muscles and bones are inside of me. (Point to chest.)
My goal is to make them as strong as can be. (Flex biceps.)
So I happily gallop, slide, skip, and jump. (Perform movements.)
When finished, I use my bones to pound and thump! (Pound arms on chest.)
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Let's divide our bodies into different areas or zones.
- Show your partner how you can make three upper-body parts move one after the other as you both count the moves. Your partner imitates you, and then you exchange roles.
- Move two body parts on the right side of your body. Make one of those body parts the highest part of your body.
- One partner points to two lower-body parts. See if you can make those two lower-body parts move at the same time. Exchange roles.
- Both wiggle one body part that is on the left side of the body.
Learning Task 3: Bones, Bones, Everywhere
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
- Ask the children to designate a specific body part or body area to serve as a target (e.g., elbow, shoulder, below the knees, hip, or between the shoulder blades).
- Select two or more chasers, depending on the size of the group.
- Challenge the remainder of the children to scatter and flee from the chasers.
- When a child is tagged, he or she collapses into a "pile of bones." After everyone is tagged, select new chasers, or call out, "Strong bodies!" Children who are tagged continue in the game.
Assessment Questions
- Which body part was the most difficult to tag?
- Show me the movements you used to keep your body from being tagged (e.g., dodging and darting).
- Who can remember a time when your bones needed to rest? How did you feel? Do you remember what you had been doing?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to explore the various body areas that are appropriate to serve as a space for tagging.
- Vocabulary: Collapse, elbow, hip, shoulder blades, strong
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal exchange concerning how to collapse and fall to the ground safely.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Knowledge of Students to Inform Teaching
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content.
To ensure student learning, you must not only know your content and its related objectives and pedagogy, but also have knowledge of the students to whom you wish to teach that content. This understanding was missing in earlier times, before the realization that students in kindergarten through grade 12 learn best through active engagement in their individual ways. This awareness is sometimes referred to as knowledge of students to inform teaching, and many early childhood professionals have adopted this thinking for their lesson planning (Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, & Equity [SCALE], 2016). They recognize that effective teachers take into account many factors that can influence the success of a lesson, such as a child's limited English ability, or differences in travel experiences, or even how much sleep a child had before coming to class. Therefore, the following lists identify characteristics of preschool and kindergarten students you should consider when planning age-appropriate lessons. This will increase the likelihood that your students will be able to participate more fully in the lessons.
What Young Children Can Remember
- Colors, shapes, letters, and figures described in movement tasks
- Objects associated with a particular setting
- The names of story characters
- Past experiences to yield new movement patterns
- The names of locomotor and nonlocomotor skills
How Young Children Can Practice Creative Thinking
- Pretending to move like an object or thing
- Imagining that the body is manipulating an object to complete a task
- Visualizing items that cannot be seen
- Discovering a novel way to move
- Following an imaginary pathway
How Young Children Like to Solve Simple Problems
- Recognizing how things are different and alike
- Working out a movement response
- Finding ways to improve the movement response
- Using the body to show how different objects feel when touched
- Discovering how to link movements
Young Children's Beginning Language Development
- Identifying the names of the body parts
- Demonstrating the meaning of words to a poem, song, or story
- Discussing facts related to objects or things
- Assuming the language of an imaginary character
- Making wants known
- Conveying words that express emotion
How Young Children Understand Themselves
- Using specific body parts to show how they feel
- Using specific body parts in the development of a game
- Realizing they have the ability to control the speed with which their body moves
- Learning the roles of people who influence their life
- Realizing that the body can perform movements related to specific animals
How Young Children Can Interact With Peers
- Switching roles with a classmate
- Manipulating a partner's body to move in specific ways
- Working with classmates to form a large object with their bodies
- Demonstrating cooperation with classmates
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.
Toy Store
National Standards Addressed: Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
National Standards Addressed
Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.
Instructional Materials/Props
Pictures of or actual play objects found in the toy store (optional)
Central Focus
To imagine their bodies have become their favorite playthings.
Objectives
- Cognitive: The child will acquire information regarding classic toys and playthings and participate in the actions associated with these objects.
- Affective: The child will express an interest in using his or her body and the body of a partner to imagine that he or she is a classic toy or plaything.
- Psychomotor: The child will enthusiastically participate with classmates and explore movements and actions common to toys.
Component of Health-Related Fitness
Cardiorespiratory endurance
Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move
Class organization: Children are scattered throughout general space.
Present the following: Toys are objects created for the enjoyment of children. Let's begin by moving like several favorite toys. Challenge the children to perform these actions:
- Who can show me how to spin like a top?
- Can you pretend to wiggle a Hula-Hoop around your waist?
- How high can you bounce your body into the air like a rubber ball?
- Jumping rope helps the heart grow stronger. Make believe you are jumping rope.
- The wooden toy rowboat has two oars. Raise your arms and pretend to row the boat down the river.
- The wooden rocking horse has been a favorite toy for many children. Place one foot in front of your body. Try to rock back and forth.
- The ballet dancer doll stretches up and walks on his or her toes. Find a way to walk on your toes and twirl around like the dancer.
- Show me how you can march like the toy robot.
- Let's pretend to strap on a pair of ice skates. Can you slide and move as if you were skating on slippery ice?
- Superhero dolls wear costumes in their adventure roles. Pretend to step into your costume and show me how strong you can make your body.
- Toy rockets blast off on a count of 10. Ready, lower your body and then spring up like a rocket.
Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge
Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.
Present the following:
- Children quickly find partners. To form a make-believe scooter, one child stands very tall and places his or her fists on the chest. The other child stands behind this person and grasps the partner's elbows.
- Together, partners move forward by taking sliding steps without bumping other sets of partners. Exchange roles.
- Explain to the children that wagons carry children'stoys. To begin, one partner clasps his or her hands together to form a circle in front of the body. This is the handle of the wagon.
- The other partner grasps the handle and pulls the wagon along. Exchange roles.
Learning Task 3: A Classic Toy
Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.
Present the following:
Divide the children into two groups. Explain to them that they can use their bodies to form a large jill- or jack-in-the-box. Some of the children form the box by standing side by side to make a square. Within the box is a group of children who stoop low to the floor like a folded Jack or Jill. These children grasp their knees while balancing on their toes as they stoop. One child must stand outside the box to crank the handle as the children forming the box recite this poem:
Jack-in-the-box,
Jill-in-the-box,
Tucked down in your box today,
We'll crank the handle so you'll
Come out and play!
The Jills and Jacks spring up on the word play. Exchange roles.
Assessment Questions
- Build a large soft toy using a partner's body.
- Is it possible to name a toy that uses technology and show your classmates how it might move?
- Who can think of a toy we did not see today and show us how it moves?
Academic Language Demands
- Language function: Uses language to guide a partner in movements that imitate the physical actions associated with a classic toy or plaything.
- Vocabulary: oars, strap, spring, crank, the names of a variety of classic playthings
- Syntax or discourse: A verbal interchange to conclude that a classic toy or plaything moves in a particular manner or can be formed using the bodies of several classmates.
Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.