EducationallyFit4Life: Elements of Movement

Showing posts with label Elements of Movement. Show all posts

Enduring Understanding & Compelling Questions 2018/19

Colour Code
Yellow = Relationships
Red = Ethics
Blue = Elements of Movement
Green = Health & Fitness
Orange/Brown = Critical Thinking & Evaluation

This year I'm experimenting with focusing and aligning our 5 Learning Journeys (Relationships, Ethics, Elements of Movement, Health & Fitness and Critical Thinking & Evaluation) across Grades 1 to 5. Instead of addressing each Learning Journey depending on the games, topics or sports played, I'm focussing on letting the Enduring Understandings and Compelling Questions drive what we do in class.

Rereading our Enduring Understandings, recognising (and predicting alongside the Australian Curriculum) where the students would be with their learning and understanding, it seemed obvious that the Learning Journeys (LJ) could fall in an order that would be appropriate for a yearly overview.

Meaning, the LJs appear to fit nicely together, running from Relationships & Ethics combined, through Elements of Movement, Health & Fitness and finishing with Critical Thinking and Evaluations at the end of the year.

If you are aware of my previous physical education matrices you will notice I have combined the stands of relationships and ethics. Taking our 5 Learning Journeys down to 4 across a school year. I have done this for a number of reasons; the first of which is I believe the 2 strands run very closely together. Tackling the questions alongside one another gives us the opportunity to explorer both LJs for extended periods of time, allowing the classes the opportunities to make more meaningful connections. In addition our new 4 LJs fit neatly into our school calendar, giving each LJ focused time periods to be explored in more detail, rather than just hitting the LJs randomly over the course of the year.

G5 Athletics (Track & Field)

This is a great unit for the G5's.

It's a great individual pursuits unit, we explorer body mechanics, they time and measure, set PB's and future goals. Plus we get to visit the high school track and field facilities which are outstanding - using the facilities motivates and inspires the G5's to really push themselves and be the best that they can be.

The unit itself is split between the primary school gym and the high school track & field facilities. We usually explorer the mechanics and techniques the lesson before in the gym and then take it up to the track the following lesson to time/measure.

The unit fits under the learning journey of the elements of movement.

The enduring understand for this unit: Movement techniques impact our performance.

The compelling questions are:

How do we move our body to develop our running for speed and distance?

How do we move our body to develop our jumping for height and distance?

How do we move our body to develop our throwing for accuracy and distance?

I usually start with sprints, move into jumps and throws and then we extend the running distances, exploring pace and strategies. We finish the unit with an all-out assault on the Mile.

What I do notice (and love) is that before the unit, you mention the mile run and you'll get one or two students let out a small groan. But, by the end of the unit, attitudes have changed and myths put to bed. The mile run isn't seen as this near death experience, it's seen as a challenge, and each student now has a good idea of how that distance feels and they have a strategy on how to run it.

This year the events we inquired into were: 100m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, Mile, Long Jump, High Jump, Indoor Javelin & Indoor Shot Putt. For the G5's we classified the 100 & 400m as sprints and took the 800, 1500 & Mile as middle distances.

Over the years at JIS I have been diligently collecting the data from the events, so when a student asks 'what should I be aiming for' etc. I can give them rough targets to aim for (an informed answer), but as I tell the students at the beginning of the unit, this is all about setting personal targets and challenging yourself. Though a little friendly competition is good for them.