How to Teach Kindergarten PE (Link to Podcast Episode)
Podcast Below: (itunes)
Youtube Show Below:
Resources/Links
Rules and Procedures
- Ease into activities, be aware of nervousness or fear
- Teach stopping signal and walking/jogging for warm up during the first couple of classes and reference the 3 Big Rules for PE
- Teacher is Talking What are We Doing?
- Have something to say what should you do?
- Hands and Feet Too…?
- Discover and practice personal space and moving within boundary lines. I usually start with just simple move with the music and freeze when the music stops and then once they’ve got that we play an imagination and movement game that I call “I See” (video below)
- Optional – Give kids a “Home Base Spot”
- I usually wait until about the 3rd or 4th lesson to give my Home Base Spots in Kindy. You can also see in the video below How I Teach My Kids their Home Base Spots through working on Open Space and Stopping Signal during PE class
- Read “Gym Teacher from the Black Lagoon”
- Have patience with Kindergarten students
- Take pictures of each student in the class to help remember names, (students come to PE with name tags on) so the next time they come I have faces with names. Can also share with other teachers to help them learn names.
- During the first couple of lessons we go over how to use the restroom/water fountain and when you can go
- Music is on you are free to go, music is off you can not go
- We discuss consequences for not following direction. Ideas for first week of school!
- Strike 1 is a warning
- Strike 2 refocus area
- Strike 3 refocus area/note home to parent
- Overview of Ben’s PE Rules and Expectations
Instagram Live Question: How many K students do you have in a class? Do you Team Teaching?
- Ben – 20-25 students we have teamed taught in the past but now just single classes. 2 groups a day of 5K or 4K for 25 minutes
- Marcus – 23 – 24 students double classes everyday for 50 minutes (around 50 kids at a time normally)
- After we learn rules and procedures we start each class the same way…Call and Response.
- “When the teacher is talking you should be…Listening”
- “If you have something to say what should you do?… Raise your hand”
- “Keep your hands and feet too?…Yourself”
- Additional for Marcus’s school “Point to where you go if you need help with your shoes” Students point to designated area for help with shoes
- Team Teaching advantages – one teacher can teach the students while the other teacher is dealing with the issues (crying, injuries, no shoes, etc…)
Example of our Big 3 Rules Review in the video below (from COVID times as you can tell from the mask)
Kindergarten Mindset
- Put yourself in the students perspective, they have only been running for a couple of years yet alone trying to follow rules and procedures. Patience is key.
- Do not get upset with yourself or them if they make a mistake.
- Do not take it personal. They are learning everyday like we are. Being able to teach with another teacher gives me a chance to have one on one conversations with students if they do make a mistake.
- Play to learn mindset. Kindergarten students are not ready for lots of progression tasks. Giving them practice time with less structure by exposing them to content helps to keep students on task and allows them to be creative and explore skills and equipment.
Instagram live Question: Do you have any tips to learning all the names? Home Base Spots
- We take pictures of the students, at the beginning of the year, when they have name tags on.
- Making connections with the names helps to build relationship with students. (Siblings, roster sheet)
Mindset con’t
- Kindergarten students fears may seem silly to you but to them it’s a big deal. Forcing students to do something they do not want to do or getting frustrated with them when they do not want to do something in PE class can have lasting effects on them. Offer different options for those students.
Instagram Live Question: Starting my second year, how do you switch things up from year to year?
- Vertical Alignment helps to switch things up students. What I do in Kindergarten will look different in first grade. Hopefully as you get to learn your students you can progress the content as they get older.
- Because we see our students once a week, proficiency is difficult for us to achieve in four lessons. So we typically teach the same content and progress the difficulty as the students get older in order to build the confidence for students to practice outside of class.
- Ben discuss the 4-Square progress as an example of vertical alignment.
Recommended Format for Kindergarten – Stations
- Stations for Kindergarten are a great way to take the content you’re teaching and break it down for easy learning.
- Stations are a great way to get student acclimated to the gym and sharing equipment.
Instagram Live Question: Stopping Signal
- Station Progression – Jumping Rope Video and Hula Hoop
- Introduce and demonstrate content
- Set up, play, clean up, point to next station, move (Here are some tips for teaching with Station Activities)
- Stations on one activity multiple different ways
- Stations with different activities in each station
- Breaking down content area (Basketball) into stations
- Introduce and demonstrate content
- Gives practice time to each student, gets them ready for other activities i.e. Field Day, and allows for teacher feedback to students. You become the facilitator.
Instagram Live Question: Do you typically take attendance or get right into instant activity?
- Ben – I have a roster but do not have assigned seats with Kindergarten so I just check with the teacher to see who is here and if they’re absent I mark it down on my roster sheet.
- Marcus – Beginning of the year to help learn names we go down the roster call students name and have them tell us something about themselves (favorite food, color, dog or cat)
Timeline for Average Lesson
- Students come in and sit down on the line. We review the three rules. (Refer above)
- We do walking (short lines)/ jogging (long lines) as a warm up. After a while, we will switch up the locomotors on the line. PVC hurdles. Can also set up cones and make a track around the gym for warmup.
- Students then come to the middle and we discuss the stations. The rotation is the same every time we just switch out the activities.
Instagram Live Question: How do you split the class up?
- With a single class we split them up by their name and sending them to a station. With double classes, we usually split them up by gender and home room to a station.
- Team Shake (link), counting off 1-2-3-4, have students choose a station, colored wristband (Link to Amazon)
Practice Losing Before a Game
Anytime I do a competitive activity with my Kindergarten students (and any other classes that struggle with sportsmanship) I always give them a chance to “Practice Losing” before we play the game so my expectations are clear and it’s on the front of their minds before we start
Lesson Ideas and Activities
- Ability to move around in personal and open space while practicing locomotor skills. “I See” (Find link or video)
- Follow the leader Songs
- “Listen and Move” Greg and Steve
- Call it Macaroni
- Hokey Pokey
- Freeze Dance
- Chicken Dance
- Tag Games *Wait to about half way through the year to do tag games with Kindergarten
- Place a beanbag on their head to keep them in control and slow down
Instagram Live Question: How do you close your class?
- Real quick and simple as they leave review the cues of the activity.