Physical activity programs during the school day prevent students from being sedentary. One of the environments where students spend the most time during the school day is the classroom. The purpose of this article is to provide suggestions for how students can participate in physical activity during the school day in the classroom environment.

In Physical Education Teacher Education programs, we argue that a focus on fewer models to be taught and learned would provide time for higher competence to be attained by preservice teachers in a curriculum limited in terms of contact hours. During their teacher training, preservice teachers should be given ample opportunities to practice the…

The warm-up is the most important part of the physical education classes, where the student's interest and attention are drawn and motivated towards the lesson purpose. However, many physical education teachers do not give enough attention to the beginning and warm-up part of the lesson when planning their lessons. Faigenbaum & McFarland…

Many adolescents lack the requisite physical preparation for sport participation and PA. Multi-sport participation and resistance training during youth (age 5-11) and adolescence (age 12-17) years can positively affect physical activity levels, health outcomes, and promote long-term athletic development (LTAD). The National Strength and…

The goal of physical education (PE) is to assist students in the development of physical activity habits that will last a lifetime. To achieve this, PE teachers must shift beyond only teaching sports and games during instructional periods. Strength and conditioning programming is one alternative available to PE teachers. This article provides an…

Badminton is a popular sport played across the lifespan. This article introduces a knowledge packet for the teaching of badminton to upper elementary students. The knowledge packet consists of a content map, task descriptions, and an assessment. The content map illustrates progressions and sequences of tasks. The descriptions of the tasks,…

Dance is a form of physical activity that can be enjoyed for a lifetime. Students at the elementary level benefit greatly from successful experiences in dance that lead to competency in various dance forms as well as an appreciation of personal expression through dance. Teaching dance, however, may not be comfortable or easy for beginning…

This article addresses how to design developmental games that connect knowledge about motor development with motor learning. As evidenced in the SHAPE America National Standards and Grade-level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education, understanding children's phases and stages of motor development is essential to designing developmentally appropriate…

The majority of the sport and physical education literature defines how a technique and tactic should look. However, a gap existing in the current literature is how to select different techniques and tactics to teach diverse learners at different developmental stages. This article takes an initial step to map out the techniques and tactics that…

Tennis is a lifelong physical activity that is played from young childhood to adulthood. Tennis can be used to meet several of SHAPE America's National Standards and Grade-level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education in elementary school. Specifically, tennis is tied to outcomes relative to "striking with a short implement" in the…

Social and emotional learning competencies are included within physical education standards in the United States and abroad. Students should begin learning these important life skills in physical education at an early age, but most of the available teaching strategies target secondary environments. Physical educators can intentionally integrate…

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit deficits in social-communicative behaviors. Given the increased prevalence of children with ASD, programs designed to teach social-communicative behaviors are necessary. This article introduces a movement-based program that embeds social-skill components to improve the motor skills and…

The purpose of this article is to describe the various ways in which the developmental needs of middle school students can be met in a physical education program. The themes of exploration and individualization appear throughout the article to emphasize the importance of providing a variety of sports, games and physical activity options for middle…

Physical education teachers are expected to implement the English language arts (ELA) Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in their instruction. This has proved to be challenging for many physical educators. The purpose of this article is to provide developmentally appropriate examples of how to incorporate the ELA CCSS into physical education,…

Softball is taught in many physical education programs throughout the United States. This article describes modifications that maximize learning outcomes and that address the National Standards and safety recommendations. The modifications focus on tasks and equipment, developmentally appropriate motor-skill acquisition, increasing number of…