Uses various games and sports to illustrate how to develop key net/wall game concepts. This multi-activity approach assumes that transfer of learning across a range of activities can be achieved among most students through teachers' explicit direct analogies within the net/wall game category. The article notes that teachers must remember that…

According to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, three essential elements of a quality physical-education program are opportunity to learn, meaningful content, and appropriate instruction. Describes how these elements combine to directly enhance child health and indirectly improve academic achievement. (PKP)

Presents various instructional techniques and examples of dances teachers can use to accommodate and integrate students with ambulatory disabilities, reviewing basic inclusion principles as they relate to dance and providing a suggested progression for teaching dance when including children with ambulatory disabilities. The article illustrates…

Discusses the role of movement in brain function for academic learning, examining problems related to children's sedentary lifestyle and highlighting related literature, which includes a study that compared the mental performance of students who were involved in regular continuous activity to that of a group of inactive students and found that…

Offers strategies for adapting elementary level physical education content to fit into alternative spaces (when no gymnasium is available) while maintaining the integrity and flow of the curriculum. The paper focuses on: program quality; preparing for the unpredictable when it is necessary to quickly adapt to alternative spaces; planning for the…

Described misconceptions of elementary students participating in physical education, testing ways of recording and classifying types of misconceptions. Data from observations, videotapes, interviews, and document analysis indicated that misconceptions fell into categories representing motor skill execution and confusion over terminology, strategy,…

Introduces a collection of articles on the spectrum of teaching styles, a framework of instructional models based on teacher and learner decision making. The article discusses national standards for physical education and reviews the feature articles, which highlight psychomotor, cognitive, and social development spectrum style; maximizing…

Background: Health is recognized as an important factor in children's educational achievement, and school-based health education programs are recognized for their potential long-term impact. However, the extent to which children conceptualize health similarly as adults, and the nature of their understandings of health, remain cloudy. Purpose:…

Articles published in the past few years documenting thinking about various topics on physical education for children are combined in the six sections of this book. The first section, "Perspectives on Elementary School Physical Education," provides eight articles on elementary school physical education, movement programs, and physical…

This study investigated the role of subject matter expertise on the pedagogical content knowledge of physical education teachers. Data were collected through multiple interviews on 10 teachers with expertise in at least one physical education subject area. Each teacher was interviewed four times, with each interview lasting approximately 1 hour.…

Peer tutoring facilitates the inclusion of students with disabilities in physical education classes. The paper explains how to establish traditional peer tutor programs and train peer tutors. It also describes the classwide peer tutoring model, which lets students instruct each other while practicing certain skills. The role of the physical…

The physical fitness status of children ages 6-12 is the topic of discussion in this monograph. The publication is organized into 4 major sections and 17 chapters. The first section, "An Introduction to Childhood Fitness," includes 3 chapters: (1) Status of Physical Fitness in U.S. Children; (2) The Public Health Perspective:…

This study measured the physical fitness, levels of creative thinking, and attitudes about physical education in second graders enrolled in physical education programs with different curricular focus: (1) aerobic fitness; (2) movement education; and (3) standard classroom teacher taught curriculum. Seventy-seven children and five teachers…

The purpose of the statements in this pamphlet is to assist school personnel and community leaders in determining focus and direction as they develop programs of physical education for elementary school children. An underlying principle in all of the statements is that physical education is an integral part of the total educational program. To…

THE INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER OF THIS GUIDE CONSISTS OF A DISCUSSION OF THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND OF THE BASIC PRINCIPLES WHICH SERVE AS THE FOUNDATION FOR PHYSICAL EDUCATION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. THE SUCCEEDING CHAPTER IS CONCERNED WITH (1) THE AIMS OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION, (2) THE IMPORTANCE OF INITIAL AND ONGOING HEALTH…