Finds that, for 120 boys and girls in a rural Maine elementary school, a 36-week physical education program incorporating dance and movement education produced significant improvement on a wide variety of fundamental motor, physical fitness, and balance skills. Contains 17 references. (SV)

This article describes a modular approach to facilitating learning of health/fitness concepts by elementary students. The module helps students learn to assess their fitness, emphasizing the importance of lifetime activity. By helping students become more interested in health through visual and practical applications, teachers can enhance positive…

Provides six library media activities to be used in connection with curriculum units in career education, mathematics, physical education, reading/language arts, science, and social studies. Library media skills objectives, curriculum objectives, grade level, resources, instructional roles, activities and procedures for completion, evaluation, and…

This study explored effects of social levels of play (isolate, dyadic, group, and team) on play behavior of autistic children in a leisure education/adapted physical education program with nondisabled peers. Findings indicate that structured integrated activities involving higher levels of social play elicit a higher frequency of appropriate play…

Longitudinally examined preservice elementary teachers' attitudes and perceptions following their first field experience teaching physical education. Data from 424 student teachers who answered a list of questions indicated that they appeared to have increased their teaching skill, understanding of children, and awareness of physical education as…

By using injured students to observe and record data, physical educators can get regular, ongoing feedback about their teaching effectiveness and allow injured students to participate in class from the sidelines. The article explains how to work with student recorders, offering a sample student recorder data collection form. (SM)

Preservice teachers in an elementary physical education (PE) class were asked to recall their favorite and least favorite elementary PE experiences and discuss how to improve them. Most students had some positive feelings toward PE, but there were several concerns about specific activities and implementation. (SM)

Physical education teachers who can efficiently manage time and student behavior have increased academic learning time. Components of an active elementary physical education discipline plan include establishing rules, creating a record-keeping system, determining the procedure for individual and group positive feedback, and determining…

Explores the literature from physical education psychomotor research in order to answer questions concerning elementary music psychomotor skills acquisition and retention by focusing on four aspects of motor-learning theories: (1) knowledge of results; (2) contextual interference; (3) cognitive strategies; and (4) modeling. (CMK)

This collection of instructional materials and class activities emphasizes five different situations in which courage is a necessary quality. For each section, lessons are planned to extend the theme through a cross-curricular approach. The topics include: a definition of courage; the courage to resist in the context of the Holocaust; mythical…

This book is intended to serve as a resource and stimulant for professionals involved in recreational and educational programs serving elementary-school-age learners, although many of the activities also work well with adolescents and adults. The setting for the 40 activities which are described is the out-of-doors. Instructions on how to use the…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether varying levels of expertise would produce differences in selected indicators of effective teaching performance. Eighteen elementary physical education teachers were grouped based on stages of pedagogical expertise development as suggested by Berliner (1988). The three groups included…

In the spring of 1988, physical education teachers in Round Rock Independent School District (Texas) indicated, as part of their informal needs assessment, a desire for in-service training which would address techniques to prevent off-task behavior. An inservice training program to improve teacher performance in the reduction and prevention of…

The findings of the National Dance Association's Task Force on Children's Dance are presented through position papers on the status of dance in education. In Part 1, the purposes and projects of the task force are outlined. The chapters in Part 2 list guidelines for a comprehensive dance program and provide examples of the use of the guidelines in…

The M-5 Project is a sequential physical education program for children in the primary grades and intermediate grades. It embodies the main concepts of the movement education approach. Activities are individualized, based on needs identified by results of physical fitness tests, that are carried out in 30-minute daily sessions at a series of six…