5 Goals for Next School Year!

7. More. Days. Then it's summer vaca!!! Hello, Disneyland! Hello, family vacation! Hello, wedding season! Woo hoo! I. Can't. Wait.

Okay, back to reality...

With the end of the year fast approaching, all of my extra energy is being spent brainstorming for next school year. I am beyond excited to be back in the health and physical education (HPE) classroom (of course I am grateful for my time in 6th-grade social studies and language arts but I am glad to be moving back to HPE) and ready to revamp my HPE curriculum. As the countdown to summer break quickly narrows, I am refining my goals and ideas for next year, so I can go into summer break with a game plan (because when you factor in World Cup volunteering and summer travels, there isn't much time leftover).

Since I found out that I would be teaching HPE next year, I've spent countless hours thinking about what my class experience will be like. So far, I come up with some big ideas but I haven't had enough time (or energy) to fine-tune all of the details. However, as this starts to happen, I will happily (and excitingly) share my lesson plans and activities here on the blog! Anyways, enough chitchat! Here's an overview of my goals for next school year:

• Focus on student ownership of learning in an effort to enhance student independence

• New locker room and attendance routine

  • Currently, the routine is: come into class, change (if you want), shoot hoops/run around the gym like it's recess, gather for attendance, take attendance, and then finally start class. The new routine I would like to initiate is: come to class, mandatory changing into PE kit, leave locker room as a group, and begin class (see next bullet point for what happens next in my daily routine).

• Daily fitness activity routine and fitness activity boxes + binder

  • The plan is for each class period to begin with a student-led fitness activity. The idea is that at the start of each month I will divide my class into 8-10 teams (depending on size, 4 students in a group). Groups will start each class by grabbing a fitness activity box + binder, which will contain all of the items needed for a variety of warm up activities. When they walk into the gym, they will also take note of the prescribed fitness activity for the day. Then at their workout station, together they will plug exercises into the fitness activity. Once this task is finished, they will complete the fitness activity as a group (or pair, depending on the activity).

• Develop  creative and engaging customizable fitness/warm-up activities (i.e. Fitness Speedway)

  • I love using fitness/warm activities that allow the students to pick and choose the exercises. I have a few that I've regularly used in the past but I need to develop more. As I create these, I will be sharing here!

• Pedometers

  • We would also like to use pedometers to track student activity while in class. I believe this will help students gain a more realistic understanding of their activity and effort level. This would also create an opportunity to enhance student ownership of learning as it reinforces accountability.

• Create an intentional focus on character education

  • Click here to check out my post about integrating character education into the curriculum

• Develop a year-long health curriculum targeting each dimension of wellness

• Two health days per month rather than a three-week unit + a three-year progression of learning (6th-8th grade)

  • Currently, health is taught as a three-week unit and poorly reinforced throughout the rest of the school year. My plan is to create a health and wellness curriculum that progresses throughout the entire school year as well as builds upon itself from 6th to 8th grade. With this style of health instruction, students will take part in two health instructional days each month. See the next bullet for topics of instruction.

• Focus on each of the components of health and wellness (School Wellness 101)

  • Topics of instruction will highlight an overarching understanding of wellness coupled with a detailed and intentional focus on each of the components of health and wellness.

• Establish strategies for school-wide collaboration

• Create easy ways for teachers to reinforce and support health and wellness objectives (i.e. post about character education)

• • My goal is not to ask for teachers to add more to their already jammed packed schedule. Rather, I hope to educate teachers about health and wellness so that if the opportunity arises, they can help reinforce student wellness.

• Create an online learning experience

  • Student-created blogs for 8th-grade health and wellness portfolios. Students will be able to they can their projects (such as video clips, and school-wide wellness campaigns). They will also be able to create a valuable health and wellness reference and guide.

• • Quizzes, communication, and classroom resources available on Edmodo. If you haven't seen Edmodo, I suggest you check it out. I am still a novice but I am excited to play around with it this summer!

Well, that's all I have for now! As you can tell I am getting super excited to further develop these ideas and to turn them into reality in my classroom! What plans do you have for next year??? Please share in the comments below...