Physical Education & Health

Murray Avenue Elementary School

Physical Education

The Murray Ave. Physical Education program covers a broad spectrum of activities. Our kindergarten through second grades concentrate on locomotor skills, low organizational games, and movement/dance activities. The third through fifth grades focus on lead up games, skill development, sport strategy, sportsmanship, and rules. All students get to experience ice-skating, a comprehensive dance unit, gymnastics and tumbling.

Themes:

Orientation to PE: Students learn class rules, learn to use locks and we discuss personal living skills.
Flag Football: Students are taught proper throwing and catching techniques and begin to learn football rules and game skills.
Field Hockey: Students are taught basic stick skills such as dribbling and passing and play in modified games.
Lacrosse: Students learn throwing and passing skills and the rules of the game and play modified lacrosse games.
Frisbee: Students learn how to throw and catch the Frisbee and play modified games such as “ultimate Frisbee” and “Frisbee golf”.
Ice Skating: Students work on their skating skills and work on their social skills in a different environment.
Soccer: Students are taught game strategies and work on dribbling, passing, and shooting skills.
Throwing and Catching: Students learn how to throw and catch using many different types of equipment (balls, scarves, scoops, and balls).
Circus Arts: Children work on a variety of different skills and equipment such as balance, juggling, spinning plates, Unicycles, angel sticks and stilts.
Tumbling/Gymnastics: Students work on improving their upper body strength, social skills, coordination, body awareness, flexibility, risk taking, and balance.
Dance: Students participate in folk and square dancing; they learn to appreciate different cultures and learn important social skills.
Volleyball: Basic volleyball skills are learned and students use those skills in modified volleyball activities and games.
Basketball: Students learn basic ball handling skills and passing and shooting skills and incorporate them into modified activities and games.
Fitness Testing: Students are tested in sit-ups, shuttle run, one-mile run/walk, flexed arm hang and curl ups and see how they improve from year to year.
Track and Field: Children are introduced to basic track and field skills and have many opportunities to refine those skills.
Softball/Throwball: Students are taught the game of softball and skills associated with the game as well as general rules.
Tag Games: Students work on their fleeing and dodging skills during a large variety of tag games.
Cooperative Games: Students are given problems to solve and are encouraged to find solutions or strategies to solve those problems.

We also include a number of special activities throughout the year. These include ACES Day where “All Children Exercise Simultaneously”; healthy Heart Week, where the students get a chance to travel through a diagram of the heart and participate in Jump Rope for Heart. We create special theme activities around Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Election Day and the 5th graders get to “swing and do-si-do” with their parents at the annual 5th grade square dance. At times we incorporate multidisciplinary lessons into the curriculum. We have worked on the skeletal system and muscular systems with the 5th grade and have played games that involve mathematics for the second and third grades. On the whole we want the students to and enjoy Physical Education and leave Murray Ave. with a rich experience in physical education that they will never forget.

Health

The ultimate goal of the elementary Health program is for students to begin developing basic attitudes, knowledge and behaviors that contribute to their own self-worth, respect for their bodies and the ability to make constructive decisions regarding their social and emotional, as well as physical, health.

Grades K-2:

There is no formal health class in Kindergarten through 2nd grade. However, classroom teachers, in conjunction with the school psychologist and health teacher, introduce students to the concepts of safe & healthy living by exploring the concepts of "Good Touches, Bad Touches" as a precursor to our sexual abuse curriculum that begins in the 3rd grade.

Grades 3 & 4

Sexual Abuse Prevention:

Identify appropriate and inappropriate touches.
Give resources to children on how to handle unwanted touches.
Discuss Feeling of children who are touched inappropriately.

Grade 5

Family Life/Human Sexuality:

Understanding Self
Body image
Stereotyping
Nature versus nurture

Two classes are devoted to discussing feeling about self and their attitudes about being a boy or a girl. Children will have the opportunity to explore their feelings about gender stereotyping.

Human Growth and Development:

Puberty
Reproductive system
Pregnancy

During these four classes boys and girls will be separated. At this time we will discuss all the physical and emotional changes that happen during puberty. We cover both the male and female reproductive system so that they have a greater understanding of conception and pregnancy. Boys and girls will have the opportunity to learn about both sexes.

Diseases

Communicable and non-communicable diseases
How do people get communicable and non-communicable diseases?
Immune system

This unit is designed to introduce the concepts of disease to prepare students for future HIV/AIDS discussion.

Sexual Abuse Prevention

What is sexual abuse?
Appropriate and inappropriate touching
What can a child do if they feel they have been abused?
Internet safety

Children will be able to identify all the different types of sexual abuse. They will learn about resources available if they are ever in an undesired situation.

Drug Awareness

Legal and illegal drugs
Use, misuse and abuse
Alcohol use and abuse
Cigarettes
Why people abuse drugs?
Strategies to strengthen children’s ability to say “no” to drugs
D.A.R.E. - Drug Awareness and Resistance Education

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