TOPIC:
What does PE look like in your house? Do your children do formal activities? What kind and where? What do they do for daily activity? How do you teach them basic activity skills? What are your priorities in this area?
ANSWERS:
In the winter months, I find this a hard area. However, once the weather gets warmer, I make sure they are sent outside everyday for adequate time. Having a big yard, we make sure there are things to do: trampoline, swings, etc. Since my girls like to be animals, LOL...I find they get a lot of activity going! We utilize indoor play places as well. I have not used other activities as much as I should ... but at the same time as long as they are out and having fun, I find that to be my priority for them.
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Our family seems quite an energetic family and we have a large garden. My boys are always in the garden throwing a baseball to each other or we get together and play a "game". We also play soccer together and have fun practicing some skills. We all have bicycles, so we love to go for rides around the canals and dykes. We also live very close to the BMX track - so we often venture there to practice their racing. For formal activities, my younger son is involved in Gymnastics, and my older one plays soccer and baseball. We also go for walks with our dog and do a street cleanup (we pick up the garbage). We have a Jungle Gym and swing and a tree-house in our garden. We also have a pool, so in Summer my boys are enjoying the water. So sometimes we do a basic bean bag toss or balancing skill. I have a file with some ideas, so we just follow it when possible. My priorities in this area are: covering some basic moves, and feeling good about one's self, getting fit and having fun.
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We do need to do more. Thankfully, it is great to go walking where we live, but we do not do that enough.
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What does PE look like in your house? For us it is dancing inside in the winter (I have girls) and in the Spring and Summer we spend lots of time outside either at the park or playing soccer and street hockey with the neighbours. Do your children do formal activities? What kind and where? Yes, ballet, musical theatre which requires dancing and the youngest is a sports girl so soccer. What do they do for daily activity? We have a great yard to run and play ball in as well as in the front an area for the kids to play street hockey and then the neighbours can see us and join in. We try to go out every day as the neighbour kids get home from school so they can join us. How do you teach them basic activity skills? By modelling them. We love to do things as a family like bike and walk. When the girls are learning a new skill like badminton I show them the techniques but let them play around until they get their own feel for the sport. What are your priorities in this area? I don't think I have any real priorities other than that we have a lifestyle that includes time for being outside and being active as a family and allows our children to try things that interest them like dance and soccer.
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My daughter is signed up for horseback riding every Saturday. I found a four week soccer program in Burnaby for any level Grade 4- 6 and she is doing that. We sign up for swimming from time to time, and used to go to skating in the winter. Daily we take walks and bike rides when the weather is fine. I would be interested in hearing what other folks do.
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I send my children out for a fifteen minute run in the middle of the morning. I used to use that time to "get a few things done", but now I go for a power walk myself. (Actually, now I do "power gardening"). Besides this they do teams, gymnastics and ballet lessons. We also hike and cycle. Most of the "basic activity skills" they have learned in various classes.
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I make sure the kids are active everyday, but they don't do formal "PE". They do kid stuff like play tag, ride their bikes or scooters and climb trees. They participate in activities that interest them like swimming and gymnastics and one of my sons plays hockey, but I don't feel it necessary to shove them into things they don't like. My daughter doesn't like sports or games with balls flying toward her like volleyball and basketball because of her visual perceptual problems, and I'm ok with her not playing those sports, but I do give my kids the exposure and opportunity to try these types of activities. Gazillions of Games at Bonsor was a wonderful class they all enjoyed, and they got to be with other home school kids as well, which made it all the more fun. One thing that is a great energy burner that I would highly recommend everyone get is a mini trampoline. We have one in our living room and the kids jump on it all the time. We have incorporated it into our lessons as well, particularly math. I'll say an equation and then the child bounces the answer. It helps them stay focussed as well as makes the learning fun. My youngest has extremely high energy and this is a non-intrusive way of letting him burn off some extra energy while we do our school work.
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PE in our house is a combination of things, and, ironically, one of the few areas where I feel like I consistently manage to do right for my children, probably mostly because they are so energetic that if they don’t get their activity in, they drive me nuts! All of my kids do weekly gymnastics through a club. Both boys played soccer for several years, and one did again this year. They are also both on a baseball team this spring. I have made a point of trying to have some sort of team sport in their lives so they can learn about how a team works. We have chosen soccer and baseball as they are of interest to our children, relatively inexpensive, and sports that people are more likely to play recreationally throughout their lives. On a daily basis, my kids ride their bikes, take jogs through our complex, play road hockey in the complex, hike through the forest around our place, and play tennis or ball in the park next to our place. On nice days they are often outside running around for three or four hours. We also periodically put them in swimming lessons, and take them swimming semi-regularly. I have not worried much about teaching them basic skills as they are so active and naturally athletic that I have been lucky with how much they have picked up on their own. When we notice something significantly off, (like the other day when one son was trying to throw the baseball like it was a shotput) or if they express frustration with something, we help them figure out what it is they need to do to improve their performance.
From the May 2009 NLHS newsletter
"Clip art from PicGifs.com"