Archive for

« Older Entries

Three Physical Activities You Can Do With a Home Schooled Child

Physical Education (P.E) is a requirement in the public school setting. In a home school environment you may find it more difficult to recreate a structure around physical education to meet your own child’s physical education requirements as well as opportunities for large group (or team) interactions during physical activities. For the interaction part you can find support through your local school system (if the state is supportive of homeschooling and offers this) or through home school co-operatives that organize these kinds of events. However as a family you can also offer many different activities for your child that are fun, physical, and provide learning opportunities. Here are three different activities that you could do with your young, home schooled child that would meet these

A trip to a park could provide both physical activity and educational opportunities for a young child. For physical activity a trip to one of these can provide a great walking opportunity. A good brisk walk is an excellent way to get your child physical activity. After the walk you can always let them have recesses on the local playground. For educational opportunities you have the activities of observing different animal life as well as identifying different plants and trees. Walking at a park is a great way for your home schooled child to get physical activity.

Another fun activity that you can do with your home school child is a family game night with sports or activities that require physical exertion. Two sports that many families like are bowling and putt-putt golf. Each of these sports is something that even the youngest child can participate in and both require some level of physical exertion. Another good benefit of these sports is teaching a child the rules around each game. Learning to follow complex rules is an excellent learning opportunity. At first you may face the challenge of keeping the child’s attention, but over time they will understand the rules better.

A third activity to get your home school children out and active would be roller skating. Roller skating requires balance and strength and is great for building these up in a young child. For a child this activity can be very tough to learn when first beginning, but through perseverance and patience the child can become an effective skater. Skating can also be a launching pad into other physical activities such as skateboarding, rollerblading, and several different snow sports.

Physical education is a requirement that many kids get in the public school system and one that home schooling parents need to remember to provide for their own kids. Sometimes parents can rely on their children ‘going outside to play’ as the only means of physical activity. However, by organizing scheduled, regular activities for your children, including the ones mentioned in this article, a parent can be sure that their child is getting needed physical activity as well as new opportunities to learn.

Tags:

Why Physical Fitness Class Is Better Than Club/Membership Involvement for Students

As a future physical educator, I’ve learned the very importance of physical education while studying for my degree, but even more so with the involvement with my students. The truth of the matter is physical education class is vital to any student’s success in the future. In the early grades we go over key motor skill and development tasks. As we progress through the grades, we target other more in depth skills, such as strategy and cooperative games, that incorporate these fundamental motor skills. This directly can be associated with our National Association of Sport and Physical Education standards, but more importantly teach students how to participate in a variety of skills. Other than these tasks, we also are able to associate physical fitness with fun and positive experiences, by offering our students a chance to expand in their imagination and creativity. These are also vital skills that teach students to come up with their own ideas and to adapt to different environments, as they will need to do these tasks on a daily basis. The physical education class is the only place that can allow such a dramatic and dynamic learning atmosphere.

The main reason clubs and other various programs do not and will not ever be able to fulfill the skills learned in our physical education class is because they are all based of specificity training. Specificity training is when clubs, memberships, etc. train children and adolescence to be particular good at one skill. For example, swimming memberships specifically would train students to only be proficient in in-water activities. However, it is common knowledge that a majority of physical fitness happens outside the water rather than in it. While I find the program to be of great value for those who want to go on to swim competitively, it does not teach the motor skills needed to even participate in swimming.

Let’s say you were a student who joined the swim team in your area because your physical education class was terminated at the beginning of the year. Now that your program is cut, you need to attend swim practice after school three times a week for one hour. This means that homework along with dinner will have to wait or be rescheduled for a different time. You are also swimming around 20-50 laps during practice and learning the max of the four strokes available to swimmers. Now imagine that your physical education class was not terminated and is scheduled twice a week during your school day. After a given subject classes you go the gymnasium to find out this week and next you will be touching on your basketball skills with an instant activity and a scooter basketball tournament. The following two weeks your will be playing racket ball with again an instant activity, as well as, a mini round robin tournament. This example shows how there are multiple of other factors that go into students needing to attend an outside activity rather than a physical education class; for example, after school time taken away from valuable homework time and the fact that being involved in only one activity stiffens a student’s skills and imagination. Also, it is imperative that as physical educator’s we place emphasis on not only team sports, but also individual sports. Even back yard games such as Can Jam and Horse Shoes are games played at family and community events. If we do not teach these basic games to our students who will? Put yourself in our student’s shoes with this example and examine which is truly better for accomplishing both these goals. The answer is physical education.

It is our duty as a physical education program to teach these skills to our students and associate them with positive memories. This will in turn allow students to be excited about physical fitness and be much more successful in the helping them continue to participate in physical fitness throughout their life. This is goal of not just the physical education class but expands throughout our community. As fitness is one of the essentials of life, it is one that is necessary to promote in our communities in a way that has value and success. The physical education classroom is our answer.

Tags:

Why Physical Activity Is the Better Drug Compared to ADHD Medication

ADHD is defined as a behavioral disorder characterized by chronic and developmentally inappropriate degrees of inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Students with ADHD may have the following symptoms: being distracted very easily, miss details, forget things, have trouble focusing on a single task and become bored very easily unless doing something enjoyable. Looking at these symptoms, you might think that some of them are common in most people. Did anyone ever stop and think that maybe these students are just bored? Or perhaps these students are not passionate about what they are learning? Teachers dealing with students with ADHD must find ways to allow these types of students’ room for creativity to find their passion.

In children with ADHD, physical education can have many benefits. Physical Education is the only place in the school system where it is acceptable to release excess energy. Children are not meant to be able to sit in a desk all day long and be expected to focus for the entire time. There are college students who have trouble sitting through one class that is an hour long without dozing off. There are business professionals who can hardly sit through an hour long meeting without getting bored. How could a child be expected to be held to such high standards for nearly six hours a day? These students should not be looked at as a problem. For example, a school system in Colorado has a brilliant way of dealing with students who act up behaviorally in class. If a student acts up, he or she has to go on a training bike for ten minutes. This way, attention will be restored to the student without true punishment being implemented.

One medication that is often given as a treatment for ADHD is Ritalin. Ritalin is a stimulant used to stimulate the brain and central nervous system to slow down hyperactive children and improve concentration. However, the drug has negative side effects that outweigh its benefits. Ritalin is highly addictive and causes nervousness, blood pressure and pulse changes, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, insomnia, and headaches to name a few. Would a parent really want their child on a drug with so many side effects like this one?

Physical education class is a place where some children can find an interest that is truly captivating to him or her. It is very possible that some school subjects do not capture a child’s interest, therefore leading to the behavioral effects of ADHD. These students, through physical education are given opportunities to explore situations that will be presented in the real world outside of the classroom. They have the opportunity to become actively engaged socially and academically. Physical education helps improve concentration, which aids in the ability to complete tasks. Self-esteem can be increased because students are being put in a spot where they can express themselves in a way other than paper and pencil learning. Having a break in the day where students can run around and play can increase academic performance in the classroom as well as reduce stress and anxiety levels. Physical activity releases endorphins, which are hormone-like compounds that regulate mood, pleasure and pain. Physical activity also elevates the brain’s dopamine, nor epinephrine, and serotonin levels, which are brain chemicals that affect the brains ability to focus.

Instead of looking at ADHD as a curse or a disease, some people look at it as a gift. Some of the most amazing athletes of all time are diagnosed with ADHD. Michael Phelps, who is the most decorated Olympian of all time, was diagnosed with ADHD at age 9. Michael Jordan, arguably one of the greatest basketball players of all time has ADHD. Terry Bradshaw the Pro Football Hall of Famer who quarterbacked the Pittsburgh Steelers to four Super Bowl victories in the 1970s had ADHD. Pete Rose had ADD that probably helped propel him to become the 1975 World Series MVP and to hold the major league all-time hit record. These athletes found their passion, and devoted all of their attention into what they love. It is obvious that when a person affected with ADHD finds their passion; there are no boundaries to how he or she can excel. For these individuals, physical activity allowed them to take something with a negative connotation to it, and make their dreams come true. ADHD can be seen as a gift instead of a curse.

The true key to handling children with ADHD is not giving them medicine. It is finding out what gets their brain working; what interests them most, whether it is sports, science, art, music, or the outdoors, and allowing them to engage in it. It is about giving them the chance to be creative and passionate about whatever they want, and incorporating it into their everyday learning. Physical activity is clearly the more beneficial alternative to ADHD medication. It is the most inexpensive, easily accessible form of treatment that is self prescribed to fit the individual with ADHD. When trying to find a solution to the “ADHD problem,” physical activity is the best drug on the market.

Tags: