Giving the Gift of Physical Literacy

As physical educators we are lucky to be able to go to work every day and assist in helping our students develop their physical literacy. We aim to enable our students to develop the confidence & competence in a wide variety of physical activities in multiple environments. By doing this we aim to give those under our care the best possible chance to live happy and healthy lives long into their adulthood.

One of the ways which we help students to develop their physical literacy is through the development of their fundamental movement skills, the basic building blocks that enable them to take part in any physical activity. By developing these fundamental skills and movement techniques we enable students to have the tools to join in and flourish in all the games and sports that they love to play.

As a elementary school physical educator, the teaching of these movement skills play a large role in my lessons. I am constantly looking for new ideas on how to do this effectively so that my students have the best chance to succeed. A large part of ensuring that they have this opportunity is through they way the content is delivered, as well as how I assess and track their progress. After seeing and downloading the incredible Helena Baert‘s amazing  Fundamental Movement Pattern posters, I got thinking about how I could take this rich source of knowledge and put it in a format which would assist my students in their skill development and in particular how it could help me assess their progress.

So I created the Fundamental Movement Skills posters that you see below. The front of each card includes some verbal language prompts which may assist you in delivering your teaching of the skill and reinforce the students understanding. On the reverse are the critical elements, or success criteria that you as a teacher are looking at as a measure of progress for the students. I printed these cards double sided in A5 format (half a A4 page) and laminated them. The squares next to the success criteria allows you or another student to tick each element with a whiteboard marker as it is achieved.

After creating, printing and laminating these cards, I was so proud of my work that I took a photo of them and posted it to Twitter. I was shocked at how many people favourited and retweeted the photo and asked where they could get a copy.
Normally I would happily share the resource in the Resources section of the website, however in this case I had another thought in mind. I had recently heard of the work of an amazing not for profit called Right to Play.
Right to Play uses the power of play to educate and empower children to be guardians of their own health and active participants in their communities. Right to Play programs create positive experiences and teach important life skills that encourage behaviour change. At the core of every activity is our Reflect-Connect-Apply approach, which encourages children to examine their experiences, relate those experiences to what they already know and apply that learning to their daily lives. This strategy helps children adopt and maintain lifelong healthy behaviours and attitudes.

Sounds familiar right? As we develop the physical literacy of those in our classes, Right to Play helps to develop the physical literacy of all of those who are not as fortunate as our students. Connecting the dots, I thought that I could use the interest created by this resource and use it to raise much needed funds for Right to Play.