1. Chapter 14: Early Childhood Physical Education
Plato’s Physical Education:
A guide to teaching physical education at all levels and in all environments.

2. Early Childhood Encompasses Birth through 8 years old
For this book, it includes Birth through 5 years old (Kindergarten)
Forms base for 13 years of schooling
Kindergarten through12th grade

3. Physical Education Pyramid
Includes skills to be learned at various points in development
Starts in Early Childhood
Ends with a “lifelong healthy and physically active person”
Includes 5 levels of skills
Early Childhood
Early elementary
Late elementary
Secondary
High School and Beyond

4. Skills of the pyramid Building blocks of later movement
Starts with rolling over, crawling and walking
Continues with the fundamental physical skills

5. Safety #1 job of any teacher, especially Physical Education
Managing space and equipment
Managing movement patterns
May be too excited moving that they forget to look where they are going
Over-exertion
Again, may be so excited to move, that they may wear themselves out quickly

6. Safety cont. Positioning of the teacher is crucial Social skills
Must see all students at all times
They may try to leave
They may become off-task
Social skills
Often, early childhood students lack the social skills to play with others.
This must be taught

7. Equipment Size of equipment is critical
Can the child hold it
Too large
Too heavy
In general, larger is better (but has its limit)
Bouncy ball
Playground ball

8. Balloon bags
One balloon is a lot of fun, but aren't 5 balloons better?
Put balloons inside a clear garbage bag and tie the end of it closed
Moves very slow
Easy to track and catch
If a balloon pops, it is closed inside balloon bag

9. Equipment Items to consider Color Speed Softness
More colors stimulate the eyes
Easier to see
Speed
Make sure it moves slowly
Children don’t respond as quickly as adults
Softness
What happens if it hits them?
Comfort and nervousness

10. Standards
National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
Standards relate to Physical Education
Helps prepare students for kindergarten
Arnold Gesell set up a series of abilities for children at various months (1month -8 years old)

11. Developing a curriculum
Must be developed for children of the same age, but at various developmental levels
Should be simple and fun
Eight fundamental Physical Skills
Balance General Coordination
Body Image Hand-eye Coordination
Laterality Tactile Touch
Language Vision

12. Balance Ability to move your body under control
Relates specifically to Concentration
More distractions require more concentration to not fall over
Three types
Static (not moving)
Dynamic (Moving)
External objects

13. General Coordination Ability to coordinate movement
Sequencing
Anything with a beginning and end
Additional steps in the middle add difficulty
Skipping is the best example
Step – hop – step – hop
5 ½ year old skill

14. Body Image
if a child doesn't know where a part of his or her body is, the child can't use it effectively
NOT how someone looks or perceives they look
Where you are in space
Over Under Around
Through Behind In front
Controlling their bodies

15. Hand-Eye Coordination
How the body responds to what the eyes see
Includes anything with an external object
Writing
Catching or throwing a ball
Sit on bottom with legs in a V and roll a ball
Any time a student must track an object, it is hand-eye coordination

16. Laterality
knowing my left from right, top from bottom, and front from back
Three midlines of the body
Any time these midlines are crossed, its laterality
Working on opposite sides also counts
Throw with right hand, step with left foot
Can help dramatically with reading
Top left to bottom right (crosses 2 midlines)

17. Tactile Touch Feeling items as they are meant to be felt Two types
Dysfunctional – not feeling correctly
Defensive – doesn’t like the feeling
Must teach feelings
Hot and cold
Soft and hard
etc

18. Language Ability to communicate clearly Includes four aspects
Audio receptive (listening)
Includes appropriate noise levels
Audio expressive (speaking)
Sign language
Body language

19. Vision The ability to see
Each eye contains 6 muscles controlling your vision
You “see” much as your television screen works
Millions of tiny dots that form a vision
Three types of vision issues
Tracking (side to side)
Depth perception (distance)
Color blindness

20. Social skills
Various social skills should be taught at different times. In Early Childhood, teach the following:
Sharing – allowing others to use equipment
Playing with others
Parallel play
Cooperative play
Sharing
Taking turns – allowing others to have chances
Listening – proper ways to react when others speak

21. Connecting to other subjects
Various subjects taught in Early Childhood
Letters and numbers
put them down on the ground with vinyl floor tape and walk the letters (make them big)
Colors
Use colors to mean different things
Fast = green
Slow = yellow
Stop = red
Animal sounds
Play games where animal sounds are required

22. Evaluation
Some portion of their grade should be based on improvement on…
Social skills
Physical skills
Usually it is not a grade that is given, but an update on skills levels
Usually a form of a checklist

23. Alternative plans Where can activity be completed?
No physical educator
Often it is the classroom teacher
Most of the time, the classroom can be used for the eight fundamental physical skills
Outside (if weather is nice)
Make sure to have a boundary set
Children love to run.

24. Activities
Chapter 19 has multiple activities for children in Early Childhood