How I Structure My Physed Classes

Hello PE Nation!
Let's unlock the secrets to structuring a 40-minute physical education class with my latest podcast episode! Discover how I've crafted an engaging and efficient class routine that has transformed the way students learn and interact. From organized entry routines and rewarding good behavior, to innovative warm-ups featuring music mixes, I share the elements that keep my classes dynamic and exciting. With smaller class sizes, managing behaviors and providing personalized attention becomes easier, and I'll walk you through my method of dividing students into activity stations. With coaches and paras at the helm, kids jump into activities, ensuring they are actively participating by the tenth minute.
Join me as we push the PE profession into new territories, offering insights that can transform your classes into vibrant, engaging experiences for all students.

Take Care,
Dave

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Chapters

• 0:11 Structuring Physical Education Class Schedule
• 11:07 PE Program Expansion Through Writing

Transcript

Dave: 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Supersize Phys Ed podcast. My name is Dave and today I want to talk about how I structure my class, like each lesson as the students come in. Here's what it looks like. I have 40 minutes and I'm going to break it down for you now. So, without further ado, here we go. All right, everybody, welcome in Again.

Dave: 0:48

I'm in my Lanai area. I know I've said that the past couple episodes, so if you hear some birds singing or my dog barking, I apologize, but I want to get more things out to you and I just haven't a lot of time to do podcasting. So I want to get these done, and it's the day after Thanksgiving, so I have a little time in the morning. Look at that, all right. So today again, I want to go over how I structure each class. Now I have 40 minutes. I know that varies. Some of you have 45,. Actually, one year I had 45, but every other year in my 14 years of PE I've always had 40 minutes. So I'm going to base it off of that. Now, again, I know some of you might have an hour and that's a little different, and you can add to this or take away whatever you can with this or whatever you would like to, but I'm going to show you how I break down my 40 minute classes. So we'll start with the basics. The students come in in a single file line, one at a time. We have this year three and a half classes per grade level, which is one less than last year. I said four and a half, but now we added STEM to our STEM, music, art and PE basic schedule for specials, and so it's way better. I mean it really is. I usually have or I used to have I mean almost my whole career two classes by myself. There were times when it was a little different, where somebody else might get two or whatever, but usually I would have two classes by myself. So this has been really nice. I usually have one class to one and a half classes by myself. It's been really nice. This year. It's been a lot easier to manage behaviors and just in general, getting more time with each student or with a smaller group. It's just been great.

Dave: 2:46

Go to their dots and they know um. Again, this is just me, I'm not going to get into a lot of uh classroom management stuff here, but they go to their dots, they have numbers and they sit on them and, um, they get ready to go and we give out, uh, what's called bear paws If they're sitting nicely. Um, they know to come in and sit crisscross applesauce. Now I, I know that some people might be like, well, that's just too much. But you know what? We've worked on that for a long time and they know how to come in, they know how to sit, they know how to be ready to learn, ready to go. And the fifth graders I give them a little more leeway on how they sit. They don't have to be perfectly cr into that.

Dave: 3:24

So once we get everybody in, and sometimes even before that, because if class are late I just want to get going, and a lot of times class are late. So I'll start a warmup right away. And again, some of this is separate podcast material, but I usually do my own uh, music mixes that um actually put out a podcast about a month ago about that, how to do that. Music mixes that I actually put on a podcast about a month ago about that, how to do that. Or I'll do just a song I don't want to think of Cha-Cha Slide or some kind of thing like that Chicken Dance, sometimes with the little kids, the kindergartners, with the older students. I have Fit Radio and other things or just other songs.

Dave: 4:07

So about a five-minute warm-up right there and I'll just welcome them after that to what we're going to do today. I'll go over briefly what each station is, what we're trying to accomplish, and then I'll let them go to their stations with their coaches. So I have two coaches this year, two paras, and as a sample I'll just kind of go over what we might do. So the one coach will take their students, his class, out to the far field and, let's say, run, let's see what he was doing. He was doing soccer, so they'll take their water bottles with them. They'll go out to the far field. There's a track, an inner track area, and I actually painted dots over the summer where they can go sit and he'll go over the questions and the game there. And then my other para will take his class out to the I call field one, I call field two, far away field one, close by, and he was doing like simple, like beanbag toss, those kinds of games, simple lawn games there. And I will take my group to the basketball courts and play a game with them there.

Dave: 5:10

And again, this isn't about individual things we're doing, it's more about how we break it down. So again, the first five minutes is a kind of warm-up introduction, talking a little bit. That's five to eight to ten minutes. I guess by the tenth minute we should be in our stations and so that that leaves us about. For me, 25 minutes for our station, okay.

Dave: 5:37

So that involves the game. That involves talking about the game, explaining the game, playing the game, asking questions, and sometimes my paras send them for a lap, which I'm not crazy about, but sometimes they do that and I guess it's okay. It depends on what game we're playing. If we're doing a running game, I don't think we need a lap to start the day. We already did a warm-up. But if it's a game, like I said my one para is playing a beanbag toss game I'm okay with that because they might need a little extra movement because they're not doing a lot doing that. So I leave that to the coaches if they feel like the students might benefit from a lap there.

Dave: 6:20

We don't do a lot of laps, like I don't. I do on like fun Fridays where, okay, go do a lap and then pick your station, or go do a lap and pick your game, that kind of thing. But that really gets into your overall philosophy, which we'll get into in just a moment. It's about what you want to get accomplished, what you want to do, and you can't do everything. So let me back up for a moment. So again, we have five to 10 minutes introduction, talking a little bit, go to your stations, so let's just say 10 minutes total. Then we have 25 minutes in your station, so that's 35 minutes. The last five minutes is get back onto the pavilion, get drinks, turn the fans on if it's hot, and then I have them roll the dice.

Dave: 7:00

Now, that's just something. I started at least a couple of years ago. I ordered some big foam dice from Amazon or one of the companies and we give them to the students that did a really good job that day. So each coach gets a few dice, I guess, and hands them out, or if they're sitting nicely or they did a good job, or they help somebody and they go up front and they roll the dice and we somebody usually gets at least a six and we um, somebody usually gets at least a six. So we give them points for the day and they're looking to earn points to get like a free day or get something like a certain game they want, like capture flag. Once they get to a certain point, a point total like a hundred to 150 points, and from there they uh get ready to go.

Dave: 7:45

Now the thing is, here's what I want to talk about. I guess I'll talk about in the, in the cowbell tip of the day, some things to think about, because that was a pretty basic, bare bones sketch of how I run it. But there's a lot of like insider stuff there, a lot of little nuances to think about. So let's talk about it, let's go to our cowbell tip of the day. All right, everybody. So your tip of the day is to think about other factors here. So heat is a factor for us, and rain and all sorts of stuff, but the heat definitely in the beginning and end of the year. We might keep them under the pavilion for longer just to be in the shade and I'll do a simple game under there with them or I'll talk a little more about strategy or about whatever the main topic is for that day. So heat is definitely a factor for us. The other thing and I know some of you are inside so it doesn't even matter that part, but this part does.

Dave: 8:48

You can't do everything. You have 40 minutes, so you have to choose which hill to die on. I guess I'm thinking about the things that you could do, like you could do more stretching, you could do more laps, you could add more just push-ups and sit-ups and other things there. I don't and it's not right or wrong. I just don't do as much of that. And I'm not saying it's not important either, because I'll do different types of warm-ups. I don't always do a dance exercise thing where we're just doing jumping jacks. There are times when we do a push-up type of warm-up week or squats or things like that. It's just hard under our pavilion, on the cement, not a lot of room between dots, and so that's why we never do like we would never do like curl ups or sit ups, because we're on cement.

Dave: 9:43

And so you have to think about your overall program, your, I guess, the ground you have there or whatever type of material you have as far as cement or you're on a gym floor or whatever, and what you really want like what are you going towards? Are you trying to be more fitness based? Are you trying to be more skill based? Are you trying to be more sport based? What are you trying to do with these 40 minutes? Because you can't do everything, and that's you know. That's it's hard sometimes because you want to do everything, I get it. But if I, I guess if I were to say one thing I skimp on a little bit that would be the like, the fitness part of it or the laps, that kind of thing. But, like I said, you can do a fitness unit. You could do more of a running based, you know, couple of weeks or a month. You could do more of those push-ups and squats, like I said, or different exercises, and really focus on that for a week or two weeks or whatever it is. So those are things to think about when you're structuring your class what is important to you and what do you want the students to get out of it. So that's 40 minutes for me and that's not a lot of time, but we try to pack as much stuff as we can into it and that is your cowbell tip of the day.

Dave: 11:07

Thank you everybody for tuning in. I really do appreciate it, as always. Go to supersizefizcom for more information or to join my Medium and Substack group. Click the links below in the show notes. They are something I'm trying to get more into with my writing and just a small of blogs, but also sending out newsletters of cool games and things like that you could try in your PE program. So take care, pe Nation, have a great, have a great day, week, weekend, whenever you listen to this, and let's keep pushing our profession forward. Thank you.