How to Set Up Your Physical Education Classes for In Person Learning

I’ve been virtual this whole school year, and I am extremely grateful for that. Honestly, I love virtual teaching. I feel like I connect better with certain kids, and I definitely feel like a better teacher, because I’ve taught so much more content than I do in person. But now I am trying to narrow in on how to set up my physical education classes for in person learning.

Do I miss playing physical sports with my students? Absolutely. But my students are getting a quality PHYSICAL EDUCATION by learning the backbone of why being active is important. They are learning concepts and trying activities that they may not have learned if we had been in person.

So how am I going to give advice on something I haven’t done yet? Well, I’m going to give you my plan of action for when we go back in March, and hope it works. My in person followers can take different aspects of my plan and tailor them to fit your students and schedules.

Technically, I have taught in person right when the pandemic started in the summer of 2020. For the last few years, I’ve taught High School Summer School PE and this past summer I started writing every single day on the social distancing activities we did. I have a 20 days series called Summer School Physical Education that you can check out here if you are looking for out of the box ideas on what to do with your students.

Also see 13 Social Distancing Activities for Physical Education Class.

What My In Person Schedule Will Look Like:

At the K-8 school I teach at, there are approximately 800 students. During the pandemic my school split up specials to where I have all the kids in the K-8 A classes, the art teacher had all the kids in the K-8 C classes and the technology teacher had all the kids in the K-8 B classes.

Since there is three trimesters, we simply rotate where all the kids will have had one special every day for 12 weeks until the next trimester and then the last.

We’re expected to go back to in person teaching in March, right when trimester 3 starts, meaning I will only see all the kids in K-8 B every day until school ends.

I really enjoy this set up. I’ve been able to stay on a consistent track with my current students by seeing them every day virtually. The students are already familiar with this set up as well, so heading back to in person with specials set up this way should be a breeze.

Not all students are coming back in person though, and what we have worked out is that I will have virtual students doing asynchronous work, while I interact with my in person students. That way I don’t have to worry about the safety of my in person kids while I am tending to my virtual students.

In Person Set Up for Physical Education Classes Plan Of Attack

As of now the goal is to set my physical education classes up by days. Each day of the week will be a scheduled activity that students can count on and look forward to that repeats until the school year ends. If at any point I notice my students getting bored, I’ll be able to switch things up.

Fitness Monday:

Every Monday, grades K-8 will be doing some sort of workout. I LOVE Little Sports workouts on YouTube for my younger students, so I know I will be using some of their videos.

This is the day where we can focus on the health-related fitness and skill-related fitness components. I also want to incorporate target muscles each week that we work so my students will get an anatomy lesson as well.

Virtual Games Tuesday:

I have created over 100 virtual games/activities/brain breaks and warm ups for my virtual students on my YouTube channel Detroit PE.

Right now the plan for Tuesdays, is to select age appropriate activities for my K-8 kids from my YouTube channel. I put a lot of work into creating my games, and I am so glad I have them as a resource. My students will be having a blast on Tuesdays while getting some much needed movement!

There is a lot of cross curricular trivia games to get their bodies and minds active as well as PE related content incorporated into a fun virtual video.

Content is put up on YouTube weekly, so make sure to subscribe if you haven’t!

Walking Wednesday:

I’m trying to simplify MY schedule and not stretch myself too thin, and that’s why I have Walking Wednesdays right in the middle of my week. This is the day where I take every student outside to walk the parking lot for 25-30 minutes. As long as my kids are social distanced with their masks on I think we will all enjoy our Wednesday walks.

Because of the stress these kids have gone though all year, I want Wednesdays to be a day they can unwind in PE. By getting the entire class period to talk to their friends while moving, I feel like there won’t be as many behavior issues because there are not strict instructions on what we are doing this day.

Another idea I am contemplating is to give them a walking buddy and a few topics that changes weekly. They will have to talk to different kids in their classes about their lives and maybe make a friend or two!

Since they have missed so much social interaction this past year, I’m hoping our Wednesday Walks will help students socialize to strengthen their mental and emotional health.

Outdoor Thursday:

No brainer…just go outside. I have lots of fun activities we can play outside that don’t require lots of equipment such as RipStiks and team building games.

I might even create a few scavenger hunts for my kids to work through outdoors as well!

Dance Party/Kahoot Friday:

Friday should always be the best day of a work week. So make it enjoyable. After all we’re PE teachers aka THE FUN TEACHERS!

So for grades K-3 as of now every Friday will be a glow in the dark dance party. This might change over time, but for right now I want to see how far I can stretch this. I have lots of high quality black lights that I’ll bring in, and play some fun upbeat music so my kids can dance behind their desks.

Then for grades 4-8 I want to play Kahoot. This is where you can take concepts and activities you did throughout the week, and turn it into a fun trivia games. They’ll have fun while learning!

As a teacher I always look forward to certain lessons, and the fact that I know I’ll be looking forward to my Fridays because the kids will be enjoying themselves is a win win.

Virtual Students with Asynchronous PE

I already have all of my Detroit PE YouTube games built into my Google Classroom. All I want my virtual students to do is play 2-3 games PER day while at home. Giving them the choice to pick and choose what they want to play might help them enjoy the activities a little better.

I am not going to be the teacher that assigns a bunch of written work knowing that half the kids wont do it. I have too many students I interact with to be writing hundreds of emails a week asking why work isn’t getting done. PE will be their time to take a break from classwork and MOVE.

Are they going to learn everything their supposed to in the 12 weeks they are doing asynchronous PE online ? No. But that’s fine. They can learn it next year. As long as they are enjoying physical activity at a young age I am not concerned if they didn’t learn what a full court press is.

Set Up For Physical Education Classes Takeaway

My philosophy is work smarter not harder these days. There are too many things I cannot control when it comes to the pandemic and teaching. And I’m seeing a ton of teacher burn outs and I do not want to be one of them.

I work so hard at providing my students with a quality physical education that I can take a step back from CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT, and give my students a day to literally just go for a walk and talk to their friends.

And I don’t even feel bad about it. Because I know when they look back in 10 years and they’re talking about what school was like during the 2020-20201 pandemic school year they’ll remember PE was an outlet for them to let go of all their worry and stress.