Elementary Physical Education
The Westwood Elementary Physical Education program is designed to teach students movement concepts and motor skills that provide a solid foundation for children to live healthy and active lives. Developmentally appropriate skills and concepts are taught and ample opportunities are provided over time to learn and practice skills in an enjoyable and supportive environment. The Physical Education program is comprised of the following four areas of study:
Educational Games: The approach in an Educational Games model is to provide many opportunities for students to practice skills in an environment where “traditional rules” are altered to accommodate the learning experience. Educational Games are further broken down into four different classifications of gameplay:
Movement Games- the primary goal is to provide opportunities for children to practice skills within a game setting and reinforce basic skills and concepts.
Net and Wall Games- this primarily includes striking skills such as volleying with body parts and/or equipment.
Invasion Games - Teams score by moving a ball (or other object) into another team’s territory and either shooting into a fixed target or moving the object across an open-ended target (a goal line) where students focus on solving offensive and defensive problems.
Target Games- the primary goal is to send an object/ball towards a target.
Educational Gymnastics: Educational Gymnastics provides unique opportunities and challenges for children to become proficient movers. Educational Gymnastics promotes flexibility, muscular strength, and endurance. Moreover, it provides opportunities for children to express themselves through movement, problem-solving, be creative, and move from simple to complex movements. Students develop gymnastics sequences that consist of these basic movements in Educational Gymnastics:
Traveling- weight transferring from one body to another
Rotation- rolling
Suspension- hanging
Flight- loss of contact with the supporting surface
Balance- Position of stillness
Educational Dance: Educational Dance provides wonderful opportunities for children to improve their muscular strength, muscle endurance, cardiovascular endurance, and flexibility. It provides students with the opportunities to express themselves and their diversity through movement and creativity while celebrating a variety of cultures and genres of dance.
Educational Fitness: It is the philosophy of the Westwood Public Schools to integrate fitness concepts, skills, and principles into all activities and lessons. The ultimate purpose of physical education is to guide children into being physically active for a lifetime. Therefore, we have developed Fitness units for students in grades K-5 that specifically focus on this aspect of children’s development. The emphasis of this unit of study is to help students understand what it means to be physically fit, the benefits of regular exercise, and how they can get physically fit within physical education and outside of school.
Social Emotional Learning:
Throughout the educational units lessons are thoughtfully designed to incorporate the 5 competencies of Social Emotional Learning: self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, social awareness, and relationship skills.
