Carmen Crawford

Preschool Physical Education

I am lucky enough to have the opportunity to teach Physical Education at a preschool, something
I havent seen done anywhere around here before. I have been able to use the knowledge I have gained
through college, through my time working with YMCA youth sports departments, and working with
children to make the best program I can for the students I work with. I want to describe some of the
experiences I have had while working this first year.
The children I work with are age 3-5 and the classrooms are blended, meaning the classrooms
have special education students, at risk children, and typically developing students all together in one
classroom. When each class comes to PE my lesson has to be adaptable to all of these students. There
are para-educators in each classroom that come along to PE to help this adaptation happen. If there is
something that a special education student needs extra help with, they can take them aside and give them
the extra attention needed.
I didnt get much training coming into this position as Physical Activity Coordinator, but I think I
have made the best of it. I have a lot of freedom to do what I want with my program and was only given
one program book, The Fundamental Movement Program the Perceptual-Motor Development Guide,
as a tool to use. I am able to use a different sources if I want, but at least for this first year I have found
this Guide to be pretty good when it comes to the evaluations sheets it provides. I only use 7 chapters in
the book and those can be found under the assessment category under my career. The guide also gives
different activities to do to teach skills that are on the evaluations, but I have found it better to use my
own activities. For the evaluations, there is a rating scale of a 0, 1, or 2. A 0 score means that the student
Carmen Crawford
does not demonstrate the skill. A score of 1, shows that the student inconsistently demonstrates the skill,
they cant do it every time. A score of 2, means that the student has mastered the skill.
The teachers of each class get together at the end of every school year and create a plan for the
next year, what they are going to do teach for each week, the letter, number, color, etc. They pick a
theme to stick with each week such as, insects, dental health, dinosaurs, etc. I try to take my PE lesson
and make it go with the theme that the students are learning about that week. For dental health week, we
played dental health tag. When someone gets tagged by plaque, a student with a yellow yarn ball, they
had to get brushed on the shoulder with a tooth brush or flossed around their wasted with a jump rope to
get unfrozen. I can teach the students important things other than just the physical skills this way. If
there is a theme that I can involve sorting things by color, I am having the students use different motor
skills to get from the objects being sorted to where they are sorting them. On top of learning and
practicing the different motor skills, they are working on their colors. The buckets I have them sort into
have the color on them and also have it written on it so that they can visualize the word. I try to add
other learning skills into as many activities as possible.
The area that I use as my gym is just a big open space in the building between all of the lockers.
It is just a tile floor with the tile around it making a track (Picture 1 in Appendix). It is a pretty big space,
and is just perfect for PE. I have taped green lines on the track where students line up when they come to
class and when they leave (Picture 2). I also have a big red box taped on the middle of the floor between
the track, which is where we play our activities. Going outside of the box is against the rules. On one
side of the big area, across from my box, I have stars laminated and taped to the floor (Picture 3 & 4).
This is where we cool down and do our stretches. My day has typically eight classes, each twenty
Carmen Crawford
minutes long. My class starts by the student lining up on the green lines and stretching to warm up. We
then run two laps around the track. We normally do one more lap after running that is a different motor
skill, or a motor movement that goes along with the theme such as using the scooters to drive around the
track. After our laps, I explain the game that we are going to play while they are still on their green lines.
We then move to the red box and play our game. Normally I have two games, so after the first game I
have them go line up on the red line to listen for the second activity. After we are done with our
activities, we put our equipment up and go to our stars where we have cool down time and do our
stretches. I found a really great stretching tool for this age group called Yogarilla, (Picture 5). It shows
a gorilla doing different poses and stretches that are age appropriate. After cooling down, the kids run, or
use a different motor skill or action, to get back around to their green lines.
I also have been blessed with enough extra grant money to get a nice supply of equipment. I have
an equipment closet like you would think of in any other gym. This year I was able to buy some new
equipment. Pictures 6 and 7 in the Appendix show my closet and the equipment I get to use with my
students.
I think having PE in preschool is important. After doing some research on it, and experiencing it,
I think that it can have a good outcome with kids. When I wrote my thesis, I wrote about doing
evaluations like I did on my students who have PE in preschool, and then also going to another
preschool that does not have PE and evaluate them the same way I do with my students. I would like to
see if they have the same increase in the number of students who mastered skills, and I would like to see
if they would get any better from a pre test to a post test. I think I will eventually do this evaluating and
find out. I would also like to use BMI to see if preschool PE has any affect on body fat percentage.
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Childhood obesity is such a big problem now. Overweight children are at risk for many chronic
diseases. Obesity is not just a problem with adults, it is the most common pediatric disease as well
(Eliakim, Alon, Lemet, Balakirski, & Epstein 2007). Having preschool PE can help students learn the
vital motor skills needed to be more active and advance on to being more physically active throughout
their life. The Council on Physical Education for Children, The National Association for the Education
of Young Children, and The United States Department of Health and Human Services all recommend
that physical education be offered to children enrolled in preschool programs (Pica 2011). I agree with
this and Pica says that motor skills are not acquired and refined without instruction and practice. I am
able to give my students instruction and practice and this helps them become more confident in their
abilities. The National Association of Sport and Physical Education recommend that children age 3-5 get
at least 60 minutes of structured physical activity a day (2002). This definitely does not happen, even at
the preschool where I teach PE. That is what is recommended on top of NASPE recommending 60
minutes of unstructured physical activity. It is way easier to promote PE at this age because the kids love
coming out and playing games. The students at this age are completely responsive to their environment.
I think this program should be integrated in more preschools across America. Preschoolers love
coming and playing games with me, and they get to learn important skills that will help them out in their
life.



Carmen Crawford
Bibliography

Eliakim, Alon, Lemet, D., Balakirski, Y., & Epstein, Y. (2007). The Effects of Nutritional-Physical
Activity School-based Intervention on Fatness and Fitness in Preschool Children. Journal of
Pediactric Endocinology and Metabolism, 20 (6), 711-18. Freund Publishing House Ltd.,
London.

National Association for Sport and Physical Education (2002). Association of the American Alliance for
Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.

Pica, R. (2011). The Importance of Physical Education for Preschoolers. Disney Family.com. National
Association for Sport and Physical Education. <http://family.go.com/parenting/pkg-preschool/
article-799705-the-importance-of-physical-education-for-preschoolers---t/>.












Carmen Crawford
APPENDIX

Picture 1

Picture 2





Carmen Crawford
Picture 3 & 4

The pink star is normally where I sit.

Picture 5

Picture 6 & 7