Enhance your PE curriculum with literacy! Students experience literacy every single day. Now, you can add this to your activity tool box to promote literacy as well.

I am a physical education teacher at PS 457 in the Bronx, NY. I have experience teaching in the classroom both general and special education. I developed this game because my program uses a lot of small group/station work. I am always trying to teach my students physical literacy and encourage autonomy. Students know how to pick and choose a “just right” book (not too hard or easy). Why can’t the same be applied to exercise?

The game itself works well because you can teach students about building muscular strength and endurance (components of health related fitness). What’s also great about it is that you can do it in a gym or even in a hallway (which I have done before). It’s universally designed to be inclusive of all students and can be modified to fit your space and the skill level of students.

This activity can be used for an entire lesson, station activity, or a warm up.

Materials:

• Dice
• Cones
• Cone toppers
• Direction sheet
• Cone covers
• Task cards
• Poly spots (optional)

Set Up

If you are using this as a station activity, print the Excercise Dice Game direction sheet and place it at the top of the cone. You can edit the document to include Station numbers.

Print a Task Card and place it into the Cone Card. I use cards like this so students can refer to them at all times. This game will help students get in the routine of referring to the card. Also, they can pick how much of the exercise they want to do – 5, 10, 15, or 20 reps. Most of all, it’s new and unique and students just LOVE it.

Instructions

Note: This game can be modified for different grades. As it is written it is designed for grades 2-5, set up groups of 3, 4 or even 6. 

My class used this as an entire lesson with 3 different stations. I divide the class into 6 groups. Each has a color – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple.

Red goes to station 1, Orange to station 2, and so forth. Stations 1 and 4 are duplicates, Stations 2 and 5, and Stations 3 and 6. Sp students at Station 2 and 5 are doing the same game. After a few minutes, we pause and clean up. Then they rotate to the next game. This way, no group repeats a station and they get to perform all the skills of the day. Task cards help students understand recall different games when they do switch.

Place a die under the cone for easy storage. If you want to give students spaces to stand on, place spot markers. One student rolls the dye. The group performs the exercise (everyone) that corresponds to that number. Roll a 4, everyone does squats. Students can pick how many they want to do: 5, 10, 15 or 20 repetitions.

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About the Author:

Jim Hambel  is a PE teacher in the Bronx, NY. He has taught for 8 years. He is also certified in Childhood Education and Special Education grades 1-6. He has over 25+ years of bowling experience and was inducted into the US National Bowling Hall of Fame for a 300 perfect game and 800 series. Presenting workshops on bowling at the city and state level, he works diligently to promote good practices in PE. When Jim is not teaching or bowling, he enjoys spending time with his wonderful wife and amazing daughter.

Please join me for more activities and practices such as this when I present the webinar

“Strategies and Techniques to Add Literacy into Your Physical Education Program” as part of The ConnectedPE Online Conference 2020 on February 13, 2020. Use this link to sign up.