Do You Need Structed Physical Education?

Over the past several weeks my children and I have been trying a new homeschool PE curriculum, put out by Family Time Fitness. I have been given this curriculum to review by The Homeschool Village - hop over to their website to link to other reviewers and to participate in a giveaway!

Our physical education to this point has consisted of many different things (we are members of our local YMCA and the each of the children also play an organized sport), and we always have "outside" time at home. It has been good for us to have a structured PE time, which this curriculum has provided.

About the Fitness 4 Homeschool Physical Education Curriculum:

It is essentially an entire physical fitness curriculum sent to you, which includes 260 physical activity lessons, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. The lesson are emailed to you 20 at a time each month. The lessons are designed to be completed indoors our outdoors, and should take 30-45 minutes. Each lesson consists of a warm-up, activity, and cool-down.

The curriculum also comes with an introduction/instructions for parents, as well as detailed explanations of all of the exercises. Most of the exercises and activities also are demonstrated with Youtube videos. You also receive a daily motivational email, and a monthly tracking and assessment chart.

According to the introduction for parents,

"The Family Time Fitness movement education program stresses the development of physical fitness, systemic exercises, play, and games. The goals of the program are to improve health, promote a sense of well-being, develop sensory motor skills, and enhance self and social awareness."

Our impressions:

It has been a huge hit with the children! The lessons are easy to follow and the videos are highly instructional. It's interesting to watch my children's reactions as they watch other children on the videos. For example, my son was discouraged with jumping rope and claimed he was "too little" for that skill. As he watched the video, he saw children his own age jumping and having trouble, too. That made him feel better, and now he tries and realizes he's not supposed to be perfect! The videos are very short (usually no longer than 30 sec.) and are accompanied by a nice variety of music. Most everything you need for the lessons are things you would already have, but here is a list of the recommended equipment:

• bean bags
• jump rope
• hula hoops
• playground balls
• foam balls (blow up beach balls)
• cones (or even a box or bucket)
• measuring tape
• stop watch
• exercise mat (optional)
  

We have completed lessons outdoors, but on a day last week when it was raining we did some of the activities inside. Most days we wind up spending about an hour outside, because somehow my nine year old figures out ways to extend the lesson. Instead of printing the lessons, I have just saved them on my phone and then the lessons are right in my pocket! We watch the videos at the computer first and talk about the lesson, then head outside to actually have "PE". *Note: I read the lessons from the email on my phone. In this format the videos would not play on an iPhone - but if you open the .pdf attachment in iBooks there are NO PROBLEMS. Jeremiah Knopp, of Family Time Fitness, fixed my problem within an hour after I emailed him about the problem. A+ for customer service!

While there are enough lessons for every day of the week, we have been completing 2-3 lessons each week. The activities from the lessons give my children ideas for outside free-play, and I've observed them teaching their neighbor friends or co-op buddies some of the games, too.

Here's a picture of Miss B playing "Jump the River" in the very first lesson:

At a cost of $57 (the website says it normally retails for $199.99) you get a full year of PE lessons. If you're looking for a highly structured PE curriculum that covers a comprehensive area of physical skills, then the curriculum from Family Time Fitness is for you. Visit their website to learn more about the curriculum ~ I've also found them to be very helpful and easy to reach via FB, Twitter, and email.

Perhaps the biggest benefit of the program is that it gets my children and I moving and exercising together! It is impossible not to have fun while doing the lessons, and I know some of my neighbors get a chuckle seeing me do the activities with my children outside -- I don't see many moms out there galloping and skipping up and down the driveway with their children in the middle of the day (too bad, isn't it?) ! The curriculum helps promote an active, healthy lifestyle - and shouldn't that be one of the TOP goals of our homeschool?

*Please note that I have been provided a complimentary copy of this resource by The Homeschool Village specifically for review purposes. If you visit The Homeschool Village you can also read others' thoughts about this PE curriculum and enter in A GIVEAWAY!

We actually have MORE P.E. than Public School!

I've heard the question more than a few times - "But what are you going to do for P.E.?" In the beginning I did actually give this some thought and worry, but now it seems laughable. Here's our physical fitness activities for this Fall semester of homeschooling:

1. Almost every day my children are playing OUTSIDE - we learn playground games and rhymes, and also I let them do a lot of bike riding, scootering, walks with mom, and playing catch with dad.

2. Organized Sports - my five year old son plays tball for a local youth league, and my nine year old daughter takes tennis lessons once each week. Each of them gets one sport, because I don't want them to be overscheduled, and because these things are expensive! Since we are having more relaxed time for them to participate in sports, we spend a lot of time watching baseball games and we just finished watching the US Open. I also don't feel rushed if a practice runs late to get homework finished, showers taken, etc... We can be more relaxed because I know if they go to bed late they can just get up a little later the next day.

You can see GMan in the "the armor" here - he was thrilled to be the catcher and always asked his coach when he could wear the armor! Yes, he now refers to it as the catcher's gear.

This picture of Miss B was taken at our YMCA - they have an excellent tennis center. Which brings me to my next point:

3. We are members of our local YMCA - I make it a point to get the kids to YMCA. We mostly swim because each of my children took swimming/diving lessons this past summer. I also love to swim. Just yesterday we went to the pool and met a nice homeschooling family, so the kids swam laps, practiced diving, and I got some laps in, too. The Y is also a great place for the kids to learn a lot of life skills - they offer so many classes for children and adults, and the quality of people you meet there is always good.

4. I try to make opportunities to teach my kids new physical activities and games and include neighbor children. We have a group of children next door to us - and this past weekend they came over to learn how to play Chinese Jump Rope games with us.

When my daughter was in public school PE was her least favorite thing, and it made me very sad. I know there were lots of children crammed into that gym (hey - it's the classroom teachers' planning time after all) and it seemed like every time I asked her what they had been doing she said "dodge ball" and rolled her eyes. Now, I have worked with some excellent PE teachers when I taught public school. One set up an entire "heart course" in the gym that the children could go through to learn how the heart works. So, I'm not saying public school PE has no value. It's just that I think we can do it better at home because of lower numbers, increased opportunities, and more time.

By the way, I'm also convinced that a lot of behavior problems in public school can be directly linked to a lack of time for physical activity. I know my son would be a mess in school with just 15 minutes of recess each day. He functions MUCH better at home when I have let him run and play and wear himself out.

I'm hoping (and I need to work on this!) to make physical fitness an integral part of my children's lives - so that if they haven't had some type of physical activity in a day they feel lost. I am not quite at that point, but I do have friends who are like that I'm envious.

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