The whole point behind teaching physical education is to learn and encourage a habit of being regularly physically active, especially in a society where a lot of activity has been reduced due to having machines (like buttons and screens) work for us and entertain us so much of the time. Yet everyone needs a measure of physical activity for good health! In our family, we call this learning good skills for work and play.
We personally use a few fun ideas from places such as Pinterest boards and a few games/activities books. We might sell a couple of books for this subject area – you can check our “Home Economics” section for this if you like.
Why under “Home Economics”? Because it is practical and I like to see that a skill I’m introducing to my children has more use beyond just being fun or health-building. And home economics has to do with around-the-home practical habits and making these tasks fun! ♥
When we had four little children (3 of school-age), I put together what I wanted to teach them for “phys.ed.” in a book (out-of-print; available only while quantities last; see our shop). At the time, we lived in the country with one vehicle so our phys. ed program had to be home-based and simple. We travelled as a family too much on weekends to be able to commit to swim lessons and team sports wasn’t a good fit for our children. We didn’t live on a farm where there would be a lot of regular exercise and we had no pets to walk. I wanted it to introduce a broad-range of activities and be easy to include in our homeschooling days on a regular basis. What could a family like ours do at-home? So, I developed some mini-lesson pages, lists, and a way to organize a simple phys. ed program. That book is entitled, “Skills for Work and Play”.
You can click below to download (for free) the 18 semi-monthly cards which we displayed on top of our VCR/DVD/TV cupboard so that they were easily read by any of us for “recess” time or “phys.ed” time. It was an easy way to give guidance for activities that would expand the children’s knowledge and experiences. Thus, some of our recesses became a learning time (while many of our recesses were still the normal “free-time” kind).
These cards are printed on cardstock paper in our “Skills for Work and Play” book with the instruction to fold them in half for display and to fill-in your own goals and expectations where there are “blanks”.
Since then, we’ve had to come up with ideas for organizing a high school-level phys. ed credit for homeschooled teens. Those couple of pages are also downloadable today as a free handout by clicking here: Phys Ed Upper Level Ideas Enjoy!
(Both downloads from this page are in pdf format so that you can print them out on a home printer.)
I hope this helps those of you who want some guidance in this area of home education. Take care and have fun!
