Mix, Match, and Motivate

This book:

• Presents activities that allow all students to succeed
  
• Lets you mix and match activities to create varied daily lesson plans
  
• Ensures that your students are meeting the NASPE standards for skill and fitness development
  
• Includes an activity finder to make it easy to select activities that meet your students’ needs

Mix, Match, and Motivate helps you show elementary students that physical activity can be fun and meaningful. It shifts the emphasis away from competitive games in favor of activities that allow all students to succeed, ensuring maximum student involvement and a positive experience for all.

These 107 activities take a developmentally appropriate approach to skill development and fitness. You’ll be able to meet a range of individual needs while motivating kids to participate in lifelong physical activity and meeting the NASPE standards for skill and fitness development.

The book has an easy-to-follow format that allows you to mix and match activities to create a multitude of fresh, new lessons to keep your students moving and learning. Chapter 1 provides straightforward, practical information on developing and implementing a program for maximum student success. Chapters 2 through 5 are organized along the lines of a complete lesson: instant activity and warming up (chapter 2), developing fitness (chapter 3), developing core skills and enhancing motivation (chapter 4), and concluding the lesson and cooling down (chapter 5). Finally, chapter 6 provides ideas for activities that celebrate individual and program success, which involve parents and community members.

Several features make this book particularly teacher-friendly. In the opening pages you’ll find an activity finder—an easy-to-read chart that summarizes key information about each activity, including the age for which it is intended, the lesson component it covers, and the health-related fitness component it fulfills. You can use the chart to pinpoint the activities that best meet your students’ needs. For those activities listed as core activities, you’ll also find a list of the skills each activity develops: throwing and catching, striking and kicking, volleying and dribbling, movement and balance, skill combinations and techniques, or strategies and communication.

The activities themselves are presented in a clear, easy-to-digest format that provides everything you need to introduce the activity successfully:

• Age-level icons indicate at which age group—primary or intermediate—to use the activity.
  
• An overview summarizes the activity and explains how it fits into a lesson plan.
  
• An equipment list shows you at a glance what you’ll need.
  
• A preparation section helps you get ready.
  
• Step-by-step instructions show you how to present the activity to your students.
  
• Hints and modifications make your teaching more effective, create individual variations for students, or increase the challenge for students.

Every activity in this book has been field-tested and proven successful. If you want to create successful experiences that will not only help students develop basic skills and fitness but also leave them with a desire to return for more, then Mix, Match, and Motivate your way to success.

Audience

Resource for elementary physical education specialists, recreation leaders, and rec and PE administrators. Supplemental text for courses in elementary physical education teaching methods.

Activity Finder
Preface

Chapter 1. Design for Success
Physical Education—Essential for All Learners
Outcomes for Success
Building the Program
Instructional Considerations
Guidelines for Safe Participation

Chapter 2. Introductory Activities: The First Phase of Activity
Getting Off to an Active Start
Introductory Activities

Chapter 3. Developmental Fitness Activities: A Focus on Fitness
The Challenge of Fitness
Developmental Fitness Activities

Chapter 4. The Activity Core: A Developmental Focus on Learning
Skill Development and Motivators: Building on Progressions
Planning Toward Success
Core Activities

Chapter 5. It’s Time to Close: Motivators to Bring Them Back
Fun and Challenging: That’s How to End
Closing Activities

Chapter 6. Celebrating Student Success
Cumulative Activities

References
About the Author

Jeff Carpenter is the former chair of the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) Physical Best committee and is a Physical Best national expert and trainer. He has 30 years of teaching and administrative experience in physical education in grades K–12, and he has authored three previous books on K–12 physical education programs and activities. Carpenter has presented activity sessions at 14 national AAHPERD conventions; at numerous state and regional physical education conferences; and at conferences and conventions for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA), the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sport, and the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sport.

As the former state supervisor for health and physical education for the state of Washington, Carpenter was responsible for developing statewide curriculum guidelines and outcomes. He also has consulted with more than 40 school districts across the nation on the development and implementation of success-oriented and student-centered physical education programs. Additionally, he has been an adjunct professor at six different universities, teaching both undergraduate and graduate classes in physical education activities, theory, and philosophy.

Carpenter has received numerous awards and honors, including the National Association for Sport and Physical Education Channing Mann Award for the physical education administrator of the year (2002), the AAHPERD Honor Award for K–12 physical education (1997), the AAHPERD/American Heart Association (AHA) Jump Rope for Heart National Honor Award (1997), and the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sport Commendation (1987). He is a member of AAHPERD and a former president of the Washington Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance and is a former chair of the AAHPERD/AHA Jump Rope for Heart Committee. He is currently the director of health, fitness, and athletic programs—health and intervention services for the Olympia School District in Olympia, Washington, where he resides. In his free time, he enjoys playing golf, skiing, and boating.