Grades 2 and 3
PRIMARY PHYSICAL EDUCATION
This page is designed to help you with any teaching ideas related to Primary PE. I am currently teaching Grade 2 (2016/17), but I believe these could be transferrable to Grade 3's too. I know my unit plans are different to the standard plans, depending on the school/curriculum, but these are my own that I use for my own teaching. You should always tinker with plans to suit them for your context, but I do hope they can guide you like they have done for me.
Do note that these plans are slow paced and activities are repeated, because my students did not react well to change. I found it was better to slowly progress each lesson. I have taught Grade 2's in my previous job and I could move at a faster pace with those students, but these Grade 2 students generally required more time.
Invasion Games
This unit focuses on the skills/concepts required to play a basic game of 'captain ball', which is very similar to basketball/netball. We spent our lessons mainly focusing on passing and moving, with the latter lessons focusing on dribbling. I was hoping to move onto some form of shooting, but my students needed more time grasping the other skills. In this unit, I really focused on leadership, teamwork and sportsmanship, as these students did not know how to play with each other. Each lesson, I gave several students the opportunity to be captains of their teams, to organise their players on the court, but also to build a team strategy. Each lessons started with handshakes and a 'good luck' and finished with handshakes and a 'good game'. This is something I hope they continue throughout without me reminding them.
Net and Wall games
This unit focuses on the skills/concepts required to play a basic game of 'volleyball' or 'newcomb ball', which is a modified version of volleyball. We spent most of our lessons outside on the netball court, with a couple of lessons inside on a badminton court. I am sure if the badminton court was available, students could have progressed further. We focused on tactical play, making decisions depending on the situation. We also focused on officiating, allowing students to referee games, which helped understand the rules of the games better. I found that students had a range of abilities in this particular unit, so differentiation was crucial. Using ability courts, modified rules and rubber markers helped.
Athletics
This unit focuses on the different athletic events but at a basic level. All of the activities were conducted so they had a better understanding of how the organisation of the activity would be on sports day, but also explore and evaluate their strategies as individuals and as a class. With this age group, organisation was crucial for the successful running of these lessons, therefore progressions of one activity was usually observed in each lesson. From these activities, they had to comment on their own and others' performance, suggesting improvements. As a warm up each lesson, students ran one lap and got timed, trying to get a PB. It improved their fitness but also allowed them to explore goal setting.
Striking and Fielding
I think this my favourite unit that I taught these students. This was very much a Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) unit, where we based their striking unit around 'danish long ball' and then modified the rules so they could progress. Each lesson had a different focus, allowing students to progress nicely and finally being able to play a basic game of rounders. Our main focus and discussions were around making the right decisions and how they may change depending on the situation. We discussed this from a batting, bowling and fielding perspective. They also explored different tactics and strategies and we reflected as a team and as a class if they were successful or needed further improvement.
Multi skills
This was the first time I taught this unit, so this was a big learning curve for me. I cannot believe I haven't taught this unit before, it just makes sense. For this unit, I focused on the skills that I thought were appropriate for their age, but skills that were transferable to others sports/activities. I finished the unit by creating a modified game of danish long ball that allowed students to combine a number of skills they had developed and have the opportunity to apply it to a new situation.
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