Instructional Resource Guide for
Integrating Physical Education into Language Arts:
Kindergarten through Fifth Grades
John R. Todorovich, Ph.D.
University of WestFlorida
Spring 2007
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION I: Understanding the Curriculum Integration Process2
Chapter1: Introduction3
What is the purpose of this book?3
Who is this book for?3
How is this book organized?4
How do I use this book?4
Chapter 2: Perspectives on Curriculum Integration5
Introduction5
Defining Integrated Curricula5
Integrated Curricula Perspectives6
- Fragmented Perspective6
- Connected Perspective6
- Nested Perspective7
- Sequenced7
- Shared7
- Integrated8
- Webbed8
- Immersed9
- Threaded Perspective9
Balanced Implementation Model for Integrated Curricula
(BIMIC)9
Implications for K-5 Teachers Integrating Physical Education
and Language Arts 14
Summary14
SECTION II: Learning to Move15
Introduction16
Chapter 3: Concepts of Motor Learning17
Defining “Physical Education”17
The Brain, DNA, and Human Development18
Genetic Issues and Development19
The Brain Connection20
The Neuron and Information Transmission20
Early Neuronal Development21
Chapter 4: A Developmental Perspective on Motor Skill Acquisition23
Stages of Human Development23
Critical Periods of Development24
Quality Physical Education in the 21st Century25
Describing the Physically Educated Person25
National Physical Education Standards26
SunshineState Standards for Physical Education27
Elementary Physical Education Content27
SECTION III: Integrating Physical Education into Language Arts: A
Developmental Perspective 30
Introduction31
Chapter 5: Kindergarten32
Developmental Stage and Description32
Integration Focus32
Sample Activities33
Chapter 6: First Grade41
Developmental Stage and Description41
Integration Focus41
Sample Activities41
Chapter 7: Second Grade48
Developmental Stage and Description48
Integration Focus48
Sample Activities49
Chapter 8: Third Grade54
Developmental Stage and Description54
Integration Focus54
Sample Activities55
Chapter 9: Fourth Grade60
Developmental Stage and Description60
Integration Focus60
Sample Activities60
Chapter 10: Fifth Grade60
Developmental Stage and Description66
Integration Focus66
Sample Activities66
Appendix A: SunshineState Standards (K-2 and 3-5)72
Appendix B: Fundamental Motor Skill Description77
Appendix C: Integrated Activities to Integrate Physical Education into
Language Arts K-595
1
Section I
“Understanding the Curriculum Integration Process”
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Perspectives on Curriculum Integration
1
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
Teachers approach their profession with different perspectives on their role as a teacher. For example, teachers may say “I am a math teacher,” “I am a kindergarten teacher,” or “I am a physical education teacher.” These personal descriptions are often accompanied with a perceived set of characteristics that define that teaching role. Although teachers may define their roles as a teacher in narrow terms based on theacademic discipline in which they specialize, all teachers are on common ground because, ultimately, their role is not to teach subject matter but to teach children. Effective teachers facilitate children’s acquisition of skills, knowledge and abilities that they did not have when they entered their teachers’ classrooms, regardless of the subject matter taught. It is this common ground that joins the seemingly disparate academic disciplines of language arts and physical education.
What is the purpose of this book?
This book was written to assist teachers in their endeavors to successfully teach their students. Specifically, the purpose of this book is to provide kindergarten through fifth grade classroom teachers with a framework, perspective, developmental knowledge, and examples of activities that integrate the teaching of physical education and language arts to children.
What is the rationale for a book like this?
Educators are interested in helping children reach their potential; yet, teachers are often constrained by such factors as little instructional time, limited resources, and narrow perspectives. When teachers have the opportunity to meet multiple objectives simultaneously, it improves their effectiveness. Integrated learning achieves this objective. Moreover, integrated learning is more meaningful and authentic because the subject matter of academic disciplines is rarely used in isolation outside the academic classroom. Integrating the psychomotor domain into learning acknowledges the fact that we, as humans, are designed to move and to interact with the environment. That is, we think and then we move in response to those thoughts. It is the physical interaction with the world that sustains and drives our ability to influence our environment and the world beyond. Finally, in light of a growing obesity epidemic, a preventable life-threatening problem, within the United States, it is important that children acquire the skills knowledge, and abilities to engage in physically active lifestyles. This book helps teachers to address that problem while simultaneously teaching their students to utilize the English language effectively.
Who is this book for?
This book was written for classroom teachers who do not have an extensive background teaching physical education yet wish to enhance their students learning by integrating physical education into their language arts teaching. As a result, this book will introduce teachers to integration perspectives, provide them with knowledge of the developmental perspective of physical education, and guide them through the approaches they should take to successfully integrate physical education into the K-5 language arts classroom
How is this book organized?
This book is organized into three sections.
The first section was written to answer the question – “What is integration?” In this section, teachers will be introduced to definitions of integration, different perspectives on integrated curricula, and learn a conceptual integration model for implementing integrated lessons.
Section two was written to answer the question – “Why is physical education important?” For many classroom teachers already burdened with a complex array of expectations, the addition of more subject matter into the classroom is problematic. In addition, physical education teaching is a highly complex discipline with specialists who receive hundreds of hours of training in human development, teaching methods, human physiology, etc. As a result, classroom teachers may feel unprepared or find the integration of physical education into their classroom difficult. While the knowledge of teaching physical education could fill volumes of written work, section was written to provide the classroom teacher with a perspective and brief overview of how we learn to move and why it is important to teach physical education.
Section three was written to answer the question – “So how does a teacher integrate physical education into language arts?” In this section, teachers will be provided with a grade by description of the integration process. Chapters in this section are divided into grade levels from kindergarten through fifth grade, and each chapter will include a description of the developmental stage of the student, a section on the focus of integration the teacher should use, and several sample activities correlated to Florida Grade Level Expectations for language arts. This section is augmented with Appendix B, which describes fundamental movement skills in detail, and Appendix C, which includes dozens of lesson activities that were written using the Balanced Implementation Model of Integrated Curriculum (BIMIC – See Chapter 2) as examples for teachers.
How do I use this book?
It is suggested that this book be used in two ways. First, the reader should read through each chapter in order and focus on developing awareness or understanding provided by each chapter. Second, the book should be used as a reference manual and/or inspiration point as teachers search for ideas or approaches for designing integrated lessons that focus on both language arts and physical education.
1
Chapter 2
PERSPECTIVES ON CURRICULUM INTEGRATION
Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to help the teacher to develop an awareness of the complexity of integrated curricula. It is also written to provide the reader with a model to coordinate integration of physical education and language arts.
Defining Integrated Curricula
The term integrated curricula has a relatively long history with multiple people attempting to define the term in different ways, but with only a few real variations. Good (1973) defined an interdisciplinary curriculum as a “curriculum that cuts across subject-matter lines to focus upon a comprehensive life problem or meaningful association” while an even earlier definition of an integrative curriculum was described by Dressel (1958) who discussed the integrative curriculum as “planned learning experiences which not only provide learners with a unified view of commonly held knowledge, but to also motivate and develop learners’ power to perceive new relationships and thus to create new models, systems, and structures.” More recently Shoemaker (1989) defined the integrated curriculum as “education that is organized in such a way that it cuts across subject-matter lines, bringing together various aspects of the curriculum into meaningful association to focus upon broad areas of study. It views learning and teaching in a holistic way and reflects the real world.”
When the definitions and approaches to integrated curricula are taken together, there are common themes that persist across definitions:
Multiple disciplines are used in conjunction with each other
There tends to be a focus on comprehensive projects
Relationships emerge among concepts
Schedules are more flexible than other curricula approaches
Researchers investigating the implementation of an integrated curriculum are quick to note that integration takes time to do, it requires compromise, and requires students and teachers to approach learning and teaching differently (Shoemaker, 1991). However, collective findings reveal that integration does enhance learning because the human brain operates by trying to make meaning and patterns with information it receives; fragments of information may even be minimally processed or ignored (Caine & Caine, 1991). In short, integrated curricula have the potential to enhance learning by making understanding deeper and to make learning more efficient – especially when resources, such as time, are limited.
Integrated Curricula Perspectives
The following perspectives demonstrate how different people or organizations have perceived of the integrated curricula. Although there are common connections, there are distinct differences. It is worth noting that these perspectives only provide a framework for understanding what integration is and how it operates. It provides little to the teacher who is preparing daily lessons to teach students. Later in the chapter a conceptual model will be presented for teachers to consider when designing integrated lessons that are a part of an integrated curriculum.
a. Fragmented Perspective
A fragmented curriculum is actually does not promote integration and treats subject matter as separate disciplines that should be mastered independent of each other. Further, the content itself is taught in a fragmented manner. For example, addition is taught separately from subtraction to first grade students and no teaching or discussion occurs about their interrelatedness. That is, teachers make distinct transitions between subject matter moving from disciplines such as math, then to reading, and so on. Some even refer to this as a “traditional” method of teaching because many administrators, particularly at the secondary level, designed schools around this concept (even when teachers themselves employ the connected perspective which is discussed later in their individual classes).
What is obvious is that the fragmented perspective is distinctly counter to most integrated perspectives as it involves no integration or blending of subject matter. While champions of this perspective claim that this approach is effective because attention is given to the finer aspects of each discipline and its components, others argue that because connections between disciplines are not clear for students, application and transfer of knowledge is difficult for students.
- Connected Perspective
A connected curriculum has the same elements as a fragmented curriculum, but the content within disciplines is connected. For example, students learn nouns and verbs and then learn how adjectives and adverbs modify nouns and verbs and this is later followed by learning to write extended sentences, paragraphs, and reports or stories. With a connected curriculum, key concepts within a discipline are connected through review, reconceptualization, or assimilation of new ideas as one’s familiarity with the discipline improves. Unfortunately, because disciplines are not connected, the relationships between disciplines remain vague to students because no overt attempt is made to assist students in realizing these connections.
- Nested Perspective
A nested perspective blends subject matter, but the delivery of instruction focuses on student relationships as social, cognitive, and content skills are intertwined. In practice, this is learning that involves students interacting with each other and/or the subject matter to gain a deep understanding of the material. For example, a teacher might be teaching his or her second grade students about magnets and their properties. During the lesson, the teacher asks students to explore magnets, write down what they discover and share their discoveries with their peers. The teacher capitalizes on learning opportunities that arise that may range from helping students to write their ideas in complete sentences or to explain why magnets might repel or attract each other. In this scenario, students are learning language arts skills, interpersonal skills, science concepts, questioning skills, and others in a concert with each other.
The advantages of a nested perspective on curriculum integration includes a belief learning is effective because attention can be given to several areas or disciplines at once so learning is enhanced. Others feel that students can easily become forget or miss the primary intent of the lesson if a teacher isn’t skillful in facilitating learning. For instance, a student might become so engrossed in writing sentences and proper writing mechanics that the lesson focus on how magnets worked is diminished or forgotten.
- Sequenced Perspective
A sequenced perspective integrates curriculum through the process of teaching ideas in concert in terms of how they relate to one another, or “in sequence.” For example, a physical education teacher might teach how to hit and catch a baseball before teaching the students how to play a game, or a fourth grade teacher might teach division before using division in a science experiment. The key is that subjects are planned for use together, but are taught independently.
The advantage of the sequenced approach is that it facilitates and emphasizes how knowledge is used across disciplines. Critics argue that this perspective requires complex curriculum alignment, particularly if subject matter is taught by different teachers who share the responsibility for teaching the same students.
- Shared Perspective
A shared perspective is one where teachers share information from two disciplines within their lessons or in a team teaching format. The focus of the shared perspective is on shared concepts, skills, attitudes or other information. The advantage of this approach is that it facilitates the transfer of knowledge between ideas and disciplines. The disadvantage is that it requires time, flexibility, communication, and respect for multiple disciplines, commitment, and compromise.
This book deals with the integration of physical education and language arts sub-disciplines. As a result, the shared perspective is the one that is most closely aligned with the intent and purpose of this book.
- Integrated Perspective
One perspective of integration is actually referred to as the “integrated perspective.” This does not mean that it encompasses integrated learning. Rather, it is merely a descriptive term.
The integrated perspective is very similar to a shared perspective with the difference that the integrated perspective incorporates multiple disciplines. This perspective has the advantages and disadvantages of the shared perspective, yet it is even more difficult to implement because of the compromise and work that is needed to facilitate learning and shared ideas that cross multiple disciplines.
- Webbed Perspective
A webbed perspective of integrated curriculum centers teaching on a chosen “theme.” For example, a student may be interested in bridges. The webbed approach would have the student use “bridges” as a theme and the language arts teacher would have the student write about bridges, the art teacher would have the student build a model bridge, while the science teacher has the student investigate the mechanical principles of bridge building, and the math teacher has the student learn about and make mathematical calculations about the bridge, etc. Hence, the common theme is the bridge.
The advantage of the webbed perspective is that it motivates students and helps them build connections between ideas and disciplines in relation to one topic. Critics of this approach suggest that themes must be carefully chosen with relevant and rigorous content or larger learning objectives may not be reached. For instance, a student might not learn the math skills that are appropriate for his or her grade level if the theme doesn’t lend itself to mathematic learning.
- Immersed Perspective
The immersed perspective is similar to a webbed perspective. This perspective places students’ full involvement in one area of interest. It differs from a webbed perspective because the area of interest is at the heart of learning rather than disciplines. In other words, students in a webbed program would choose a theme and then teachers would use theme as a catalyst to teach the students discipline specific concepts that related to the theme. In the immersed perspective, students are heavily involved in learning one area of interest and seek knowledge from different disciplines as needed to learn more about a topic. In a webbed program, a student might learn study the symbolism of a bridge in an American literature passage because the discipline is capitalizing on the student’s interest in bridges whereas in the immersed program, the student likely would not look at bridge symbolism in literature.
The advantages of the immersed approach are that students are likely to be motivated and integration takes place within the learner. Others would argue that it is equally likely to overly narrow a student’s learning.
- Threaded Perspective
The threaded perspective is similar to the webbed perspective, but the themes that cross disciplines involve student cognitive and social skills, multiple intelligences, learning strategies etc. Proponents of this perspective posit that this allows students to learn about how they are learning to facilitate future learning. However, critics are quick to point out that disciplines themselves tend to remain separate.
Balanced Implementation Model for Integrated Curricula (BIMIC)
Although curriculum designers, administrators, and teachers may identify an integrated curriculum perspective and frame their curricula around that perspective, this alone does not enable a teacher to conceptualize how to implement integrated teaching. As a result, an implementation model must be considered when lessons for integration are developed.[1]