3 of the best Game/PE planning/Coaching planning resources available

3 of the best PE\Games  Resources Available

Whether you’re a teacher looking for PE lesson ideas or a coach looking for games ideas to incorporate into your sessions, you need look no further than  the  CIRA Ontario , OPHEAs Playsport.net or Playworks.

While Playworks is an English based website , the other 2 are Canadian where many would say the concept of "Physical Literacy has been born long before it became the buzz word for Children's activity over hear.

I have been using the Canadian websites for a considerable period of time, I only recently stumbled across the Playworks site. I must say the clarity and quality of the lessons and progressions are impressive.

 Scott Kretchmar writes:

When movement is experienced as joy, it adorns our lives, makes our days go better, and gives us something to look forward to.  When movement is joyful and meaningful, it may even inspire us to do things we never thought possible (2008)

What better way to experience the joy of movement than through fun filled engaging games. All 3 contain easy to search libraries. Games are classified under clear easy to follow headings. So whether your looking for an object striking game, a kicking game or a chasing game, I would say make these sites your first stop and look no further!

Playsport contains excellent games for a class based setting. I can testify as to the enjoyment and engagement of the class when playing the likes of 3 Ball Baseball and Kick It Cricket . I also like the video demo contained in the page for many of their lessons. Showing this to the class prior to the lesson certainly aided the understanding for the children and cut down on those annoying breaks in play for all concerned to explain the rules.

Whoever knew that there were so many varieties tot he game of tag?

Well on the CIRA Ontario's TGFU website there is no excuse for ever getting bored of the same old, same old. It contains an astonishing array of variations on many types of invasion, tag, movement and ball games. Some are subtle, some are vast but all are easily understandable and adaptable for whatever situation you are presented with. 

From a coaching point of view for those of us who are enthusiastic about games based coaching, my use of this website is 2 fold. Number 1 is I always like to use a game with players as part of my warm-up, cool down or for athletic development  training phases. there is certainly plenty of scope to adapt different situations from the Games Database here. Secondly I like to use some of the ideas if relevant to facilitating a games based situation. Whether its No Mans Land, Everybody's IT or Last Player Standing, engagement of the players is assured. 

 The question often pops up as to what level of skill proficiency is required before you advance to game based scenario play - particularly with sports that combine loco motor movement with object manipulation. As someone who is no expert but who champions on a daily basis the development of Fundamental movement and Sports Skill together as the foundation stones to Sport Play, I can only tentatively put forward this theory as a possible route towards sporting prowess development. However one thing is assured while they may not become the next Messi or the next Beauden Barrett they can develop the skills which can allow them to become physically literate citizens in today's and tomorrows society.

And now for the bonus material.......

Active for Lifes excellent Lesson Planner for building Fundamental Movement lessons is the ideal starting point for any practitioner looking to begin on the journey to Physical Literacy. Organised on an age basis skills and skill progressions can be easily searched organised and thus lesson plans created.

For anyone tasked with developing a coaching plan, or a school plan for PE in the early years right through to pre-teens i think this clear concise resource should not be too far away from your browser window as you build your plan through the age/class groups.

So there you have it, if your looking to develop a coherent whole school/club approach to physical activity/player development and need a good reference or starting point look no further than the resources mentioned here. I cannot recommend them highly enough and i  know my students would too.

My final rumination for now is :
Get them moving, movement is fun, movement is engagement, movement is enjoyment.
Play and movement are the development of the emotional, physical, intellectual and creative citizen.  As Piaget said " If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterises children before they are deformed by adult society".

Movement Assessment Tool-Return of the MAT!

Movement Assessment Tool-Return of the MAT!

 Youth Sports Trust

Available from App Store for €2.99

The best 3 quid you will ever spend.

For all the talk out there about Fundamental Movement Skills and Motor Skill Development and their importance there is a paucity of assessment resources out there, particularly ones that can be used in a convenient fashion with a whole class or team. This excellent app sponsored by the “Youth Sports Trust” goes along way to fixing this. True there are other apps out there like the excellent app from The 60 minutes kids club but in terms of ease of use and set up it is hard to rival the MAT.

The Start to Move Movement AssessmentTool enables primary teachers or coaches to measure record and track the Fundamental Movement Skills of children aged 4-7years. However it can be used at any age to assess Movement Skills. A follow up app for older children is also promised.

Developed by movement experts at Sheffield Hallam University in conjunction with international educators it has the look and feel of a very comprehensive and well planned app.

It assesses 14 Movement Skills grouped under stability, object control and locomotor skills. 

Each skill comes with videos and instructions on how the skill should be assessed. It also comes with a handy recording option within the app to allow recording of an individuals movement for later assessment.

To begin you can add your student/players names and whatever details you seem necessary in a very straight forward way.

To begin you just click on a skill and you are presented with an introductory skin and a short video of the skill in question. The main teaching points are also listed. 

To begin you click on Begin Assessment. Each skill has 3 milestones and each has a video of the movement competency of that milestone attached. The milestones are Emerging, Developing and Established. 

To begin you simply click on the child you are assessing from the drop-down list. Click on each of the milestone videos to see which one is most closely aligned to the child. You then click on the body parts (arms,body and hands). This gives you the main points to look for with that body part and the milestone involved. For instance if assessing when you click on arms you can see whether your observances for arms, hands or body, correspond to expected emerging, developing or established movements. 

The instructional videos loop and pause with one click. They are very clear and easy follow and they really lend themselves to be using on an ipad. What I really like about it is that you can see each skill milestone in the one place which makes it very easy to grade a class\team of young people quickly. It is not click intensive and retrieval of recorded information is also very straightforward. 

You can observe your whole classes results in one easy to view location and results can also be exported.

Nobody needs to be an expert to use this app and I think it is a great starting point for any group to being planning their athletic activities at the beginning of a term/season. Don't let the fact that it is not free deter you it is a seriously good value for money app and I cannot wait to see the next apps in the series. Well done to all involved and it was a great starting point for me as someone who is in the process of doing the same type of app development for a sport specific app.

Move Well Move Often

Move Well Move Often and outstanding resource for teachers and coaches of young people in all sports

Let me begin by saying I completed the excellent training on this provided the PDST (Professional Development Service) As a principal, teacher, coach and current masters student in the area I don't think enough is known about this resource yet.
Fundamental Movement Skills are the basic building blocks from which sport specific and movement skills are built upon. They are often referred to as "the basics" and in this bloggers humble opinion should be how the PE curriculum is structured.
This resource comes in the form of 3 separate class level books and a teachers resource book which teachers who completed the training received. If you did not receive them don't despair they are available from this link.
Fundamental Movement Skills can be seen in the table below:

The books are broken down into these sections each coming complete with numerous lessons and PE class ideas for each Fundamental Skill. The paper used in the original books is water and tear proof which means they can be used outside and will stand the test of time.  Check out an example of a lesson plan below:

The acquisition of each skill is broken down into 3 stages

• Exploring
• Developing 
• Mastering

The main teaching points and teacher observation notes are included and games\activities are progressive, easy to understand and child friendly. The 3 books are aligned with the 3 different class levels which means there isn't reams of endless irrelevant information for you to go through.. Book 1 is aligned to the infant classes. Book 2 for the middle classes and Book 3 for the senior classes. This should not be seen as another thing to teach, We can continue teaching the games and activities we like but if a child is struggling with throwing or catching of dodging we can now zone in on that area in a fun way.

To conclude I cannot recommend this resource highly enough. The consultants on the programme are college lecturers and are leading experts in their field. Whether we have an interest in sport or not or whether we are coaching we have a duty to ensure our children are equipped with the skills to become physically literate citizens and this resource gives us a very comprehensive set of tools in ensuring we meet our obligations.

Symbaloo Webmixes for Active Bookmarking

Have you ever failed to find that excellent website or lesson you came across when you need it most. Symbaloo is the answer. Symbaloo can be linked to your google account. It is free and it allows you to “social bookmark” websites giving you the option to create a nice graphic icon to easily tag your site. I have shared my Physical Activity webmix which contains many sites with loads of ideas. I have used this and only this in teaching PE as I feel less is more when you are trying to correlate your ideas for a session of lesson plan. I hope you enjoy. This webmix will be added to in due course but now is your chance to get organised.