No. Active Academics® activity ideas are designed to be used in conjunction with your core academic content. The activities are crafted in a way that incorporates movement while the students are still engaged in the core content learning process.
No. Active Academics® activity ideas are designed to be used in conjunction with your core academic content. The activities are crafted in a way that incorporates movement while the students are still engaged in the core content learning process.
Physical activity is defined as any body movement that works your muscles and requires more energy than resting*. Physical Activity could include any movement such as walking, running, dancing, climbing, etc. Physical Education (PE) is an academic subject, much like the core subjects of math, reading and language arts. PE differs from physical activity primarily because it an organized approach at educating a person from basic movement concepts to comprehensive skill themes. PE provides the student with the knowledge of how to move and perform coordinated movements that may be used in all levels of physical activity throughout their lifetime. Physical fitness deals with specific areas of health. These areas are: muscular endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, cardiovascular endurance and body composition.
The national recommendation for school-aged children is a minimum of 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity on most days of the week. Teachers should identify the amount of time students are active within their PE program, and compensate that time with classroom-based activities to ensure students have an opportunity to achieve the 60 minute mark.
Teachers that provide opportunities for students to be physical active throughout the day are helping to stimulate the child's mind. This in-turn increases attention span and comprehension. Teachers can expect less behavior problems, classroom disruptions and general in-attentiveness.
Active Academics® recognizes the pressures placed on school administrators and teachers to cover core standards and concepts in a limited amount of instructional time. The activities found within this site include nationally recognized standards. Teachers can simply list these standards in their daily lesson plans to show that the activity idea is supporting required standards and a loss of learning is not taking place.
Often times, students are completely in-active during a period of the day when they have an opportunity to be up and moving around. In some cases, during free play, students that are naturally inclined to be active may "play" by themselves as a group leaving the students who are not self-motivated sitting on the sidelines. The idea behind recess and lunchtime break activities is to provide the teacher with resources to get more students involved in active play
Safety is paramount anytime students are engaged in activity. This is true in the gymnasium, playground, classroom, etc. Teachers should ensure that the activities selected can be performed in a safe-manner utilizing the planned space. Each activity idea indicates the space required to safely perform the activities. The main idea is that the teacher MUST remain in control of the activity and help facilitate the student's progress.
There is certainly opportunity for the noise level to increase when students begin to play. However, by using the Active Academics® activity ideas in conjunction with your core-content lessons, students are reminded that they are still engaged in active learning. Teachers can plan ahead with simple ground rules, and use keywords such as "soft feet" to emphasize that students should move with an awareness of their noise level.
Yes. Active Academics® has activity ideas for small classroom space, as well as large gymnasium or playground space. Teachers can see an icon that indicates the lesson is suitable for small spaces in the search list when looking for activity ideas.
Each Active Academics® activity idea has a "resource" section. This section may include a general list of resources that can be found at a local shopping center, or grocery store, or if it is a specific piece of equipment or resource, there will be a website URL beside that item for easy shopping and ordering.
No. Classroom energizer activities are not aligned with content standards, but instead are meant to be quick activities that get students up and out of their seat for a short period of time. These energizers are an opportunity to re-engage students by breaking the monotony of a long lecture, or activity where their attention spans may be stretched.
Yes. Each activity idea has a printer-friendly link that allows the teacher to print of the idea quickly and efficiently.
Absolutely! Active Academics® is an online resource that was designed by educators. Each lesson idea found on AA has been submitted by teachers just like you. We value your experience and ideas and look forward to sharing them with educators across the country. If we publish your idea, you get a $50 gift card for supplies and materials.