physical education nutrition lesson plans

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How to Integrate Nutrition & Literacy into PE: Classics with Content

Our profession’s challenge to find balance between content rich activities and keeping students active has produced great strategies for blending content throughout student learning to provide more effective physical education. The goal of this blog is to share how the USDA’s Choose MyPlate website can enhance classic game activities by integrating nutrition in PE using the ‘10 tips’ Series.

Classic games such as tag, pin knockdown and bowling became revitalized when I began integrating the MyPlate content. Once pin knockdown was enhanced using colored pins to represent food groups and tag games could represent the balance between “energy in” (food consumed) and “energy out” (exercise) students became more engaged and this provided valuable talking points at the end of lessons that extended the bond across the psychomotor, cognitive and affective domains. It was the priceless trifecta I was looking for and has challenged me to continue to enhance other areas of my instruction.

Before I move into specific examples, here are 3 tips to help you get started with blending content into activities if you haven’t already done so:

1) Balance : Finding the balance between how much talking and moving is the first barrier to overcome. Realize effective physical education requires students to talk and interact with one another to help process learning. Challenge yourself to plan for these teachable moments and begin to find a balance that works for you and your students.

2) Purposeful Progressions : Analyze your curriculum and identify activity or skill progressions that may lend themselves well to integrating content progressions such as nutrition.

3) Start Small & Keep It Simple : Once you decide when, how and what to do…you just gotta GO FOR IT! Try it, and then try it again and again. It gets easier and better each time.

FREE Resource : One valuable (and FREE) resource that will enhance your current curriculum and/or offer a starting point if you have no formal curriculum is: C hoose My Plate . Here I use the 10 Tips series and the .pdf handout of the MyPlate as a student game board.

The MyPlate 10 Tips Nutrition Education Series offers one-page, reader friendly handouts with ‘10 tips’ on nutrition based topics. From “Add More Vegetables to Your Day”, to “Snack Tips”, to “Build a Healthy Meal”, to “Be an Active Family” there are over 30 choices. An educator could easily have a theme for each week of the year and have great nutrition talking points that can be integrated throughout the week’s activities and sent home with students or put in newsletters to communicate with families and promote health literacy. The information can be adapted for use in most any activity in my class.

Here are three examples of how I have integrated the ‘10 tips’ handouts into activity. To prepare for these, take a 10-tips handout and cut each tip out to make “tickets” then place them in team envelopes or mix them together depending upon the activity (See ticket sample and detailed game ideas on my website ). I have put the food group tips into a word document and will share them to help get your started.

Activity #1: “My Plate in Motion” Bowling . After students knock down certain colored pins, or combination of pins, or for a strike/spare (whichever situation) they collect a tip from their team envelope or the food bank bucket (where a mix of tickets is located).  You can use the food group themed tips to have students build plates or collect all 10 tips from the envelope provided. You can do this style of activity with any skill development activity such as shooting in basketball or hockey .

Activity #2: “My Plate in Motion” Fitness . Set up fitness stations. After students complete a station they can earn a tip ticket for their team and take it back to their “home” location (hulahoop) and then go back out to exercise and earn more tips. Use the same strategy to build a plate or collect all 10 of one theme.

Activity #3: “My Plate in Motion” Relays & Tag . Take any standard relay or tag game and integrate the ‘10 tips’ tickets where students work together to collect all 10 tickets on a certain topic or theme.

Ultimately, I want to encourage our profession to keep students moving, having fun, and learning purposeful content. Use the Choose MyPlate  resource as a springboard to promote health literacy and nutrition in PE in a simple and fun manner as you continue or begin the journey of integrating content into your effective physical education program. If you are looking for some great ready-to-go activities, d on’t forget to check out these  fun  and  easy-to-use  Nutrition-Themed Games  from Gopher!

Continue the conversation: What resources or tips have you used to help blend purposeful content into your activity and instruction?

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• Nutrition and Diet
• Nutrition and Physical Education Activities in the Classroom

You can promote health and wellness using nutrition activities and lessons.

By Andrea Ferrero

At home, and in our classrooms, students are developing eating and fitness habits that will follow them into their teen and adult years. Knowing the importance of a healthy lifestyle, teachers can fit in nutrition and fitness topics into daily lessons to give students information, and promote positive habits and attitudes toward eating healthy and engaging in physical activity . 

After discussing how eating healthy foods and drinking water can increase brain activity and promote overall health and wellness, students can decorate and personalize their own water bottle for use in the classroom. These bottles can be used as learning tools when discussing volume, units of measure and discussing recycling and reusing with students. There are many learning extensions you can make as well. My students loved finding out the different names for water, and the important role it plays in countries around the globe. 

Including a snack time in the morning or afternoon (before and after lunch) can eliminate a slump in energy and performance. When I taught second grade, I found that my students were far more engaged and excited about our academic endeavors when they had the chance to munch on carrots or crackers. This snack time typically lasted 10 minutes and I allowed students time to move around and talk to peers. I've managed snacks different ways. I have allowed students to bring in their own snacks, had parents donate snacks, used part of the funds from fundraisers to buy snacks, and used fresh produce from a class garden. I found each way worked well as long as students and parents were informed of the reason for a snack period, and the types of food that were acceptable. 

After lunch, or during if I was on lunch duty, my students and I would discuss which of the food groups were represented in what they ate. Using student-prompted ideas, we began charting our lunch by food groups and serving size (both categories were suggested by students). Through this daily discussion of healthy food, I found that students were empowered to make better food choices for themselves. It also allowed students to move away from the concept of "bad" foods that they shouldn't eat, and towards the idea of balanced food choices. Many children, even from a young age, will tell you candy is not good for them, yet they still hoard candy when they can. I was happy to see, that over time, my second graders stopped identifying food as "bad", but rather as a treat to be eaten occasionally, and consumed sparingly. 

With all the extra energy students gained from healthy eating, it was a good idea to have them take time to stretch and complete brief exercises in class. We also played games. One of my second graders favorite games was inspired by the frequent power outages in our older building. When the lights went out, we would quietly stand, I would turn on soft music from a battery powered radio, and students would enjoy the museum at night game. While the music played, the "statues" would silently drift around the room changing poses and and positions, but when the music stopped, they had to return to stone. What follows are more lessons and activities you can use to teach students about health and nutrition.

Nutrition and Physical Activity Lesson Plans: 

Food Labels in the Classroom

Students read and discuss a variety of food labels to discover what information can be found on a label. After building familiarity with the information available on labels, and the correlation to dietary needs, students craft a letter to a food production company. 

Comparing Physical Activity Choices

Students keep activity journals of their exercise choices for a period of two weeks. They then compare different physical activities, and finish by looking at what a healthy amount of exercise would be for them.

Nutrition and Food Chemistry

Students examine and collect data on a variety of foods to explore the nutritional components of a healthy diet. Then they apply the information they find to real life situations, such as creating a food plan. 

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Our cross-curricular resources on wellness education and nutrition will engage your students in pre-K, elementary, middle school, and high school, with fun and informative lesson plans, worksheets, and projects on their well-being. Teach them about illness, physical education, and balanced diets so they have the knowledge to make healthy choices. Good eating habits and a healthy amount of exercise help keep the mind and body performing at their best. Students will be fascinated with science activities on the human body, many of them aligned to state and national standards, and you'll find plenty of tools on delicious foods to keep them interested in nutrition programs. And they are easy to use with any nutrition curriculum programs!

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Worksheets for Grades K-5

Physical activity is at the core of a healthy lifestyle. Help your students learn that food security is one of our basic rights and the best ways to develop healthy habits and get fit with these different activities! Students can learn about how to become their best selves through different fitness and nutrition worksheets, activities, food plans, and resources. Students go in depth with the inner workings of the body, eating different foods that give their bodies energy, and different ways that they can help others become healthy just like them. Teach kids good nutrition with these worksheets and printables.

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Nutrition Based Physical Activity Games

Physical activity and healthy eating go hand in hand, so why not combine them both for some exciting fun! Studies show that incorporating movement into learning can assist a child in gaining and retaining knowledge. Nutrition education should be a life skill that is incorporated into daily routines and innovative learning strategies so our children are empowered to develop and maintain lifelong healthy habits. Taking an unstructured approach to learning and allowing children to move while they learn not only is a great way to get the brain stimulated and promote exercise – it also allows for a deeper dive into the mind-body connection. Discuss with your child why sitting less and moving more is important for good health along with the benefits of healthy eating.

Take Action

MyPlate Relay Race

A fun take on your typical relay race – this game explores different foods and their food groups and can be easily adapted to be played with as little or as many players – indoor or out!

Materials Needed:

• 5 buckets or bins (you can also use tupperwear containers, empty shoeboxes, soup pots or other items you have on hand at home)
• Bags – the same number of teams you have playing (plastic, recycled grocery bag, backpack, reusable tote, etc.)
• Don’t have any on hand? Make your own! Cut pictures out from the circulars in the paper or invite children to draw pictures with crayons or markers of various foods in each food group. Cut them out and write the name on the back to add in a spelling lesson!
• Optional: Colored markers or construction paper to create corresponding color labels for each food group

Steps for Set-Up:

• Gather five buckets or bins for each team and label them to show the five food groups: 1) Grains, 2) Fruits, 3) Vegetables, 4) Dairy, and 5) Meat/Meat Alternate
• You can also use the corresponding food group color to help identify the bucket or bin and reinforce the color of each food group by using colored construction paper or a colored marker.
• Place the buckets or bins at the end of a hallway or in an area where children can run a distance to get to it (e.g. backyard or safe open space)
• Take a baggie and place a variety of food models or pictures of foods in it. You will be giving each team a baggie of these, so make enough to cover each team you have playing. Make sure to have an equal amount in each!

Steps to play:

• Separate into teams and have each team line up at the “starting” line.
• Give each team a bag of food models/ food cutouts and assign a team leader. The baggie will stay with the first person at the beginning of the line.
• When the leader says “Go,” each team will begin its relay. Team members will take turns pulling a food model or picture from their team’s bag and running to the appropriate MyPlate bucket or bin and putting it in the correct one.
• After placing the food picture or model in the correct bucket or bin, the participant will run back and tag the next person in line. The teams will continue the activity until the bag at the starting line of each team is empty.
• When both teams have finished, remove the food models or pictures from the buckets or bins. Pull the items one by one from each as a check and review what foods “belong” in each food group.

Musical Fruits and Vegetables

This simple, but exciting game incorporates fun music with fruits and vegetables to encourage learning through movement!

• Fresh fruits and veggies
• Pictures of selected fruits and veggies (e.g. printed out, cut out from grocery circulars or invite children to draw their own)
• Slips of paper
• Pen or marker
• Music (played through a favorite device or singing to the tune of a favorite song)
• Place the pictures in a circle on the floor and tape each one to the floor to secure and prevent slipping when stepped on.
• Take slips of paper and write down each fruit and vegetable chosen for the game and a fun fact on each slip, then place in a cup.
• Gather the fruit and veggies and have them on hand nearby. Note: This game incorporates tasting the items, so these fruits and vegetables should match the ones in the pictures and be items you have on hand at home. Some ideas are apples, pears, kiwi, bananas, peaches, plums, strawberries, raisins, cranberries, carrots, sugar snap peas, celery, broccoli, etc.
• Start playing the music of your choice. As the music plays, invite children to move and dance around the circle. When the music stops, the children should stop on the nearest space.
• After everyone stops on a space, pull out a slip of paper. The child standing on the space corresponding to the slip drawn wins that piece of fruit or vegetable and joins you to help draw the next slip. Remember to tell the group about the fun fact!

Continue playing until everyone is a winner or you run out of time and taste test the produce won.

Eating Healthy Dance Party

Dancing is a great way to get your heart rate up and can be fun for all! This specific dance activity incorporates healthy eating messages into fun movements through music. Studies show that pairing learning with creative movement and music leads to better understanding and retention of learning for children. Share this activity with friends and relatives and invite them to join virtually. Consider scheduling an at-home dance party activity on a virtual meeting platform to show off your new songs and moves!

Visit these websites for fun songs to learn and incorporate movement:

• Songs for Teaching uses music to promote learning and provides a library full of nutrition and food songs.
• USDA ChooseMyPlate has three songs to learn and get moving to while promoting MyPlate and healthy eating.
• Color Me Healthy music gets children up and moving to a fun and happy beat.
• The Learning Station brings you the Fruit and Veggie Hokey Pokey! A twist on an all-time favorite dance song.

Adapt these games to fit your space. Use household items and modify to accommodate as many or little participants.

Host a songwriting contest using healthy foods and pair it with your favorite beat!

Consider using these activities as brain breaks or recess at home. Schedule recess, just like schools do, and make it a part of your family’s daily routine.

Dancing can be considered unstructured play and opens the door for additional exploration, creativity, and self-expression for your child. Invite them to teach you their favorite dance moves or lead an activity.

For more activities and ideas like this one, be sure to sign up for our news and updates . And if you like what you see, please donate to support our work creating more ways to help build a healthier future for kids.

Playing With Food

Encourage curiosity surrounding food by encouraging children to play with their food.

Easy Nutrition Education Activities

Use digital learning resources to take nutrition education at home to the next level.

Creative Expression and Movement

Have fun and explore feelings and emotions through movement and dance.

Nutrition Education

Nutrition education is especially important for kids, as they establish food patterns that carry into adulthood. Teaching students about MyPlate and the benefits of each food group can help promote healthy eating from a young age.

Categories: Nutrition & Healthy Eating , Physical Activity & Play , At Home , At School , Digital Resource

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P.E. Lessons

Physical education prepares children for an active and healthy life while improving self discipline and reducing stress. This section includes PE lessons from kindergarten through high school spanning different skill levels and objectives. Lessons are categorized by grade for easy retrieval. These lessons were created by real teachers working in schools across the United States. The section will continue to grow as more teachers like you share your lesson plans. We encourage you! Share your lessons plans Teacher.org, contact us .

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P.e. environmental lesson plans, food chain tag.

Students will learn a brief background about energy transfer between the sun, producers, primary consumers, and secondary consumers. ½ of the students are primary consumers (plants) and ¼ of the students are primary consumers (rabbits) and ¼ of the students are secondary consumers (hawks).

P.E. P.E. Lesson Plans

Aces and exercise.

Using a deck of playing cards, the students will pick the number of reps for various exercises.  

And Freeze!

Students will practice listening skills and basic physical concepts as required in physical education class. Students will also work on balance and coordination.

Animal Laps

Combining information about the speed of animals, the students will run laps in the gym or outdoors.

Basketball Relay

Students will practice teamwork, dribbling, and shooting a basketball.

Bear Hunt Obstacle Course

This plan will combine reading with balance and coordination skills to allow students to navigate a simple obstacle course.

Boom Over Movement Game

Students will play a game in which they need to change direction quickly. Students are to pretend that they are on a sailboat that is in the middle of a storm. They will have to run and change direction based on verbal commands and duck quickly to avoid being hit by the imaginary boom.

Butterfly Stretches

This lesson is designed to help students learn the importance and reasons for exercise through multiple activities and discussions.

Coordination Course

This plan will allow students to practice coordination while staying physical.

Multi-Ball Basketball

The student will participate in a game of basketball using various sizes of available balls.

Music Movement

The students will move to the music based on its beat, words, tune, and other variables.

On Top of Spaghetti

Pe immigration.

The students will research games and activities from other countries to share during a PE class.

Pass It Off

This lesson will allow students to practice passing, dribbling, and bouncing skills using basketballs

Plate Aerobics

Students will practice basic aerobics moves while trying to stay positioned on paper plates, this aids in coordination.

Race to the Answer

This lesson will allow students to practice teamwork, basic math skills, and get exercise through a relay race. Note: Problems/difficulty level can be altered by grade

Ride ‘Em Cowboy/girl

This lesson will allow students to practice gross motor skills.  

Students will practice listening skills and basic physical concepts as required in physical education class.

Ski to the Finish Line

This plan will allow students to practice coordination while staying physical. Students will demonstrate moving straight, backwards, and in a zig-zag pattern.

The New PE Class

The students will create a PE activity to share and demonstrate to peers.

This lesson will allow students to practice teamwork and trust building, as well as working on directionality for younger students.

What Time is it FOX?

The students play a game where they practice different movements including jumping, galloping, skipping, running, jogging, leaping, and walking. Based on National Physical Education Standards, students should have been learning these skills for the last 4 years.

P.E. Science Lesson Plans

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PE Lesson Plans for High School (FREE High School PE Activities)

• Doug Curtin
• November 17, 2021

Physical education teachers have a lot to cover! We have put together a week’s worth of PE lesson plans for high school students that range in fitness, nutrition, yoga and more. We hope you enjoy the free content and give some lessons a try with your students! 

Struggling to find engaging PE activities for high school students ?

Finding quality physical education lesson plans for high school is no simple task! Getting the right instructional materials that will engage and excite your students while not breaking the bank is hard! 

Yes, you can search online, go to a Shape America conference, or talk to fellow PE teachers and find hundreds of PE activities and physical education lesson plans to use.

But, you will often end up with tons of phys ed games for high school students that are fun once and then quickly lose student’s attention. Or, you end up finding workouts that have barely clothed models that are a far cry from what you want for high school fitness lesson plans . 

What is there for high school PE ?

Producing high school physical education units on multiple topics is tough!

Do you feel like you are a jack of all trades and yet a master of none? You only have so much money in your budget and time in your day to teach all the different PE topics well. You are left asking yourself, 

• What equipment do I need for fun and cutting edge PE games for high school ? 
• Do I have the right equipment to run PE workouts for high school ? 

How does this all even fit into what my administrators want for high school physical education lesson plans ?

A week’s worth of free PE lesson plans for high school classes

When you feel like you are at stalemate with your lessons, sometimes it doesn’t hurt to sample! With so many great phys ed lesson plans for high school, it is hard to make sense of all that is out there. Here you will find a sample week of high-quality content that high school pe teachers tap into on a yearly basis. 

With a combination of fitness, nutrition, yoga, and dance, there is something to for every student to look forward to in the week. Additionally, you’ll find that some days give you a little extra time to sprinkle in some of those fun pe games that your kids still long for!

Day 1: Intro To Fitness – Air Squat & Hinge 

Many students arrive to high school needing a full introduction to foundational human movements. Even if they did learn things like the squat, lunge, hinge, press, and pull at the middle school level, chances are that your high school physical education class will greatly benefit from movement review. 

Today, we are beginning our movement and fitness journey by learning two of the most important foundational human movements – the Squat & the Hinge.

• 2 Minutes of light cardio
• Spiderman & Reach – 1 Minute Continuous Movement, Alternating 
• Alt. Samson – 1 Minute Continuous Movement
• Good Mornings 4 x 10 Reps 
• Elbow Plan 4 x :20 Seconds 
• 1:00 Rest After Each Round
• Introduce the 4 points of performance 
• Air Squat 2 x 5 Reps

5 Rounds Of 10 Air Squats + 2:00 Walk/Jog/Run

Day 2: Intro To Nutrition – Calories 

Are you tasked with teaching wellness within your physical education class? If you need a day off from physical activity and in need of lesson ideas, nutrition can be a fantastic addition. 

While nutrition can be a part of k-12 physical education plan, high school is often the first time where students can start to contextualize the science and practical application of nutrition. With written and video lessons, paired with chapter questions students have an interactive way to start exploring their everyday nutrition.

• Written lesson breaking down what our body sees when we eat and how many calories we need 
• Video breaking down energy and chemistry of calories
• Check out the full lesson segment here
• Written lesson discussing signs of not eating enough or eating too much 
• Video introducing and explaining the hunger to fullness scale
• Check out the full lesson segment here 
• 9 chapter questions provided that can be either done individually or incorporated as part of a group discussion

Discover the Power of PLT4M

Curious how more than 10,000 PE teachers are using PLT4M’s Fitness and Wellness Curriculum and digital learning software? 

Day 3: Intro to Fitness – Press & Pull 

Returning back to another fitness lesson plan for high school PE. Now, we hit the upper body and learn how to safely press and pull. We focus on scaling and modifying with all our physical activity, but place a special emphasis on this with things like pressing and pulling. 

In this lesson students will learn how to appropriately scale the level of difficulty the push up and inverted row.

• Shoulder Warm Up – 15 Slow Reps per movement 
• 1:00 Jumping Jacks
• Introduce the 4 points of performance of push up  
• Review movement scaling and elevating the push up 
• Elevated Push Ups 4 x 5
• Introduce the 4 points of performance of the inverted row 
• Inverted Row 5 x 5
• Introduce the butterfly sit up 
• Butterfly sit up 2 x 5
• AMRAP 8: 60 Jumping Jacks, 10 Push Ups, 10 Butterfly Sit ups

Day 4: Intro To Yoga – Standing Poses 

Yoga is one of the most popular exercise options and requires no equipment. But as a physical education teacher you may not feel comfortable teaching yoga. 

Like any type of physical activity, yoga has basic components that can be introduced as an excellent start. In this lesson, students will get a chance to try and practice four of the most popular standing poses in yoga, and then put them into a more traditional flow.

• Begin yoga integration 
• Flow Sun A with performance and refinement cues 
• Flow Sun A using breath to movement
• Chair Pose Intro & Practice 
• Warrior 2 Intro & Practice 
• Extended Side Angle Intro & Practice 
• Reverse Warrior Intro & Practice
• Apply new poses to a full flow 
• Practice 2 times through, 1 slow, 1 faster

Day 5: Dance Fitness 

Many physical education programs have what is called a ‘fun Friday.’ If you arrive on day 5 and want to give the choice of different gym games for high school students, then go for it!

You have had a great week of lessons, and your students can now have some time to explore and play different games like frisbee, badminton, or volleyball that you have throughout the gym. 

If you want to have a little more structure but keep the fun, give dance fitness a try! A trending topic in the world of fitness, dance gives students a fun way to sweat and move.

• Get moving with some light cardio 
• Layer in a few static stretches
• Introduce and and practice the 8 main dance moves for the main cardio effort
• Put the 8 dance moves to work through a fun sequence following along with Coach Alexa
• Let your heart rates come back down and hit some stretches before going on with the rest of your day

Let us do the heavy lifting! Get access to our complete lineup of PE lesson plans for high school students

This was just one week of PE lesson plans to give you a taste! At PLT4M, you can tap into hundreds of high school physical education lesson plans that fit your goals and needs. Tap into fitness, flexibility, yoga, dance, weightlifting, and more all in a centralized and easy to use spot. 

All of PLT4M’s instructors make these resources with high school students in mind and work to keep it fun and engaging. On top of keeping your students excited about PE, keep your administrators happy knowing all of PLT4M’s programs are aligned to Shape America national standards.

How are Plt4m’s high school PE units delivered?

PLT4M is totally flexible and customizable to your classroom, students and teaching style. Use it as much or as selectively as you like to enhance your curriculum. PLT4M is designed to work seamlessly with your classroom technology, whether you have a projector, are one-to-one, or can allow students to use their phones. 

What types of high school physical education activities do you cover?

Our ever-growing library of original content includes a variety of programs intended to spark lifelong physical literacy. Check out the options below: 

• Weight Training 
• Dance Fitness 
• Mindfulness 
• Remote Learning 
• Personal Hygiene
• Drug and Substance Education 
• Physical Literacy
• Social Emotional Learning
• Health Education Lesson Plans 

Do you only provide fitness activities for high school students?

No, we also have PE lesson plans for middle school students that are age appropriate and engaging! There is something for everyone within PLT4M! 

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Teach children the importance of nutrition and physical activity using interactive websites and games.

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