With August right around the corner, I bet you’re trying to get as much out of the remainder of the summer as possible. However, if you’re like me, you can’t help but already start thinking about the upcoming school year. To help alleviate some of the new school year anxiety and replace it with excitement, I have three free lessons and a video to get your creative juices flowing. I hope you have a fantastic new school year, and I hope my lessons can it easier for you and more fun for your students!

Cardiovascular System Kickball is the ultimate game for you if you are teaching human body systems! The bases are chambers of the heart (and the lungs), and the students follow a basepath, the same as how blood flows. Your students will learn the pathway of blood through the heart because they are literally running through it in the game, which is more effective than just looking at a diagram.

If you are a Montessori lower elementary teacher, then you are familiar with the Clock of Eras lesson. There is even a chance that you were asked to make the chart in your training. This iconic lesson compares the existence of the Earth to the hours on a clock, effectively demonstrating the relative times of each era. It is always a shock to see that humans have existed for a very minute compared to Earth's history. In the Clock of Eras game, the students will “feel” the length of different eras by playing mini-games that last in the same proportion as the Clock of Eras. In a whole PE class, they will be humans only for seconds!

Finally, here is a fan-favorite lesson that teaches about food webs. This game, “Shelter,” features arctic biomes with penguins, orcas, and fish. Some of your students are penguins hunting fish (tennis balls), and they start the game on an ice mass (shelter) that protects them from the orcas. As they try and get fish in the ocean, they can be tagged by the orca players. As penguins get tagged and orcas miss penguins, players switch roles in this continuous game that will keep everyone moving. Below you can download the free lesson plan and check out the video tutorial on how to play the game. You can find more video tutorials in the Members Area, with many more on the way!