When I peruse through all of the different PE Facebook groups that I am a part of, this call for help seems to show up almost everyday.
Help! My gym is unavailable!
Maybe the gym is closed for repairs. Maybe the gym has been taken over as the new lunch room because they need the extra space for Covid. Maybe they never had a gym in the first place. Maybe their gym is “the outside,” but now it’s getting too cold, or its raining.
The common denominator is that in every scenario they are stuck doing PE in the classroom.
When Covid had us all at home, I had to quickly pivot my lessons so they could work remotely. It was an incredibly difficult challenge, because without the gym, there were lots of unknowns. Those unknowns included:
Where is the student in their home?
How much room do they have?
What materials do they have?
Are the students by themselves, or do they have adult support?
I didn’t want to abandon all the work I had done integrating the classroom curriculum with PE. I decided the best course of action was to retrofit games that I already created so they could be played in much smaller spaces. I also had to make them fun for someone playing alone, which is very different from the group game dynamics I typically create for.
Refitting these games was no small feat. So was teaching during the pandemic, so I decided to release these game variations through the blog for free. I left the lessons up on the website under the free resources section, just in case there were teachers who were still stuck teaching remote. However, I believe the vast majority of us have returned back to school in some manner. I was considering removing the section from the website at some point in the near future. But after seeing post after post asking about lessons for classroom PE ideas because the gym or outside wasn’t available, I need to leave them up. While the lessons are not written up specifically for the classroom, with a little alteration, they can work for you if the gym is unavailable.
Small space? Check.
Limited resources? Check.
Take a look at the At-Home Lessons if you have to do your PE in the classroom and you need some extra help coming up with some ideas. I remember how tough it was trying to make engaging content for less than ideal settings. I hope that you can take some ideas from my lessons and use them in your classroom.
At-Home PE lessons link
While you there, feel free to download some more free samples from the Free Lessons Section.