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Grade 3

Body Systems 2020

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Introduction

The interactions between human body systems contribute to personal well-being.

Central Idea

This was an incredibly unique unit for the following reasons:

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  • This was done during COVID-19. I was in Japan, my students were primarily in Beijing with a few scattered in the US, Europe, and various other parts of the world. This was all conducted online.

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  • This was a collaborative unit with the homeroom. We arranged the unit where the homeroom would focus on the anatomy and physiology of the body systems whereas I, PE, would focus on wellness.

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  • I pitched the idea of making it a Project-Based Learning (PBL) unit and considering we were in such a unique situation, let’s take advantage of these unusual circumstances and make a learning opportunity out of it. You can see how PBL makes current events learning opportunities through this blog post - Need an engaging project? Look at current events.

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Lesson 1: Pre-Assessment

I won’t write too since I posted the lesson videos below however, I’ve listed a quick summary of each lesson below.

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  • I opened the unit with the kids choosing a workout from Darebee.com. The kids are familiar with this website since we used it a lot in grade 2 where they had the opportunity to create their own workout and teach it to grade 1s.

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  • Afterward, I displayed the Central Idea and the students were tasked to unpack it.

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Lesson 2:

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  • I was really impressed with how well the kids unpacked the Central Idea. They discovered that being healthy is more than just eating vegetables.

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  • ​In this lesson, I introduced the kids to Project-Based Learning by showing them our “map” of the unit, which is essentially a kid-friendly version of the Gold Standard model developed by PBLWorks.com

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  • For PBL to work, it needs to be linked with a problem requiring solving, which is considered our Driving Question.

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  • I tasked the kids to make a list of possible solutions to solve that driving question.

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  • They then needed to organize it into categories that linked with the various wellness areas: physical, emotional, social, environmental, intellectual.

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  • PE tasks for this week:

    • ​Make a list attempting to answer the driving question

    • Post list onto Seesaw.

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  • Note: I apologize for my Prancercise attempt but it’s an attempt to make the lesson a bit more light-hearted.

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Lesson 3:

  • I had a mixed bag of results from the task I set last week. Some kids nailed the differences between the various wellness areas and others not so, but that is to be expected for a new unit.

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  • I then demonstrated to them the significance of the pandemic and how our work could really help people cope with the situation.

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  • It was also in this lesson where I introduced them to the PowerPoint of the unit. You can access it by clicking on the PowerPoint title page below.

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  • The PowerPoint gives the kids a solid footing to understand the unit and allows them to springboard into other areas of inquiry if they so desire.

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  • Tasks for this week’s lesson:

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  • Choose one wellness area, explore it, try the activities, answer the following questions and post onto Seesaw: (I used Bloom's Taxonomy to give me a look at the various levels of understanding the kids have in regards to the unit.)

    • What wellness area did you research?

    • Why is it important?

    • What solutions can you give someone who wanted to improve upon your chosen wellness area?

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  • It was here where my fellow PE teacher and swim teacher, Ms. Jones, integrated with the unit by providing the kids with different wellness activities for them to do. They experienced different wellness activities but also learned how they connect with the unit and our project.

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Lesson 4:

  • This lesson began with a quick review of the unit and the resources we have at hand to help navigate the unit:

    • Central Idea Poster

    • The Wellness Wheel Poster

    • The Body Systems PowerPoint

    • The Project-Based Learning Map

    • The Driving Question

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  • The kids have moved from discovering the problem of the unit and are now into discovering how is this problem authentic? Is it really going to help people?

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  • The kids were tasked to try out 3 different activities from the PowerPoint: Body Part Twister, Pilates, and Yoga.

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  • To link with the homeroom, who were learning about comparing and contrasting, I got the kids to use a Venn Diagram. Here, they needed to analyze the different activities and compare and contrast them by using the Venn Diagram.

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  • Afterward, they needed to answer a question, “Where did you put each of the activities and why?”

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  • Tasks for this week:

    • ​Try out 3 activities that are in the PowerPoint: Body Part Twister, Pilates, and Yoga.

    • Answer the question, “Where did you put each of the activities and why?”

Lesson 5:

  • During the break, one of the grade 3 teachers mentioned to me that some of the kids were confused with what environmental wellness is. This lesson took a bit of an emphasis on explaining what it is.

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  • Furthermore, I was told that I needed to make sure the kids knew how integrated PE and the Homeroom are for the unit. Again, I emphasized this in this lesson.

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  • This week was the halfway mark for the unit. I wanted to find out the level of understanding the kids had on the unit so far.

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  • The kids could use any means to demonstrate their learning – a movie, a poster, PowerPoint, Seesaw Notes. Entirely up to them.

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  • The task was simple, I asked the kids to, “Tell me everything about the unit so far.”

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  • To help them with this. I gave the kids success criteria, which is what I would be looking for.

    • ​Can you describe the different wellness areas?

    • Can you explain if these areas are important?

    • Can you explain how you are going to use your knowledge to help yourself and other people?

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  • Unfortunately, I forgot to include an active part in this lesson, which I am most disappointed in myself for doing. Fortunately, my PE colleague who was also collaborating with us included an active element in her lesson. Yay team!

The Wellness Website Committee

  • The Wellness Website Committee was formed the same week as Lesson 5 was presented. It included a selection of 4 kids who expressed an interest in helping create the website. These kids would assist me in creating and developing the website where all of our brochures would be put on. We met on Zoom and emailed each other to ensure our project kept ticking over. It was a great way to help develop skills such as leadership, responsibility, literacy, ICT literacy, and communication, to name a few.

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Lesson 6:

  • I was really impressed with the work the kids produced for their formative assessment. This really demonstrated the power of integration between subjects. You can really emphasize the key parts of a unit to get to a deeper level of understanding.

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  • I reviewed the unit we have done so far by using the PBL map of the unit. This really did seem to guide our unit effectively.

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  • By this stage, the kids chose the body system they wanted to inquire further into. It was at this lesson where the kids got to choose 2-3 wellness areas and find wellness activities in those areas that would keep their chosen body system healthy.

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  • This lesson was mainly dedicated to showing kids how the body systems are connected to different wellness areas. Unfortunately, it did make the lesson quite dry since it involved a lot of theory but I was a bit stumped on how to get all this information across online but in an engaging way.

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  • Fortunately, the PowerPoint really helped since the kids had access to everything I was showing in the video.

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  • It was this week where kids started creating their brochure which was their final product for the unit.

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  • Tasks for the week:

    • ​Task 1: Start creating your brochure

    • Task 2: Video yourself doing an activity that is connected to their body system and their wellness area

Lesson 7:

I somehow have lost the video for this week’s lesson but here’s a quick rundown:

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  • It was the final week for the kids to work on their public product.

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  • To help them with the words in the brochure, the homeroom and I developed the sentence frames below.

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  • I stressed how important it was to connect the body systems and wellness areas. This would assist us in develop the concept of connection.

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  • The tasks for the week were:

    • Post the PE/Wellness part of the unit onto Seesaw so I could give feedback to them.

    • Active part of the unit was to follow a juggling video and tell me how it connects with Wellness.​

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Lesson 8:

  • Collecting all of these brochures through an online means, particularly one as detailed as what we were hoping to receive, was a feat of ultimate IT organization. I am incredibly thankful for the organization and patience of the homeroom teachers for this. They walked the kids through OneDrive and ensured each of the products was labeled correctly.

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  • The Wellness Website Committee and I worked hard to get the website up and running once most of the brochures were handed in.

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  • It was a huge effort but it paid off. Once we got the all-clear that our website followed our child protection policy, the teachers shared our website through various sources and contacts.​

A couple of weeks later:

  • For their assembly, I gathered all the comments and locations the website was visited from and created this video for their assembly. The kids, and teachers, were astounded by how far their website reached.

Final Words:

  • Despite the doom and gloom of the virus pervading every aspect of our lives, the pandemic did provide a unique opportunity for our students to learn from it and to become empowered with their learning. They were sharing their knowledge with the world, and in some ways were providing a service to those who would not know how to stay healthy while indoors during COVID-19. Which was our driving question for the unit.

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  • PE does have a stereotype that every lesson needs to be primarily targeting the physical domain of the self. I do feel that this unit, despite the circumstances, managed to focus on the entire self. There were elements of the physical, affective and cognitive in each of the lessons. This was essential since we were focused on wellness. We focused on the entire self. This is how PE should be. An opportunity for students and educators to engage in learning about the best methods to look after our entire well-being.​

Furthermore...

  • We had 4 weeks left of school after the completion of this unit and the homeroom were focusing on another unit.

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  • My next unit was supposed to be Striking and Fielding, which would not be ideal on an online setting.

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  • After a discussion with my PE colleague and our PYP coordinator we elected to carry on with the Body Systems unit but with a new project. We wanted to expand the current website to include a Wellness Channel.

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  • You can visit that site here.

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  • You can see how I introduced the follow-on unit below.

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