What’s up Phys Ed Fam!
In this post I’m excited to let you know about a new resource that we’ve created to assist in helping students learn the basic fundamental movement patterns that many of us refer to as Locomotor Movements (Skip, Slide, Gallop, Jump, Hop, Leap etc)
This is a project that’s been in my head for about 15 years so I’m really pumped to share that we finally completed it.
Locomotor Movement Posters and Slideshow
If you’ve followed any of our content you have probably noticed the “Locomotor Train” visual that is on the wall above my TV with all of the Locomotor Movements (text only). Over the years I’ve found this to be a great reminder for me throughout the year as I’m teaching to integrate those movements into most of my lessons with my Kindergarten – 2nd Graders (and even my older students sometimes as well).
While it’s been helpful, I’ve always hated how they looked and how there weren’t any good visuals of the actual movements, especially for younger students (most of whom can’t read yet) I wanted to have visuals of each movement and update the signs to provide a more appealing and also helpful visual for my students and to make the gym look more colorful and up to date since that area on the wall is one of the first things people notice when they walk into my gym.
I finally finished them and got them on my walls this year and LOVE how they turned out!
You can see the before and after in the image below:
If you’ve been teaching PE for a while or are a follower of our content you’ll probably be familiar with our end of year assessment that we do in First Grade: The Locomotor License Test
Learning basic locomotor movements is a pretty common standard across any PE program for K-1st students, but specifically in my school district this is one of our Common Standards which goes on our report cards (more info on how I do grades/report cards here).
Since it’s actually going on reports and I’m required to formally assess it, I put an extra emphasis on practicing, reviewing and learning these skills throughout the year.
You can see an example of how I introduce these skills to my Kindy and First Grade students while we’re learning about Open Space and how to move safely in the gym in the video below (Locomotor instruction starts at 5:02)
- This activity is also how I help my Kindy kiddos learn our Home Base Spots or assigned seats at the beginning of the year – More Info on that Here
In addition to the updated locomotor movement posters we added all of the visuals to a google slideshow as well that’s included in the resource pack linked below
Now that we’ve created this resource I plan to use the new visuals and also might even combine it with the included google slideshow to assist with these types of activities to give kids an extra visual and reminder of what each skill looks like.
Locomotor Movement Task Cards
To go along with the posters we used the movement illustrations to create Task Cards that are easily printable and you can laminate and integrate into a variety of activities to practice working on different locomotor movements with kids.
You can be as creative as you want with these and there are a ton of different ways you can use them, but for an example here are a few activities you can use the task cards for:
4 Corner Locomotor Warmup
Split up the cards into 4 different 5 gallon buckets. Have students draw a card and perform that locomotor around the perimeter of the playing area until they reach the next bucket. Once you get to the next bucket, drop your card in and draw
a new card. Repeat for 2-3 minutes until the class is warmed up.
Locomotor Noodle Tag
Give out 2-3 half noodles to designate taggers. Place the cards face down in a hula hoop on the sideline and have all students draw a card to start the game. The card you have is the ONLY way you are allowed to move until you get tagged by a noodle.
Every time a student gets tagged they must jog over to the hula hoop, place their card face down and draw a new card from the hoop and return to the game.
Optionally you might want to remove the “Jog” cards if you don’t want runners and the “Hands and Feet” Cards if you don’t want crab walkers or bear crawlers during the game for safety reasons
Add Locomotor Challenges to Any Game or Activity
Use these cards with any game or activity that you normally play and instead of having students run or walk, have them choose a card from a bucket or hula hoop to determine how they are allowed to move during the game. We recommend taking into account that Hop / Hands and Feet might be difficult to do for a long time, so you need to take those cards out if students will be traveling a longer distance or for a longer period of time.
Locomotor License Assessment and Printable Cards
As I mentioned earlier, The Locomotor License Assessment is our end of the year assessment for First Graders at my school, I’ve included the printable cards and lesson plan I use when giving the assessment in the resource pack as well.
You can see how I normally run the test in the video below:
FYI – If you’d like the Locomotor License Cards and don’t want the whole resource pack it’s also a freebie download HERE
More Ideas for Teaching Locomotor Movements to Your Kids
If you haven’t seen it below you’ll find a discussion between Marcus and I about how we integrate Locomotor Movements into our instruction and some of our favorite ways to teach them, hope it’s helpful
The Locomotor Movements Resource Pack
If you’d like to check out our Locomotor Movements Resource Pack you can find all the details and what’s included in the video below (except the video doesn’t go over the slideshow because that was a last minute add on after we’d already created the video)
Included in the Download
- Locomotor Movements Posters
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- In this folder you will find 3 different sized files that you can use to print out the Locomotor Movement Posters and display them in your teaching space
- PDF Files – These are usually best for printing 8.5×11 size from a normal printer
- PNG Files – These are good for high quality poster printers
- JPEG Files – These are also good for poster printers if they don’t accept PNG files
- The 3 sizes included are
- 8.5×11 – Normal paper size for any printer
- 36×24 Full Size – Normal Movie Poster Size and Standard Poster Printing Size
- 36×24 Half Size – These are created to print at 36×24 and cut in half so that each poster is half the size of a normal movie poster
- When placing these up, put “Walk” first and just follow the colors in rainbow order 🌈
- In this folder you will find 3 different sized files that you can use to print out the Locomotor Movement Posters and display them in your teaching space
- Locomotor Movements Slideshow
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- We’ve included all the posters ready to go in a Google Slideshow, click the link to Copy it
- Locomotor Movement Task Cards
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- These are printable task cards that correspond with our Locomotor Movement Posters and can be used for a variety of activities to review locomotor movements throughout the year
- Get creative and share your ideas with us on social @thePEspecialist 👊
- These are printable task cards that correspond with our Locomotor Movement Posters and can be used for a variety of activities to review locomotor movements throughout the year
- Locomotor License Test and Printable Licenses
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- This is our lesson plan and video walkthrough of the locomotor movements assessment that we give to 1st Grade students at the end of the year to assess their ability to perform their locomotor skills, if they are able to complete the assessment they receive their Locomotor License (printable licenses included) 😁
This Pack is available on TPT at the link below (or Members can download in The PE Specialist Membership Area) info on the membership here
Check out the Locomotor Resource Pack on TPT
If you come up with some great ideas for using the Task Cards, Posters or Slideshow hit us up on Social @thePEspecialist we’d love to hear about it!
Thanks for reading to the end, I hope that post was helpful
Best of luck teaching your kiddos their locomotor movements.
Have Fun and Teach On!