The HANDS UP for Health and Physical Literacy videos assist teachers, coaches and community leaders with the implementation of the concepts of physical and health literacy. When used in partnership with the lessons from the H&PE Elementary Resources teachers, coaches and community leaders are implementing The Ontario Curriculum, Health and Physical Education, which in turn supports children and youth in the development of key life concepts.
Ontario Curriculum Connections
Health and Physical Education
The knowledge and skills acquired through this video series provides children and youth with the physical literacy and health literacy they need to lead a healthy and active life every day. Children and youth will gain a deeper understanding of transferrable movement skills and strategies which benefit the whole person. They will identify and acquire the skills needed to get, understand and use information to make good decisions for health.
Language: Media Literacy
Topics related to media literacy can also be examined through this video series as children and youth can be provided with opportunities to examine the impact and influence of mass media by critically examining texts such as this video series and the messages it conveys, both overt and implied. Discussing how media texts are constructed and why they are produced will enable students to learn to respond to them intelligently and will enable them to differentiate between fact and opinion, evaluate the credibility of the source, recognize bias, and question what they view. Students can also use this video series as a model when provided with their own opportunities to use available technologies to create media texts of different types which portray a message of healthy, active living.
Arts: Visual Arts
Making art is the foundation of the visual arts curriculum. Although media arts does not represent a separate strand, through visual arts, children and youth can be provided with opportunities to use media arts as a way of describing, exploring, and responding to various topics, themes, and concepts. By supporting children and youth in the acquisition of a range of media arts related skills and specific topic and technological knowledge, they can be engaged in meaningful, media art-making activities that enable them to express experiences, feelings, and ideas and develop the skills to use media art tools and techniques that are appropriate for the age and developmental level.
Instructional Suggestions
HANDS UP for Health and Physical Literacy should be integrated into instruction in a way that is authentic and meaningful to the learning of the children and youth. Consider using the videos in some of the following ways:
Before Viewing
- Upload videos to an interactive whiteboard to view as an introduction to the topics.
- Have children and youth self-assess their own knowledge and application of physical and health literacy using criteria from the video. Repeat after viewing.
- Have children and youth search the Web and its offerings about the topic of health and physical literacy. Have children and youth present this information prior to watching the video to the larger group.
- Share art or images related to health and physical literacy. Compare, describe, and discuss the art.
- Put the phrases “health literacy” or “physical literacy” in the middle of a web. Have children and youth brainstorm associations with the phrases and record them on the web. Have children and youth make connections between ideas and write about them. Have children and youth revise their chart after watching the video.
During Viewing
- Use a Venn diagram to help children and youth organize their thinking about the two concepts. Put differences between two concepts on opposite sides and similarities in the middle.
- Play the video only turn off the sound while they watch it the first time. Have children and youth narrate, discuss, or write about what is happening, or what the narrators are revealing about the topic through the images. View the video again with sound and have children and youth compare what they heard with what they noted after the first viewing.
- Draw a line down the middle of a page. On one side write down important pieces of information shared through the video, on the other side comment on and analyze the information. What does this mean for children and youth?
After Viewing
- Have children and youth write a one page “pitch” to a producer explaining why the topic would make a great documentary.
- Children and youth can write the main ideas of the video in the most compelling way possible on paper the size of a business card.
- As in movie advertisements, have children and youth take what seems to be the most compelling image(s) from the video and create a poster advertisement.
- Give children and youth a chance to talk about what intrigues, bothers, and confuses them about the video. This can also be done by playing the video again and pausing at certain points for discussion.
- Have children and youth create their own versions of the video demonstrating knowledge of health topics or movement skills.
- Take sections of the video script and, choosing carefully, create a found poem; then read these aloud and discuss.
Glossary
Health literacy
Health literacy involves the skills needed to get, understand and use information to make good decisions for health. The Canadian Public Health Association’s Expert Panel on Health Literacy defines it as the ability to access, understand, evaluate and communicate information as a way to promote, maintain and improve health in a variety of settings across the life-course. Irving Rootman and Deborah Gordon-El-Bihbety, A Vision for a Health Literate Canada: Report of the Expert Panel on Health Literacy (Ottawa: Canadian Public Health Association, 2008).
Physical literacy
Individuals who are physically literate move with competence in a wide variety of physical activities that benefit the development of the whole person. Physically literate individuals consistently develop the motivation and ability to understand, communicate, apply, and analyze different forms of movement. They are able to demonstrate a variety of movements confidently, competently, creatively, and strategically across a wide range of health-related physical activities. These skills enable individuals to make healthy, active choices throughout their life span that are both beneficial to and respectful of themselves, others, and their environment. J. Mandigo, N. Francis, K. Lodewyk, and R. Lopez, “Physical Literacy for Educators”, Physical and Health Education Journal 75, no. 3 (2009): 27–30.
Fundamental Movement Skills
These skills are the foundation of all physical activity and are essential both to an individual’s development of effective motor skills and to the application of these skills in a wide variety of physical activities. The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1 – 8: Health and Physical Education, 2010 (revised), pg. 214.
Movement Strategies
A term encompassing a variety of approaches that help a player or team attain the ultimate goal or objective of an activity or game, such as moving to an open space to be in a position to receive an object or hitting an object away from opponents to make it difficult for opponents to retrieve the object. Similar activities within game categories often employ common or similar strategies. ibid.
