What is Fitness for Life: Elementary School?

The award-winning Fitness for Life middle and high school programs now have an elementary school companion program. Fitness for Life: Elementary School is an innovative multimedia program that facilitates total school involvement by using physical education lessons, classroom activities and discussions, recess, before- and afterschool activities, and even family nights to deliver appropriate physical activity, plus concepts to promote health-related fitness and active lifestyles.

Fitness for Life: Elementary School was developed by nationally and internationally recognized leaders Charles B. "Chuck" Corbin, Guy Le Masurier, Dolly Lambdin, and Meg Greiner. The program has been field tested and is based on the most current research and standards regarding health-related fitness, activity, wellness, and nutrition.

Why use Fitness for Life: Elementary School?

The Fitness for Life: Elementary School program enables you to do the following:

- Teach essential health-related fitness, activity, nutrition, and wellness concepts

- Meet local and state requirements for daily and weekly physical activity

- Implement wellness in the curriculum

- Implement easy-to-follow standards-based lessons

- Enhance academic performance and help fight childhood obesity

- Coordinate efforts with nonschool personnel, including before- and afterschool program leaders and parents

- Meet recommendations and standards from CDC, USDA, and NASPE, among others

What comes with the program?

Fitness for Life: Elementary School includes everything you need to implement a coordinated nutrition, physical activity, and wellness program:

- 4 full weeks of theme-based lessons featuring videos, activities, and music

- 7 classroom guides featuring 140 lesson plans and activities for grades K-6

- A physical education lesson plan book packed with activities and 32 lessons

- More than 16 hours of video content, including 140 physical activity routines (28 core routines with special wellness messages for each school day) and 4 schoolwide team activities

- A complete wellness coordinator's guide that includes assessment tools and resources for schoolwide special events

- A music CD to accompany the physical education lesson plans

- Hundreds of full-color reproducibles, including signs, newsletters, and activity cards

- Program-specific Web site

This wealth of information also allows you to be flexible in how you run the wellness program. There is enough material that you don't have to use all the resources the first year; you can choose which materials to use and how often you would like to use them.

Fitness for Life: Elementary School program contents

The Fitness for Life: Elementary Schoolprogram includes the following books:

- Physical Education Lesson Plans

- Guide for Wellness Coordinators

- Classroom Guide: Kindergarten

- Classroom Guide: First Grade

- Classroom Guide: Second Grade

- Classroom Guide: Third Grade

- Classroom Guide: Fourth Grade

- Classroom Guide: Fifth Grade

- Classroom Guide: Sixth Grade

The books include the following bound-in discs:

- 10 DVDs

- 1 CD-ROM of resources

- 1 CD of music

This book was published 2010 by Human Kinetics Publishers .

Meg Greiner, MEd , is a national board-certified elementary physical education teacher at Independence Elementary School in Independence, Oregon. She has been teaching elementary physical education for 21 years and regularly receives student teachers and practicum students into her setting. Meg has received numerous national awards and accolades for her innovative physical education program and the development of TEAM Time, including the 2005 NASPE National Elementary Physical Education Teacher of the Year, 2005 USA Today All-USA Teacher Team, and the 2006 Disney Outstanding Specialist Teacher of the Year. Meg is currently working with NASPE as a Head Start Body Start trainer of trainers, serving on the AAHPERD Physical Best Committee, and presenting NASPE Pipeline Workshops all over the United States. She has served on the NASPE Council of Physical Education for Children and on the public relations committee. She has served as the physical education president for both Oregon and Northwest District AHPERDs. She also has served Oregon AHPERD in many capacities and has received the OAHPERD Honor Award. Corbin has authored more than 200 professional and research publications and more than 30 books, including Concepts of Physical Fitness, tenth edition (a college text that received the prestigious McGuffey Award) as well as Fitness for Life, fourth edition, which received the Text and Academic Authors Association Texty Award. Dolly D. Lambdin, EdD, is a senior lecturer in the department of kinesiology and health education at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches undergraduate courses in children's movement and methods of teaching as well as graduate courses in analyysis of teaching and technology application in physical education. Guy C. Le Masurier, PhD , is a professor of physical education at Malaspina University College, British Columbia, Canada. He has published numerous articles related to youth physical activity and physical education and coauthored the National Association for Sport and Physical Education (NASPE) Physical Activity Guidelines for Children. Dr. Le Masurier has given more than 30 research and professional presentations at national and regional meetings. He reviews research for numerous professional journals and has contributed to Fitness for Life, Fifth Edition , and the Physical Best Activity Guide. Dr. Le Masurier is a member of AAHPERD, NASPE, ACSM, and Canadian AHPERD.