Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

Josh Petty
Northern Illinois University
ETT 531: Visual Literacy
Dr. Rhonda Robinson/Elizabeth Anderson
1 December 2014

Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

Introduction
I am creating a project that will be used in a physical education setting with kindergarten
students. This project appeals to me because I am a certified physical education teacher and I
enjoy creating activities that serve multiple purposes. Since I am working with kindergarten
students, this will be their first organized introduction to visual literacy in a physical education
setting.
Purpose Statement
This project has three purposes, all of equal importance. The first is to teach students
about the different types of locomotor movements. The second is to teach students about proper
movement safety within the gymnasium. The last is their introduction to visual literacy. With the
students being in kindergarten, this is where they will really begin their journey into visual
literacy. As an instructor, it is my job to start this at an early age.
Rationale
According to the Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning Corporation
(McREL), the level one visual literacy standard for grades K-2 is that students Understands the
main idea or message in visual media (e.g., graphics, animation, comic books, television)
(Baker, P. 45). The goal for this unit is to teach students locomotor movements and gymnasium
safety by understanding what they are seeing in the images put in front of them.
Another strategy that I would employ is what Finley (2014) calls the think aloud strategy.
I want students to be able to verbally go through their thought process and tell me exactly what
they are seeing and thinking. This is done so that students, and their classmates, can begin to
understand what they are seeing and why they are seeing it.

Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

According to the J. Paul Getty Museum (2014), lesson for kindergarten students should
be short and repetitive. Being at the beginning of the year, I like using repetition because it helps
to establish routines which make learning and classroom management much easier in the future.
According to the Early Intervention Specialists (2013), the average attention span for children
aged 5-6 for activities that they enjoy is only 10-15 minutes. For general activities, their attention
span is only 5-6 minutes, so its important to have meaningful discussion time in a relatively
short amount of time, otherwise we risk losing them for that lesson all together.
Detailed Description
With all physical education (PE) programs, the very first thing taught to kindergarten
students are rules and suggestions for safety. These are very important for not just a PE setting,
but for a school setting as well. Students need to know where they can and cannot go. Many
times, this has to do with safety. Students need to know the various cues, or signals, for starting
and stopping activities. They need to know where they should be looking while moving. They
also need to know what they should, and should not be doing with their hands and feet. I could
go on forever about the various rules, but Im just going to mention a few of them.
One of, if not the first activity units that kindergarten students participate in, in PE class,
is the one dedicated to locomotor movements. According to the Merriam-Webster online
dictionary (2014), locomotion is described as, an act or the power of moving from place to
place. Locomotor movements include running, walking, crawling, jumping, leaping, hopping,
skipping, sliding, and galloping. There are many more that could be mentioned there but those
are the main ones that Im going to focus on. Those are the ones that I have posters for, which
will be used a great deal within this lesson.

Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

With this being the first unit that students will participate in, students need to first
understand what they are looking at, and what it means. This is the first example where visual
literacy comes into play. For example, the white line around the end of the gym is the boundary
line. They must stay within it at all times. They need to know that the white line means stop.
Items such as cones could have the same meaning as well. When they hear the first whistle that
means that the activity has started. When they hear a second whistle that means to stop, or freeze,
and have a seat right where they are. During this time, I usually raise my hand, which is a visual
cue for students to stop talking. Any time the arm is in the air, students need to stop talking. This
signal is used universally throughout the school, not just in PE. That is just a part of where visual
literacy can be used to teach kindergarten students some of the basic rules of physical education.
Next thing that we need to do is actually get to the locomotor movements lesson. To start,
I would have the class sitting in a tight bunch in front of me. The very first thing I would do is
have the students look at all of the posters on the wall. All locomotor movement posters will be
in a section by themselves, to avoid confusion. The first question I would ask is what all of the
posters have in common. The answer that Im looking for is that all of them show different ways
to move. From there, I would introduce the definition of locomotor movements and ask them to
name different ways that they can move around. I would encourage them to use the posters for
assistance. Even though I am focusing on teaching the movements on the posters, there are many
possible acceptable answers, not just the ones on the posters.
Based on the pictured images, there are a number of things that Id like to know. For
example, what is the person doing with his/her feet? Are both feet doing the same thing? What
are they doing with their arms? Are they doing the same thing with both arms? At the end of
each response, I want to know exactly what they saw within the picture that made them answer

Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

the way that they did. I want to be able to verbally go through their thought process and share it
with the class. This is the think aloud strategy, which according to Finley (2014), is a powerful
tool in helping students interpret images and what theyre seeing. Some of the images that they
may be looking at can be found in the appendix section below.
From there, I want to expand on that even further, and ask the class what each person
pictured is doing to be safe. Some answers that I am looking for is that the person pictured is
looking forward (not up, down, or behind them), shoes are tied, and that they are not too close to
another person. I want to go through the same line of questioning that I did with the movements
themselves. What specifically did you see that made you think that way? With these students
being in kindergarten, this is just the beginning of their journey into visual literacy and I need to
remember to keep that in proper perspective. With that said, it is my role as an instructor to really
tap into that potential. As 21st century learners, they will need to rely on their observational skills
and that needs to start at an early age.
As mentioned previously, I am using my newly improved visual literacy skills to teach
kindergarten students both introductory gymnasium rules and safety, as well as the different
locomotor movements. PE really is a great setting for students to hone their visual literacy skills
because there are many opportunities for students to observe fellow classmates to see what is
working, and what isnt with a particular task. That can include looking at videos, photographs,
or even watching fellow classmates actually performing the assigned task.
Plan
The following is a rough plan detailing how I would lay out this unit.
Day One

Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

On the first day, students would enter the gymnasium. The first thing that I would do is
introduce myself and then put them into their squad seats. This is where I will want them to
come in and sit every day that they have PE with me. This also helps me take attendance because
I know that when I visually see a hole in the squad lines, I know that somebody is missing.
From there, we will go over some basic gym rules. The white lines around the gym, they
are boundaries and you are not allowed to cross boundaries. You must stay within the lines at all
times. I want to make sure that they all visually see the boundaries and understand what they
mean. When you hear a whistle, that means the game/activity has started. Once you hear the
whistle again, that means that the game/activity has ended. When you hear the whistle to stop,
you should sit down immediately where you are standing and listen for directions. When the
teacher raises his/her hand, it needs to be absolutely silent and nobody should be talking. This is
a visual cue used throughout the entire school.
Once that has been covered, we will probably use the remainder of the class period to
practice safety drills (fire, tornado, intruder). I will want them to know what they will see and
hear in the event that this is really happening. I always want students to know what to do in case
of an emergency and safety drills are a must on the first day.
Day Two
Students will enter the gymnasium and sit in their assigned squad spots. Being the second
day of class, and the students being in kindergarten, we will probably need to go over squad
seating again. Throughout this process, its important to remind them to look around and see who
is sitting on all four sides of them. This is another important visual clue that I want them to
remember.

Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

Once squads have been taken care of, its time to begin our unit on locomotor
movements. For the day, we will focus on running and hopping. The tentative goal is to complete
two new movements every class period, however this may not always be possible. By
kindergarten age, all students know how to run, so I am going focus on hopping first, and use the
running time to focus on safety.
I will have all students sit in front of the locomotor movements wall. That is what I call
the wall that has all of the locomotor movements posters on it. I will show them a picture and the
poster that have to do with hopping and from there, I will ask them what is happening in the
picture. The definition of hopping is taking off (do not use the term jumping because that is
another locomotor movement) and landing on one (same) foot. I want to know what the people
are doing with their arms, legs, etc. I also want to know what the students are seeing, which
makes them think that way. That part is very important to the whole process. I want them to be
able to pay attention to detail. Once I feel satisfactory that they understand what hopping is, I
will have them spread out within the boundaries and practice hopping in place.
From there, we will come back to the poster and look at the runner. We will still focus on
things like foot and arm position, but running comes much more natural to students so we will
focus on safety. What are the people pictured doing to be safe? This could include looking in
front of them (not looking up, down, or back), shoes tied, and personal space. Again, its
important for student to mention how they think the people pictured are being safe, and why.
Before letting students run around the gym, its important that they know movement patterns
first. They will learn about straight line movement patterns and scrambled egg style movement
patterns. Straight line is exactly what it sounds like, down and back in a straight line. The
scrambled egg style is when they are allowed to move in all directions. Before practicing

Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

scrambled egg style, it is important to reiterate the safety rules so nobody trips or runs into
anybody else. At the end, before dismissal, we will quickly review the things that we learned
during the class period.
Day Three End of the Unit
Every day within the unit will look basically the same. Students will enter and we will redo squad spots as necessary. Once that has been covered, we will review what was discussed in
previous class periods, mentioned what we saw in the pictures and why it was important.
Overall, there are nine locomotor movements that we will be learning (walking, running,
jumping, hopping, leaping, skipping, galloping, sliding/shuffling, and crawling).
The goal is to get through two movements per class period, which isnt always possible.
Some movements are much more difficult for kindergarten students than others. When
introducing a new movement, we will always come over to the locomotor movements wall and
discuss what is happening on the posters and pictures, and why we think that is happening.
Again, it is very important for them to hone their observation skills. Once discussion is over, we
will practice the new movement(s) using both straight line and scrambled egg style. The last 5-7
minutes of each class period will be dedicated physically reviewing the movements learned in
previous class periods, as well as the ones learned in that days class period. The goal is to
continually build upon previous knowledge.

Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

Appendix
Josh Pettys Technology Portfolio: http://jpettyniu.weebly.com/

Locomotor Movements and Gymnasium Safety

References
Baker, F. (2012). Visual Literacy. In Media Literacy in the K-12 Classroom (pp. 41-71).
International Society for Technology in Education.
Finley, T. (2014, February 19). Common Core in Action: 10 Visual Literacy Strategies.
Retrieved November 30, 2014, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/ccia-10-visualliteracy-strategies-todd-finley
Grade-by-Grade Guide to Building Visual Arts LessonsKindergarten. (2014, January 1).
Retrieved November 30, 2014, from http://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/
building_lessons/kindergarten.html
Locomotion. (2014, January 1). Retrieved November 29, 2014, from
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/locomotion
Parts of the Brain and Their Functions. (2014, November 30). Retrieved November 30, 2014,
from http://www.md-health.com/Parts-Of-The-Brain-And-Function.html
Q&A: What is a Normal Attention Span? (2013, October 13). Retrieved November 30, 2014,
from http://www.earlyinterventionsupport.com/qa-normal-attention-span/

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