Physical Education
Mr. Brooks & Mr. Monahan
East Physical Education Team!
"Together Everyone Achieves More"
WELCOME TO EAST PHYSICAL EDUCATION!
The East physical education team works very hard at establishing a safe, fun, and respectful learning environment where students are challenged to grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially while being encouraged to show HEART (Helpfulness, Respect, Acceptance, Respect, Teamwork) and to ROAR (Respect Others Act Responsible) like East Beasts. We provide students with many opportunities to develop motor skills, physical fitness, self-confidence, and the knowledge to be physically active throughout their lives.
Our program is geared toward progressively building skills where instruction is differentiated across grade levels and building the whole child is our focus. Students are given many opportunities to explore, discover, and express themselves through various cooperative activities, lead-up sport games, goal setting, and physical fitness challenges.
Regardless of what unit is being taught teamwork, sportsmanship, and trying one’s best is always at the forefront of everything we do. Health and wellness concepts along with safety discussions are consistently integrated into our lessons to help promote healthy habits.
We want the East community to know our door is always open to listen to any concerns you may have and to make our program the very best. We care deeply about getting all students to feel included in the class and to have them achieve their full potential as active learners in their physical literacy journey.
Mr. Brooks & Mr. Monahan
What's Happening in PE?
Warm-Up Jog!
Dice Fitness!
Team Building - Cross the River Challenge
Teamwork on Display!
Cooperative Challenge - Cross the River!
Soccer - Capture the Cone
Soccer Skills Development
3 Zone Bowling
Fitness Challenges - Peer Assessments
Fitness Challenge - Standing Long Jump
Cardio Rhythmic Stations - Heart Health Month!
Cardio Rhythmic Stations - Hula-Hoop Tricks
PE Bulletin Board - East Shows Heart!
PE Bulletin Board - East Values Fitness!
Chinese Jump Rope
Long Jump Rope Challenges
Single Jump Rope
Basketball - Builders & Bulldozers
Basketball - "Make It, Take It"!
Basketball Fitness Challenge - Superman Hold
Crossover - Speed Dribbling Practice
East Physical Education Units of Instruction
2025-2026
September:
- Introduction to PE: expectations, rules, class routines, safety/emergency information
- Movement Exploration - locomotor & non-locomotor movements, spatial awareness, boundaries, body control, speed, direction
- Cooperative team building challenges to build community, teamwork, cooperation, and to understand others differences
- Tag/pursuit games
- Fitness - head-toe stretching, today’s 10 monthly and weekly workouts, jogging/power walking, student choice, create your workout routine
- Playground use & safety
October:
- Throwing, tossing, and catching activities & small games
- Ultimate football, multi-ball, tchoukball, beanbag ball
November:
- Soccer Skills development - kicking, passing, dribbling, trapping, throw-ins, goalie skills
- Sideline soccer games, small 6 vs 6 games, big ball soccer
- Hacky Sack / Footbag Challenges
December
- Cooperative Team Building Challenges # 2
- Video Games Week # 1
January:
- Video Games Week # 2
- Bowling & Rolling skills development and small games
February:
- Super Bowl LX Activity Stations - "Go Pat's"!
- Winter Olympics Week - "Go Team USA"!
- Peer fitness assessments and components of fitness challenges in a station format
- Rhythmic Activities – single jump rope, hula-hoop, long rope, Chinese rope, twirl & jumps, skip it’s, parachute, and dance patterns
March:
- Basketball skills development - dribbling, passing, shooting, rebounding, offensive and defensive strategies
- Small games - 1/2 court, 3 on 3 games, full court ball call version
- Volleyball skills development - set, bump, serve, dig, spike
- Small games - 6 on 6
- Nitro ball - inverted volleyball
April:
- Racket Challenges and small games - badminton, speedminton, pickleball, and tennis
May:
- Frisbee Activities - frisbee golf, ultimate frisbee
- Backyard Games – corn hole, bocce ball, 4-square, spike ball, ladder ball, ring toss, shuffleboard
June:
- Backyard Games – corn hole, bocce ball, 4-square, spike ball, ladder ball, ring toss, shuffleboard
- Field Day Prep
ACTIVITY VIDEOS - These are optional activity challenges for you and your family to try as you keep working towards achieving 60 minutes of physical activity each day. Have fun and make sure you have a safe area to exercise in.
News From the Gymnasium
What’s Happening in Physical Education?
September 2025 – February 2026
It’s been a very active and fun-filled half to the 2025-2026 school year. Mr. Monahan and I have been very busy reinforcing routines, reviewing classroom rules, expectations, and safety procedures. We’ve been discussing the importance of doing your personal best, believing in yourself, and reinforcing good sportsmanship. The class usually starts off with students in their assigned warm-up spots as they perform a variety of exercises, movements, and stretches. Our focus is always on developing proper form and emphasizing the quality of the exercises over quantity. Modifications of various exercises and stretches are introduced to ensure we target students of all abilities. Students are taught and encouraged to develop independence and take ownership of their warm-up.
Students in grades 3-5 challenge themselves with our “Today’s 10” fitness challenges that are posted on our menu board, which are updated each month in order to cover a wide variety of fitness components. Students will experience over 100 challenges by the end of the school year. Students in grades K-2 challenge themselves with our “Fabulous Five” stretches and exercise workouts. Students have the opportunity to be fitness leaders of the day, where students get to display leadership and show their knowledge by choosing and demonstrating exercises for the class. We have also introduced the importance of student choice, where students create their own workout routine either as an individual or in a small group setting. It’s a great way to highlight what the students have learned throughout the year and continue to build responsibility and teamwork.
In September, we started the school year off with icebreaker activities that focused on teamwork and getting to know each other. Students had the opportunity to work in pairs and small groups to accomplish a common goal. It was interesting to see how groups worked together on the various challenges. It was fun to see them have success and how they worked through struggles that they may have had to deal with.
In October, students focused on movement concepts like locomotor skills, spatial awareness, body control, and boundaries. Students worked on improving their cardiovascular endurance through various tag games such as Capture the Flag, Tunnel Tag, and Fire & Ice. We also worked on their tossing, throwing, and catching skills. Students played games like Multiball and did learning stations that targeted those skills. Students enjoyed using the throw/catch rebounders, stomp catchers, catching scoops, and the frisbee/ring toss to reinforce throwing, tossing, and catching skills.
In November, we transitioned to a soccer unit where students worked on dribbling, passing, shooting, positional concepts, and team play. Students also enjoyed our hacky sack challenges as an alternative way to work on foot-eye coordination. We encouraged students to use the hacky sack at recess as a way to build social skills and fitness. They loved our ending game of the unit called Big Ball soccer. Students had to move a giant cage ball down the floor into a goal by throwing smaller objects at the big ball. It combined the ideas of soccer with the skills of throwing, while using teamwork to get the job done.
In December, the focus was to follow up with a team-building cooperative unit that stressed the concepts of cooperation, communication, concentration, control, commitment, collaboration, and community. The students enjoyed working together on the buddy walkers, passing objects into a basket using only their feet, being creative with mats to move their whole team across the gym floor, and trying their hand at the parachute basketball shot.
In January, we celebrated the new year with a video game unit where we took concepts from old school video games like Frogger and Pac-Man and created games to play in the gym. The students seemed to have a lot of fun with the video game connection while they built skills, fitness, and teamwork. We are finishing up January with a terrific bowling unit where students are playing games like tic tac toe bowling and a 360-degree whole-class bowling challenge. Mr. Monahan and I are seeing how their skills are improving, along with their enjoyment in this new bowling unit. Bowling is such a wonderful lifetime activity that can be enjoyed by all.
February is going to be an exciting month where we plan to have Super Bowl LX and Winter Olympic station activities for the students to enjoy and to make a connection with these two major sporting events that are taking place. We will also be doing a week of peer fitness assessments, where students will be setting individual fitness goals and assessing how they did at meeting those goals. We look forward to a wonderful second half of the school year with more exciting activities happening in the gym. Once again, we thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Don Brooks & Justin Monahan
East Physical Education Team
Website Link: https://ee.sharonschools.net/en-us/physical-education-0be6b18d
Motivational Quotes