Elementary School Wellness Education: An Integrated Approach to Teaching the Whole Child

Health education and physical education are traditionally siloed―for no good reason, according to authors Matthew Cummiskey and Frances Cleland Donnelly.

So, through Elementary School Wellness Education, the two authors provide a blueprint, complete with lesson plans, for teachers to fuse health education and physical education into one elementary school class.

“Students should be educated in a more holistic manner,” says Cummiskey. “We applied the concept of school wellness education at the elementary level, which has components of both traditional health education and physical education.”

Elementary School Wellness Education offers the following:

• 37 detailed lesson plans for grades K-5 (19 lessons for K-2 and 18 lessons for grades 3-5) that are tied to SHAPE America Outcomes and National Health Education Performance Indicators
• Clear instruction on how to apply the plans, making it perfect for both preservice and in-service teachers
• More than 70 lesson plan handouts (with full-color graphics), available online via HKPropel, that are easy for teachers to print
• A test package, presentation package, and instructor guide that make this ideal for existing and emerging teacher education courses

A typical School Wellness Education (SWE) lesson combines classroom-based learning activities―such as discussions, worksheets, and videos―with physical activity. All the lessons in the book take place in the gymnasium, so there’s no need for a separate health education classroom. In addition, the SWE approach helps teachers maximize their instruction time by meeting multiple learning standards simultaneously.

“The lessons are learning focused, with each activity carefully aligned to the objectives,” says Cleland Donnelly. “Moreover, they’re fun. Students aren’t sitting in a traditional classroom learning health; they’re doing it in the gym.” SWE also uses traditional PE equipment―and the gym―in new and creative ways, she adds. “This is especially important in schools that lack a separate health education classroom.”

Elementary School Wellness Education addresses emergent pedagogies such as skill-based education, universal design for learning, social and emotional learning, and social justice, helping both in-service and preservice teachers understand how to use and benefit from these pedagogical approaches. It also guides readers in how to teach wellness education online as effectively as face-to-face. Teachers will learn how to teach the content in person, online, or in a hybrid approach.

“The good news for teachers is that SWE is not a dramatic departure from existing instruction,” says Cummiskey. “Students are still moving and being taught in the gymnasium, but now health content and skills are being infused into all the lessons.”

The book, he says, is also suitable for use by classroom teachers looking to promote wellness or incorporate additional physical activity into their students’ days. “The intent is to imbue students with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to lead a healthy life into and through adulthood,” he says.

Note: A code for accessing HKPropel is included with this print book.

 

Matthew Cummiskey, PhD, is an associate professor at West Chester University (WCU) in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where he trains future school wellness educators. He taught K-12 health and physical education for five years and has taught within higher education for 13 years. Dr. Cummiskey helped develop the wellness-centric teacher education program at WCU in collaboration with Dr. Frances Cleland Donnelly. He is codirector of the WCU adventure education program.  He is the editor for the SHAPE Pennsylvania journal and the Mid-Atlantic adventure education journal.  Dr. Cummiskey has formed collaborations with the School District of Philadelphia to promote quality urban wellness education.  He has numerous articles and conference presentations to his credit. Dr. Cummiskey enjoys implementing technology in his classes. He contributed a chapter to Technology for Physical Educators, Health Educators, and Coaches, published in 2021 by Human Kinetics.

Frances Cleland Donnelly, PED, is a professor in the department of kinesiology at West Chester University. She served on the SHAPE America’s board of directors (2016-2019) and is a former president of SHAPE America (2017-2018). Dr. Cleland has also been president of the National Association for Sport and Physical Education and SHAPE Pennsylvania. Cleland Donnelly has numerous articles in refereed publications and chapters in books to her credit. She has made many dozens of presentations at the international, national, district, and state levels. In 2020 she received the SHAPE America Eastern District Tilia Fantasia Service Award, and in 2016 she was awarded the SHAPE America Margie R. Hanson Elementary Physical Education Distinguished Service Award. In 2014, she was inducted into the North American Society of HPERSD Professionals, and she has received numerous awards for teaching and service throughout her career. She was the lead author on Developmental Physical Education for All Children, Fifth Edition, published in 2017 by Human Kinetics.