Reading Response Log - Physical Education

Rationale:
Physical education is an important part of early childhood education. Physical Education is so
much more than just playing games and running off energy. Its about teaching the children how
to create and maintain a healthy and active life style. Its about demonstrating exciting ways to
engage in healthy exercise and teaching the students what happens to your body during exercise
and why. Its about learning more about your body, what it can do and the reasoning behind it. In
the following pages, I have chosen five books that I think represent physical education and the
importance of physical education extremely well. The five books, I have chosen express the
importance of fitness and give several examples on good fitness activities.
Most physical education classes do not use literature to help them introduce a unit or help
explain an activity. This, I think needs to change. With the five books in this log, you will be able
to use literature and tie it into various physical education activities. You can even tie in other
subjects with the activities. If you express the importance of physical activity and staying healthy
at a young age, it is more likely to stick with them as they grow up.
I hope you enjoy the five books I chose to create this log. And I hope you find then useful in any
physical education class. I encourage you to start using more forms of literature in physical
education classes to help demonstrate and explain different activities and sports.

Title: Healthy Habits- Exercise

Author: Jayne Denshire
Illustrator: Richard Morden
Publisher: Macmillan Education Australia PTY LTD
Copyright: 2010
ISBN #: 978-1-59920-547-2
Genre: Non-Fiction
Library Location: East Branch Library- Amarillo
Summary: This book introduces exercise and the importance of it to children of any age. It
explains why you should make exercise a healthy habit and apart of your everyday routine. It
also runs through different ways you can exercise either with a team or by yourself. It gives
exercise tips along with how to make exercise a healthy habit in your life. It demonstrates what
proper clothing and gear to wear during exercise. This book also gives some interesting and fun
exercising facts along with a exercise check list.
Personal Comments: I think the author did a great job introducing exercise and expressing the
importance of it and making it a healthy habit. It was nice that she used exercise terminology
such as aerobic and explained what they meant. Over all, I think this book has great facts about
exercise and why you should make it a habit in your everyday life. Introducing children to
exercise at a young age is crucial in todays society. With childhood obesity as high as it is today,
introducing all the different ways to exercise to children would help bring that statistic down.
Suggested use in the Classroom: This book would be a great in an elementary physical
education class. It would help demonstrate why physical education is important and why we
should develop healthy habits. In the back of the book, there is a suggested activity for students.
It requires the students to make a fitness circuit using different equipment every gym should
have. As the teacher, you would have to modify it for the proper age groups. For the older
students, it suggested that they take their pulse and record it. I think that would be a great activity
to do in the gym with your students. You could even add several aspects to it and even take some
away, showing the students that you do not have to have various supplies to conduct exercise.

Title: The Busy Body Book

Author: Lizzy Rockwell
Illustrator: Lizzy Rockwell
Publisher: Crown Publishers
Copyright: 2004
ISBN #: 0-375-92203-2
Genre: Non-Fiction
Library Location: East Branch Library- Amarillo
Summary: The Busy Body Book explains what happens when
you put your body in motion, from your bones and muscles to your organs and nerves. It also
illustrates how your body uses the nutrition you eat to help your body moves and the importance
of keeping your body fueled. It points out specific bones, muscles, organs, nerves, and blood
vessels, through different body models and what role they play in your movement or activity you
are engaged in. It also shows different ways your body can move and several exercises you can
participate in to keep yourself active and healthy.
Personal Comments: There is so much that happens in your body as you participate in activity
or any type of movement. I thought that this book illustrated and explained the importance of
fitness and the roles the different body systems play extremely well. Also, how she expressed the
importance of nutrition and fluids and how your body uses it for fuel. This book is one of my
favorite books having to deal with fitness and exercise for kids. Knowing your body and how it
functions is important, so teaching it early is better. The author did an outstanding job and
understands the importance of fitness in todays society, especially with childhood obesity on the
rise.
Suggested use in the classroom: This book would be a great way to start out the year for a
physical education teacher, or even a science teacher in the proper unit. There is so much that
happens inside your body when you exercise, things that didnt even cross your mind. This book
would show exactly what happens during every movement and would teach the children the
importance of staying active and eating healthy. You could have the kids demonstrate certain
movements and have them recognize what all body systems were involved during that
movement. You could also have them run or do an aerobic activity and have them point out and
feel for themselves how you body changes for example, your heart pumping more and your lungs
receiving more oxygen. There is so many great ways you could incorporate this book into your
teaching, those were just a few.

Title: Basketball- My favorite Sport

Author: Jonatha A. Brown
Illustrator: Tammy West
Publisher: Weekly Reader Early Learning Library
Copyright: 2005
ISBN #: 0-8368-4338-X
Genre: Non-Fiction
Library Location: East Branch Library- Amarillo
Summary: This book is all about basketball. It explains the
fundamentals of basketball as well as the history of basketball and who created the game. It
introduces the point system and how you can score one, two, or three point and from where on
the basketball court. This book also explains how you can use the backboard to help you make a
basket, and how not to foal the opposing team. It goes through the layout of the basketball court
and what each line on the basketball court represents. This book also hits the different leagues of
basketball that are available to all basketball players from kid leagues all the way to the National
Basketball Association.
Personal Comments: Overall, this book explaining basketball is well written and well
explained. The pictures used to describe certain aspects of basketball were well taken and well
demonstrated. The only complaint I would have is that this book did not explain all the aspects of
basketball, like the different positions of basketball such as the point guard or post. It also did not
explain the quarters of basketball and the time each quarter has. However, all that can be
explained outside the book verbally and in a live demonstration. This book did have some great
information in it; you will just have to add the aspects the book did not hit on.
Suggested use in the classroom: This book would be a great way to introduce basketball at the
beginning of the basketball unit. It does a great job explaining the basic needed at an elementary
level. If you use it for the secondary level, you will have to add some basics to your lesson that
the book does not cover, such as the positions in basketball. You could have the students do a live
demonstration of basketball as you explain and elaborate what they are doing step by step. You
could also break down the fundamentals and have the students practice each, such as using the
backboard to help the basketball go into the basket. However, you will need to first, go through
how the proper way to shoot the basketball.

Title: The Magic School Bus Plays Ball

Author: Joanna Cole
Illustrator: Art Ruiz
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Copyright: 1997
ISBN #: 0-590-92240-8
Genre: Fiction
Library Location: East Branch Library- Amarillo
Summary: The Magic School Bus Plays Ball is about Ms, Frizzle and her students when they go
on another field trip. This time they go inside a book as their field trip. In the book they run
across a baseball field that has no friction. The students try to attempt to play baseball, but have a
hard time due to the lack of friction. They learn how important forces play in the area of sports
and how they act on the baseball after it gets hit and how forces act on them as players. They
encounter several obstacles that prevent them from getting back to the playground at their
school. When they finally get back, they play a game of baseball and see what an important role
forces play in the game.
Personal Comments: I think that this book is a fun way to introduce forces and how they play a
role in physical education. It explains why we need forces such a friction here on earth to help us
with different sporting events. I think is uses great examples of baseball to explain this. Such as
when the batter hits a ground ball, the grass plays the role of the force slowing it down so you
can get the ball, also the force of swinging the bat. Forces can be used to help you in sports in
many ways. You just have to know when to apply them.
Suggested use in the classroom: You could use this book as a fun introduction to any outside
sport or even in science on a unit about forces. This book demonstrates how you can use other
subjects to help you with any sport or activity. A great activity to use with your physical
education class that demonstrates the important of force in an activity would be tug-a-war.
Pointing out which team exerted more force on the rope. Another great activity that the kids
would enjoy is a game of kick ball. In kick ball you can have the kids point out how forces play
against the ball.

Title: Olympics!
Author: B.G. Hennessy
Illustrator: Michael Chesworth
Publisher: The Penguin Group
Copyright: 1996
ISBN #: 0-670-86522-3
Genre: Non-Fiction
Library Location: East Branch Library- Amarillo
Summary: This book describes the history behind the Olympic
Games. As well as the different events athletes around the world can
participate in. It runs through what happens during the Olympic Games and what it takes to get
ready for the worldwide event.
Personal Comments: I thought this book was a great book with a lot of fun and interesting facts
about the Olympic Games. There is so much that goes into every detail of this, every four year
event. This book offered great information on the history and where the Olympic Games came
from. To me, the Olympics are so much more than just sports; its about the world coming
together as one. There are so many events that take place at the Olympics at the same time, that
on television we only see parts of them. It is every athletes dream to make it to the Olympics and
is a great goal to have.
Suggested use in the Classroom: You can do so much with this book. You can structure
together an Olympic Games for your students and have the kids pick the sporting events they
participate in. You can even put together an opening and closing ceremony for your kids. Make a
torch, out of construction paper of course, to help bring the spirit of the Olympics to the gym.
Just make sure the events that are picked can suit every student. Give a couple days for the
students to practice before they compete and give them some instruction on how to do better at
the event.