What would happen if students were challenged to take control of their fitness journey from a young age? Are there ways to make physical literacy accessible and exciting to elementary students? Physical Education teacher Laura Hunt is tackling these questions with an original fitness curriculum created for students in grades three to five. 

In addition to having a master's degree in K-12 physical education, Hunt is a Certified Personal Trainer (CPT) through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM). Being a personal trainer has shown her the importance of developing essential fitness skills at a young age. “My big thing is you want to be strong for life,” she explains. "Think of how many times you squat down and have to get back up. Think of, as you get older, how critical your balance is so you don’t fall down. There’s a lot of reasons to stay fit that connect to your daily life." 

Integrated Fitness Program

With this in mind, Hunt developed the Integrated Fitness Program at Falk to target four crucial fitness areas: core; balance; strength/endurance; and speed, agility, and quickness (SAQ). Each class period, the students rotate through fitness stations for three-minute intervals. For guidance, they watch an instructional slide with a suggested number of sets and repetitions and a GIF to model that station’s exercise. After the rotations, the students transition to creative tag games, cooperative challenges, and sports skills, including everything from Harry Potter tag to badminton.

Although the students don’t know this, Hunt designed the year-long curriculum to follow a progression. First, the students work toward building stabilization, then endurance, strength, and, finally, power. She also incorporated mini lessons into the curriculum to teach students about muscle groups like the core. That way, she explains, “they have a better understanding of what they’re working with in their body.” 

One of the biggest challenges of the program, Hunt says, is the set-up and clean-up time required for the drill stations, but the students have rallied to make it work. When a class finishes their 12-minute rotation, they immediately start cleaning up to prepare for the day’s main activity. Then at the end of class, they set the drills back up for the students coming in after them—a courtesy that aligns with Falk's Wish #10 for Our Children, “to be aware of the space around them and share in its maintenance.” 

Building Students’ Strength and Confidence

Many of the class’s fitness program activities—pushups, planks, and squats, for example—are carried over from Hunt’s time in personal training, but she also tailors her plans to the students, choosing what she thinks will excite or empower them the most.  

“I think Ms. Hunt’s core exercises and arms exercises are really good,” one fifth-grader says, while others enjoy running and jumping for ladder drills or challenging themselves with strength training. 

The program is also designed to promote autonomy by allowing students to take things at their own pace. “They get to be in control of the fitness themselves,” Hunt explains. “If I say 10-20 reps, and they can only do 5—maybe they’re not feeling well, maybe they just couldn’t do it—they do 5. They have the choice.” 

“I like the way we can take a break when we need to,” another fifth-grade student shares. “If you can’t do a certain thing, you can always ask Ms. Hunt to help you.” At the same time, students have enjoyed pushing themselves to achieve things they never knew they were capable of. “I think they really like challenging themselves with this stuff,” Hunt says. “They’re not complaining, they’re not trying to sit out—they're doing it.” 

In addition to supporting Falk’s Wish #1 for Our Children—“to understand that any learning endeavor depends primarily on them”—this setup has also led to a significant increase in student confidence and engagement, particularly for those who haven’t historically enjoyed PE class. 

Students have even begun recognizing the connection between fitness training and functional daily living, one of Hunt’s primary motives for introducing the program. The other day, “there were three girls carrying a big, giant box of books to the library, and I happened to be walking past,” Hunt says, “and they were like, ‘Look, Ms. Hunt, we’re using our core!’” Another student, in fourth grade, recently shared that his favorite part of the program is “it gives you strength for when you’re older.” 

Supporting Falk’s Mission and Values

One of Falk’s goals as a laboratory school is to encourage faculty to engage with innovative curriculum design. Hunt says this freedom allowed her to experiment with a physical literacy program at the elementary level despite it being absent from most traditional curricula until at least high school. At any other school, Hunt says, “I’d be stuck with something like, ‘you’ve gotta meet this standard, you’ve gotta meet this standard.’ The thing about teaching at Falk is you do have the flexibility; you can go off the interest of the kids, and these kids are interested in this.” 

Another unique aspect of the program is the widespread collaboration with other adults in the building. Elementary Division Director Autumn Dillaman, for instance, helped create the template that Hunt uses to display the instructions for each day’s exercises.

Then, in addition to featuring GIFs of students (who are ever eager to be recorded, get their form checked, and have the honor of appearing on a slide), Hunt began including footage of Falk’s teachers and even its director, Jill Sarada, carrying out the exercises. That way, “students will also see that the adults in the building are into fitness,” Hunt says, showcasing Falk's commitment to lifelong learning and authentic student-teacher engagement. 

The Integrated Fitness Program also reflects Falk’s Wish #18 for Our Children, “to engage in physical activities that become meaningful in their lives.” As Hunt puts it, "Now they know [these skills] for a lifetime. They’re ahead of the game in terms of fitness.”