Physical Activity Lesson Plan #1

This is a great lesson to help students with dribbling and passing which also helps with sharing and that is super important for students to learn.

Card Sharks Basketball Passing

Grade: 3rd – 5th 

Length of Activity: 20-40 minutes

Objective: Students will practice bouncing and passing a basketball with a partner.

Materials:

• 1 deck of playing cards
• 1 basketball for every pair of students
• Open area; outdoors or basketball court/gym preferable.

Modeling:

• Inform the students that the activity will help the students practice their bounce and chest passes with a basketball.
• Have two students volunteer to demonstrate a correct bounce and chest pass to the class.
• Explain to the students that they will be using a deck of cards to determine the type of pass that they are going to perform with their partner.
• Explain what each card means for them:
  • Show the students each card while explaining what each card means.
  • Black card = bounce pass
  • Red card = chest pass
  • 10 of Spades = 10 bounce passes
  • King of Hearts = 13 chest passes
  • Ace of Clubs = 1 bounce pass
  • Joker = 20 dribbles
  • To check for understanding, draw random cards and have the students recite what action is related to the card. Repeat until students understand what each card means.

Activity:

• Teacher will split the class into pairs.
  • Have the pairs spread out around the room/area, and make sure there is enough space between each pair.
  • For students with physical disabilities, have the gap between the pair be close enough for comfort and ability to perform the activity.
  • Teacher will walk around the room/area with a deck of cards and verbally say the card being drawn which showing the card to the students. If students do not know what action to do, the teacher can remind them what action to do.
  • Have the students practice the action for 30-45 seconds. Have a timer go off so the students are aware that they will be moving on to another action.
  • Summative Assessment:
    • Walk around the room/area and ask the students if they are able to do each pass with ease. 
    • If students are having a hard time with a pass, have the pair shorten their distance between each other so that they aren’t far away from each other. Have the students practice the pass until they are able to do it with ease. Once the students are able to do it easily, have them step back further away from each other.
  • Continue activity until there are no more cards in the deck.

End of Activity Debriefing:

• Formative Assessment:
  • Have the students come together as a whole class and sit down with you.
  • Have the students give a self-assessment via hand signals:
    • Thumbs up – I can do a GREAT bounce pass and chest pass.
    • Thumbs in middle – I can do an OKAY bounce pass and chest pass.
    • Thumbs down – I need MORE PRACTICE doing bounce passes and chest passes.

Purpose: This physical education activity correlates to the National Health Education Standard (NHES) 4 – Interpersonal Communication: Students will demonstrate the ability to use interpersonal communication skills to enhance and avoid or reduce health risks. (Telljohann et al, p. 207). Within this health standard, students are expected to use appropriate verbal/nonverbal communication strategies in an effective manner to enhance health or avoid/reduce health risks. The standard also expects students to use appropriate skills, such as negotiating, refusing, eye contact, body language, and attentive listening. 

With this activity, students are engaging in a physical activity with a partner. With their partners, they are communicating with each other using verbal and nonverbal communication, as well as using eye contact, body language, and attentive listening. As a new card is being drawn, one of the students, or both, might say verbally what passes they will be doing, which requires attentive listening and verbal communication. Before passing the basketball to their partners, they would need to have eye contact from each other so that they know when the other student is ready to receive the pass. 

Relation to Health Unit: A health unit that this activity can relate to would be about muscles and strength. As the students learn about the different muscle groups in our bodies, they would relate the physical activity of passing the basketball to the muscles being used. Also, the students would note that they are building their strength as they continue to practice their passes. 

” I really like your lesson plan! I think that it is perfect for the age group and that your UDLifying definitely facilitates those learners as well. Your assessment is simple, but affective. What are other ways you can assess the students as well? Maybe a demonstration of their new skills? Great work overall! 🙂 “

-Michelle Espinoza

“Really like this lesson plan! I think it’s fun and the kids would enjoy it.  The ULDifying of your lesson was great too- I especially liked that you incorporated visuals by showing the students what each card means as you’re talking  about it.  Definitely benefits those students who need more visuals or EL students.”

-Mathea Turkalj

“I really like this lesson plan and sounds like the kiddos would really enjoy this activity. I think the UDLs you came up with are great and would be really beneficial to students who need that differentiation. I think to differentiate even deeper you can have different size balls that could help a student cannot hold a bigger ball and might make it easier for them to catch. Another suggestion would to create the cards out of 8×11 paper instead of using the small cards so that the students can see what card you are pulling easier and can be seen from further away.”

– Monica Ardanuy