A description of the development of movement by infants covers prenatal influences, gravity influences, sensory aspects of motor skills, deformities and deviations in the developmental sequence, and ways to assist infants with abnormal development patterns. (CB)

Planned physical education experiences should be an integral part of the preschool or kindergarten curriculum to: foster normal motor development, take advantage of children's readiness to develop and practice motor skills, fulfill children's need and desire for movement, and develop fundamental motor patterns. (CB)

A variety of educational gymnastics, games, and sports tasks geared toward young children are described. They focus on jumping, taking weight on various body parts, large apparatus movement, ball skills, striking skills, throwing and catching skills, and travelling with a ball. Suggestions are also presented regarding the preschool handicapped…

Details are presented regarding the essential elements of an effective early childhood physical education curriculum. Components include movement awareness, fundamental locomotor skills, fundamental nonlocomotor skills, fundamental manipulative skills, and health-related fitness. (CB)

The movement concept approach to teaching elementary physical education provides challenges that require children to use all their resources to respond, enhancing total development through cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. Worksheets can help teachers determine whether movement concepts are being learned and generalized to other…

Core concepts of kinesiology are the basis of communication about movement that facilitate progression of skill levels. The article defines and exemplifies each of 10 core concepts: range of motion, speed of motion, number of segments, nature of segments, balance, coordination, compactness, extension at release/contact, path of projection, and…

Educational gymnastics uses a problem-solving approach to accommodate multiple correct solutions to open-ended movement problems in gymnastics. A four-stage framework is outlined to help teachers systematically increase and decrease task difficulty in educational gymnastics. Answers to common questions about educational gymnastics are provided.…

This paper describes two practical assessment procedures that enable teachers to use time more efficiently in physical education class. One approach is for teachers who want to use validated or invalidated skills tests, and the other approach takes advantage of instructional progression steps. (SM)

Researchers examined procedures for collecting data on students' competency in two fundamental motor skills, criteria for assessing skill proficiency, and results across several grades. They task-analyzed videotapes of students' performance and determined that most students did not meet criterion expectations associated with an advanced form for…