Using the Tandalay program

Tandalay PE Curriculum has been designed with particular principles in mind:

For the kids: keep them moving and having fun! If you just do those two things, you'll meet every standard for physical education. If the kids are moving they are: getting more fit; improving skill, coordination, and agility; becoming better "movers." If they are having fun, they will: develop a love of movement; be more likely to embrace fitness for a lifetime;  be more inclined to be active outside of school.

For the teachers: make teaching PE a joy, rather than an added (and sometimes dreaded) responsibility. We accomplish this by: minimizing (abolishing) prep time needed for our activities; pre-screening games and activities to make sure that they meet our standards for quality physical education; providing a plethora of easy-to-play games and activities, organized for maximum skill development and participation; minimizing the equipment needed per unit; providing a complete, standards-based comprehensive assessment program - with online class rosters, automatic reporting features and much more!

How to use our program:

We've divided our curriculum into three developmental levels (incidentally, they coincide with NASPE's classifications). We have a 30-week calendar of activities for grades K-2; 3-5; and 6-8.

Within these calendars, you will find 2-week Units. Each unit consists of 10 complete lesson plans (Monday - Friday X two weeks). Each of these lesson plans contains a warm-up, FOUR different activities or games, and a cool-down.

Each unit contains NASPE standards and benchmarks, and CA standards that have been designated for that unit. You will find each standard "unpacked" for you, ready to instruct, with a game or activity to help reinforce the standard you have just introduced. Assessment opportunities will be found throughout each unit, and you have complete access to our online assessment program which allows you to assess any or all of the standards addressed in each unit. You may generate individual or class reports for parents and administrators by unit or for multiple units. And of course, in Tandalay style - easy to use, easy to assess, easy to report, so that you can focus on PLAY!

We have far more activities included in each day's lesson plans than you will ever be able to get to! Our philosophy (for PE) is that more IS better! We like you to have options and back-up activities. Not all groups have the same dynamic. What works for one class, may not work as well for another. One group's favorite game might be another group's least favorite. We want you to be able to take your lesson plan outside with you and have more than enough activities to keep those students actively engaged and excited about moving for the entire time. Keeping your players ACTIVE and ENGAGED is your very best behavior management strategy! We want you to have enough games to play so that you can stop each activity while the students are still enjoying it! Don't wait until they get bored - give them another challenge before they even have a chance to think about misbehaving!

You might decide to take one of our two-week units and turn it into a four-week unit! That's great! If you have PE classes 2-3 days per week, you'll need to extend the unit to get the most out of it. The Pre-test and Post-test are still valid (perhaps even more-so), and you'll still administer those at the beginning and end of THAT unit.

Our calendars and weeks are more of a guideline and a format to put the lesson plans into than an absolute structure. In the Cooperative Games and Fitness Units, you can use the games in random order (for the most part). In the more sports-oriented units, we progress the activities throughout the 2 weeks, so that they are building skills as they go. The unit will flow more smoothly for you if you start at the beginning of those units and progress through. If you are teaching the younger group in your developmental level, you may want to teach the first week's activities only, and repeat them for skill development, rather than rushing through the entire unit.

We've organized our Calendars with sport seasons and variations between activities to keep things interesting for the students. There is no magic or mystery to it, and you may mix up and teach any unit at any time in any order that works for you. For example, if you are sharing a parachute with other classes or grade levels, simply have a sign-up sheet and play your parachute unit during your 2-week time slot. For those 2-weeks (or three or four!) YOU get to keep the chute in your room. Teachers can rotate units according to availability of equipment. We do not have a parachute unit included in grades 6-8, but we strongly encourage you to play the 3-5 unit with those older students. They'll LOVE it! You'll be surprised how much fun they have!

Mix-and-match grade levels. Feel free to explore other grade level calendars. Just because you're teaching fourth grade doesn't mean there aren't some GREAT ideas for you in the K-2 curriculum - or in the 6-8 curriculum. Some activities might be easily adaptable to work for various grades with some simple tweaks - or maybe even just as they are! Keep in mind - kids can usually follow the number of rules as they are grade: for example, a second grader will do great with a game that has two rules; a seventh grader can handle a more complicated game - with maybe seven rules. Kindergarteners can pretty much just follow the movement that you are demonstrating.

Standards and Assessments: If there are particular standards you'd like your class to hit, feel free to peruse our Assessment Lists for the various grade levels and select your next unit from there. If your class needs extra work in a particular area, feel free to perform specific activities that will develop the necessary skills, and to repeat them until they've achieved an acceptable level of mastery.

Favorites. Keep a list of your favorite activities handy. Don't be afraid to play them over and over. But- beware! There are a plethora of GREAT activities in this curriculum. Don't let the students control the games! They are working from limited experience. Their next favorite game might be in tomorrow's lesson plan! You might want to incorporate a "Favorite Friday" reward system. If the students do a good job during PE all week (or in the classroom), then they get to play their favorite games on Friday! (Please make sure they are selecting from a list of games that meet the criteria for QUALITY PE!).

Unit focus. We have considered many units for inclusion in our curriculum, and feel confident that the units we have chosen are the best choices for most PE programs. One of our main goals is to keep our program practical - another is to keep it safe. Our units and activities have been carefully selected with careful consideration for practicality and safety.

We have everything you need to know about teaching quality PE available in a nutshell for you. Please read our Tandalay Teaching Tips thoroughly before playing the games in our curriculum. We adhere to common sense principles that are not common practice. We've intentionally tweaked and changed games that you might be familiar with in order for them to meet our criteria. Teacher's often change them back to the traditional methods simply because they aren't grasping the philosophy behind the curriculum. We cannot encourage you strongly enough to read our activity selection criteria, philosophy, and teaching tips very carefully prior to playing our games. And PLEASE play them as they're written. Feel free to add variations and have students create rule changes and additions - but please do not change non-elimination games INTO elimination games - or our non-traditional relays into old-school first-team-finished-sits-down-relays!

We've carefully written each activity to include all participants all the time, to be non-intimidating, to create a safe atmosphere for all students to feel comfortable moving without fear of being judged or ridiculed. Please help us to promote this philosophy - help to promote JOY in movement, inspire CONFIDENCE in every player, and encourage a lifetime pursuit of HEALTH and FITNESS. The bottom line is this: if the students are moving, cooperating, and having fun, they are meeting EVERY physical education standard ever written! Experiencing movement makes better movers and increases skills; cooperation leads to better citizens and encourages respect for self and others; and having fun promotes the pursuit of health and fitness for a LIFETIME!!

Thank you for your commitment to keeping our children and youth healthy, active, and able to enjoy the POWER of POSITIVE PLAY!!!!

~tami~

a.k.a. "the p.e. lady"