Free Physical Education Curriculum

The American Council on Exercise offers a free physical education curriculum for elementary and middle school students (grades 3-8th).  The curriculum covers fitness and nutrition through full lesson plans that meet United States national standards. The lesson plans include objectives, handouts, questions, and full instructions.

Here is an example of what you’ll find in the free physical education curriculum:

To give you an idea of what’s in the PE curriculum, I just downloaded the free PE lesson plans for grades 6th-8th. Lesson 1 is about 23 pages long and takes about an hour to complete and includes:

Fitness Lesson 1:

• objective aligned with national standards
• items needed (nothing expensive; you likely have it around the house)
• lesson introduction/questions to ask students
• exercises, explained with full color photos
• activity cards to print & give the children
• student journal handout
• student activity log

Nutrition Lesson 1:

• objectives aligned with the MyPlate Food Guidance System (USDA)
• items needed (household items & vegetables)
• lesson introduction/questions to ask students
• handouts
• worksheets
• activity
• student food diary handout

How to access the free physical education lesson plans:

UPDATE: Unfortunately, the physical education lesson plan mentioned above is no longer available. Instead of sending you to the now ad-filled site, here are a couple of other options for those looking for a P.E. curriculum. Please let me know in the comments if you have other suggestions.

Here is a PDF on Physical Education from the Alabama State Department of Education. It has a list of suggestions for teaching P.E. to grades K through 12th.

An option for those teaching in the style of Charlotte Mason:

You may be interested in The Swedish Drill, a free ebook on physical education in Charlotte Mason’s style.

From our homeschool: We are an eclectic, child-led, bit-of-Charlotte-Mason family, so our children choose where to get their physical education.  One is on a city league basketball team, one exercises in his Civil Air Patrol meetings, one requests daily to kayak, and one takes ballet (she’s the ballerina in the graphic).