Prepare students to be physically active throughout their lives
Students who use Fitness for Life: Middle School will:
- Learn about body composition and nutrition, aerobics, sports, recreation, flexibility, and muscle fitness, all with a focus on planning for active living
- Assess their own fitness levels and develop plans for improvement using short- and long-term goals
- Develop skills that help them build self-esteem, communicate effectively, deal with peer pressure, and handle other social concerns
- Learn how their bodies work so they can move more effectively and efficiently
The Fitness for Life: Middle School program was developed using the NASPE standards for physical education and is fully integrated with Physical Best and Fitnessgram®. It also prepares middle school students for advanced study at the high school level as part of the overall Fitness for Life program.
Components of Fitness for Life: Middle School
The Fitness for Life: Middle School program includes these integrated resources:
- The nation’s first personal fitness textbook for middle school students
- A companion Teacher’s Guide that features detailed classroom and activity lesson plans, teaching strategies and frameworks, flexible scheduling options, and ideas for skill-based activity units
- A CD-ROM of materials support the lesson plans, including student worksheets, classroom resources, rubrics, quizzes, and answer keys
- Supplemental online content that expands on each chapter in the student text
- Online content for teachers, including a test bank and helpful information for implementing the course
Fitness for Life: Middle School student text
Fitness for Life: Middle School is designed to be flexible enough to fit any schedule, including block and accelerated block. It can be taught as a semester or yearlong course with any configuration of days in the classroom or gym.
Every chapter of Fitness for Life: Middle School includes the following elements:
- Two classroom lessons per chapter
- Moving Together highlights social diversity (which addresses NASPE standard 5) by presenting a scenario, posing questions for discussion, and offering guidelines for dealing with that issue. Topics include effective communication, peer pressure, and other social issues
- Take It Home reinforces the concepts learned in the text, including those in the Moving Together section, and provides students with opportunities to explore and engage in physical activity outside of class—at their school, in their neighborhood, and in their community
- Biomechanical Principles discusses basic biomechanical principles, encourages students to apply the principles in a variety of movement settings, and suggests ways to explore the principles through physical activity
- Web Icons that lead students to vocabulary and supplementary materials on the Fitness for Life web site
- Chapter Review
Table of Contents
Unit I. Fitness and Activity for All
Chapter 1. Introduction to Physical Activity and Fitness
Chapter 2. Learning Skills for Enjoying Physical Activity
Chapter 3. Lifestyle Physical Activity
Unit II. Aerobics, Sports, Recreation, and Flexibility Exercises
Chapter 4. Active Aerobics
Chapter 5. Active Sports and Recreation
Chapter 6. Flexibility Activities
Unit III. Muscle Fitness, Body Composition, and Planning
Chapter 7. Muscle Fitness Exercises
Chapter 8. Body Composition, Physical Activity, and Nutrition
Chapter 9. Planning for Physical Activity
Samples from the student text
Introduction (download sample)
The Introduction to the student text highlights the organization of the book and explains the special features found in every chapter
Sample Lesson (download sample)
A complete classroom lesson from the student text.
Fitness for Life Middle School Teachers Guide with CD-ROM
The Fitness for Life Middle School Teacher’s Guide includes 45 basic lesson plans—five plans for each of the nine chapters of the student text. Each chapter contains two lesson plans for the classroom portion of the class and three activity plans that supplement and reinforce the classroom content. (Ideas for 45 supplemental physical activities are also described in the Teacher’s Guide, in addition to the 27 physical activity lesson plans.)
The Teacher’s Guide also addresses:
- NASPE standards
- Assessment rubrics
- Organizational protocols
- Options for scheduling
- Suggestions for incorporating other skill-based activity units into the lesson
- Instructions for using the other resources on the CD-ROM and web site, including the test bank
The bound-in CD-ROM provides:
- Reproducible worksheets and classroom resources to support each lesson plan
- Rubrics for assessment worksheets and physical education participation
- Answer keys for chapter and unit reviews in the student text
- Chapter and unit quizzes, with answer keys
- Motivational “classroom quotes” that tie in with each classroom lesson
- Answer cards for the Mount Fitness computer game featured on the Fitness for Life web site
Samples from the Fitness for Life Middle School Teacher’s Guide and CD-ROM
Following are samples from a typical classroom lesson from the Teacher’s Guide and related worksheets and resources from the CD-ROM
Lesson Plan (download sample)
Lesson plan 1.1—Introduction to Physical Activity
Worksheet (download sample)
Worksheets for lesson 1.1
Teacher Resource (download sample)
Teacher resources for lesson 1.1
Follow are examples of a typical physical activity lesson from the Teacher’s Guide and related worksheets and resources from the CD-ROM:
Lesson Plan (download sample)
Lesson plan 1.4—Biomechanics, Energy, and Force
Worksheet (download sample)
Worksheets for lesson 1.4
Teacher Resource (download sample)
Teacher resources for lesson 1.4
In addition to the lesson plans and supplemental materials, the Teacher’s Guide includes several introductory chapters that provide complete details for organizing and implementing the course. Those introductory chapters are provided in full right here so you can see for yourself how complete and flexible the Fitness for Life: Middle School program is!
Pedagogical Foundations (download)
Lesson Components (download)
Scheduling (download)
Portfolios and Assessment (download)
High-Tech Options (download)
