Instructor: Tony Ledenko

Grade Level: 6th-8th

Curriculum Gymnastics:

Gymnastics should be an integral part of the school physical education curriculum, offered from primary school levels through secondary school levels, the values that me from participation are abundant: strength, flexibility, balance, endurance, kinesthetic, agility, self-discipline, coordination, self-confidence, and perseverance.  All skill competencies will serve as self testing activities for students to monitor their abilities and progressions.  In gymnastics, students compete against themselves, allowing for the development of competitiveness before, during, and after class.  Gymnastics should aim beyond the EALRs benchmarks; thus, ensuring its future in all public physical education curriculums.  As a physical education and gymnastics instructor the aims for my curriculum follows:

1.  To increase and maintain total fitness for American youth, applying to moral, mental, and physical fitness.

2.  To increase the degree of student mastery in the basic locomotor, manipulative, and non manipulative
     movements related to gymnastic activity; to serve as a foundation for the wide variety of skills needed for
     more advanced levels of competition.

3.  To aid in the development of students social and affective efficiency by establishing an atmosphere, where
     students can participate and cooperate with each other, without resolving conflicts by verbal or physical
     conflict.

Gymnastics provides the basis for which the parameters of movement can be implemented, explored, and enhanced.  The value of gymnastics in my curriculum lies not so much on the proficiency of learning many skills as in the competency of the fundamental skills, which serve as vital in preparation for the learning of progression movements.  Involvement in gymnastics allows for participation in many fundamental skills including running, jumping, twisting, turning, hanging, swinging, balancing, rolling, and vaulting.  Through the combination of these skills, my students will learn how to combined movements for routine purposes.  In the preparation for learning progressive skills, these basic movements will provide the foundation for advanced tumbling classes.