Earn Your Home School Physical Education Credit

Home school physical education or P.E. can be as complex or simplistic as you like. Many homeschool activities qualify as components of a home school physical education program.

I have had the privilege of living and home educating in three different states and have never been required by law to complete any specific skills or curriculum for this subject area.

Our Home School Physical Education Experience

Here are some of the ways we have creatively fulfilled our P.E. requirement:

1. Fun Physical Fitness for the Home, by Sono Sato Harris - This was the first resource I ever purchased for fitness ideas with our children. It is a delightful book that easily helps you to get your children moving and having lots of fun. (If I may share this, I had the pleasure of hearing her speak at a conference in Anaheim, CA. I had previously heard and enjoyed her husband, Gregg, speak at conferences. But, she was phenomenal as a speaker and source of encouragement to her listeners. We mourn with her family at their loss.>
2. President's Physical Fitness Challenge - I originally sent for this information when I was still teaching in the public schools but quickly saw that it was something I could use with our children, too. It has the work already done for you as far as minimum requirements for certain fitness challenges. You earn recognition for your performances and accomplishments.
3. Tae Bo with Billy Blanks- These exercise and workout videos demonstrate aerobic exercise routines that combine Tae Kwon Do, karate, boxing, ballet, and hip-hop dancing set to fast-paced music. All I know is that our children had a blast and were motivated by Blanks to keep pushing themselves. It was great to see them having so much fun they didn't even see it as work. We just added it to our daily homeschool lesson plans.
4. YMCA Family Membership - Now, this has been another really terrific investment that we have made into our family and homeschool. We have used their program for swimming lessons, Youth Training courses, Pilates, Women Only sessions for me, and even Zumba! The entire family benefits from this one.
5. Individual Sports - Competitive figure skating, trampoline and tumbling, recreational gymnastics, soccer, and basketball are some of the sports that our children have participated in. All of these required consistent practice and conditioning exercises in addition to the work they did with their particular team or club.

A Few Other Options

We also purchased a large trampoline for our backyard which our children and grandchild enjoy tremendously. We didn't have to tell them, "Go outside and jump on the trampoline!" They immediately took to it and it has been one of our best purchases ever.

We purchased an Xbox system with the Kinect device after my husband saw a demonstration at Best Buy. He was so impressed that he came back home to pick up a few children and return to the store for a trial run. Once he was convinced that they would use it, he got them a system for the sports games. Occasionally, he uses it too.

We have also used YouTube videos to do family exercises in our Great Room as part of our home school physical education program. YouTube is great because you never tire of their many selections.

One of the many homeschooling benefits is our freedom to choose what works best for our family and the way in which to do things. One or none of these suggestions may appeal to you or you may have other ideas for your home school physical education. Just remember to keep it fun and keep moving.

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