Movement Composition Pre-Assessment Task

First of all, a very Happy New Year to anyone reading this post. I wish you all the very best of luck and good fortune in your PE programs wherever you may be. 


I kick-started my movement composition unit today at Nanjing International School in China. To pre-assess I had the students do a number of different activities in order to get them really tuned into movement composition and all that this unit has to offer. 

I will briefly outline today's lesson plan and describe each step of the lesson. I will include video and example student assessment in the next blog. For today, I thought I would share the excellent thoughts and ideas that my grade 2 students came up with. 

In this lesson the students:

• Watched a You Tube synchronized swimming clip (Russian Olympic team performance)
• Discussed and shared ideas about what a routine is and what makes a good routine (I recorded their answers that you see in picture above
• Brainstormed a list of things that they can do in movement composition
• Partnered up and created a movement routine consisting of 6 different moves (with as much variety as possible)
• Recorded their moves on a pre-assessment sheet
• Practiced routines

Next class the students will:

• Practice their routines more (to a short piece of music)
• Perform mini-routines to their classmates

The learning goals that I had for my students today were just to get them tuned in to what a routine is and that movement composition allows for so many opportunities to express themselves. In no way shape or form was I assessing them on their ability to perform a specific movement composition related technique. The simple goals were for them to be able to explore, use their brains, and have fun!

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