Head outdoors, individualize instruction, and use innovative ideas—three great features of an excellent physical education class. Covid-19 may now push us a little to even greater places. Try to focus less on what you cannot do in a pandemic environment and focus more on how you can enhance the educational experience for all students. As we attempt to balance education and infection control, this is certain to be a learning experience for us all. To help guide us, experts have gathered a living document on the PHE Canada website called “Covid-19 Pandemic: Return to School Canadian Physical and Health Education Guidelines.”

Try to focus less on what you cannot do in a pandemic environment and focus more on how you can enhance the educational experience for all students.

Where do we best do physical education? PHE Canada’s guidelines recommend: “Use outdoor spaces and parks as much as possible.” When that is not possible and a gym must be used, the guidelines stress it is important to maintain physical distancing (two meters or six feet apart) as much as possible and open the doors to maximize airflow. If you have a small indoor space to have students active in, then some students will need to be playing while others are on the side. Students on the side will need to be spread out:

• Consider putting tape or some spot identification on walls to spread students out.
• Students on the sides can be on teams that are playing and pass any balls that go to the sidelines.
• Develop a circuit of exercise stations, and when most of the non-playing students have completed their station, the students rotate or switch with players active in the playing area.

In terms of equipment, the PHE Canada guidelines suggest the following:

• Focus on activities that do not use equipment.
• If equipment must be used:

• Avoid sharing equipment by numbering and assigning each student their own supplies.
• Assemble individualized P.E. kits that can be assigned to students.
• Have students create their own P.E. kits to use at home or at school and set aside a budget for additional kits to be purchased.
• Make sure the equipment has been properly disinfected after each use and has not been touched after disinfection.
• Anticipate equipment hygiene compromises and keep extra equipment on hand so that instructional time is not lost to re-cleaning equipment.

establish a disinfection routine that includes students in order to make that process happen more quickly and so students also learn to leave equipment in the right condition for the next set of users.

I also encourage teachers to establish a disinfection routine that includes students in order to make that process happen more quickly and so students also learn to leave equipment in the right condition for the next set of users.

What are some examples of how we can do the above? In team games, one way might be to set up teams of four against four where players must stay in their defined areas, as shown in the diagram below. All the games must require passing via some kind of handheld equipment or by using feet. Using Figure 1, you could set up participants to play soccer this way with the X players attempting to knock down the pins to the diagram’s left, and the O players attempting to knock down the pin to the diagram’s right. Knocking down pins, rather than having a goalie, reduces hand-to-hand contact of the equipment. The alternative, if goalies are preferred, is for goalies to have their own goalie gloves. A similar format could also be used for sports like broomball, field hockey, or floor hockey. Ultimate frisbee will not work because players are touching the same disc. However, ultimate frisbee rules, with some defining of individual player spaces, could be done with scoops or lacrosse sticks. A new sport, you.fo, could also be engaged in with rules of ultimate frisbee.

Many target games provide pandemic-safe activities. Disc golf and variations are excellent for outdoors and lifelong pursuits. Using a permanent course is excellent, but portable targets also work well. To lessen virus spread, players just need to contact any part of the target (does not necessarily need to land in the basket). If there are no “official” targets, set up a course with specific trees, posts, or other objects acting as targets. Discs can be used, but so can a wide assortment of balls that can be thrown or kicked.

A couple of my favorite target games involve players rolling a Hula-Hoop so that it lands on top of a cone. This game can be done slowly with players taking turns or as a race where players roll their hoops as quickly as possible, run to pick them up, and roll them again.

Of course, the simplest way to go is to engage students in activities requiring no equipment. Obviously, running a cross-country course is one such option (individual heart monitors can help students know if they are working too hard or not hard enough). Dance only requires music and students distancing safely from each other. It seems to me there are two main options with dance: one is to have all students follow a leader (teacher or students) through specified steps, and another is to allow for creative movement through a story or simple commands that guide students through a sequence of exploring a simple body cue/command (lift your knees and stomp your feet), to activating the brain (explore stomping in different directions), to an imaginative being stage (imagine stomping around like an elephant). There are also many games that require no equipment and keep safe distancing (quick-thinking games like Simon Says; numeracy games like Even and Odd with Wall Sit and Run; 21 Pilots; and a variety of Rock, Paper, Scissors games in which players keep their distance.

Net games will also work with some creativity. Volleyball works if a pair of players hold either end of a towel or several players hold small parachutes to catch and toss the ball with. Pickleball, badminton, and tennis all work if players use balls/birds of different designs or with different colors so that each player knows which ball/bird they can pick up with their hands and which they should kick or flip (with the use of the racquet) to their opponent.

One way to reduce time disinfecting equipment is to provide individualized kits for each student. I think a piece of chalk is probably the key piece of equipment. Chalk can be used to draw out games or ladders (or more complicated ladders like hop-scotch, where players jump and hop through the squares and also use manipulative-sending by tossing to targeted spots). Once ladders and games have been added to school pavement, students will actively and creatively play with these designs before and after school as well as during recess breaks. For kits that I like, adding a ball and a racquet is also helpful, and for the older students a stretch band. This equipment can be safely engaged in at home, either solo or with others in their family bubble.

How to plan a lesson? For me, first, I would begin by having students enter the P.E. space by going for a little run, completing some ladder challenges, doing an RPS Squat combative, or engaging in a warm-up game related to the lesson goals. Then, gather the students to explain the outcomes you are shooting for in this lesson. Second, I would engage students in short activities that reinforce my learning outcomes. Third, I might then move into a slightly longer game (with small groups of students to maximize equipment contact, encourage safe distancing, and further engage students in my learning outcomes). During the pandemic I think I would engage students in several different activities during this time. Finally, I would end the lesson by gathering the students for a time of closure and debriefing on our learning outcomes.

Teaching P.E. during a pandemic is not easy, but it can be refreshing for us and our students as we push ourselves to be more involved in the outdoors, construct learning experiences that are engaged in individually or in small groups (enhancing equipment contact and learning for all students), and involve the students more in their learning and their care of each other and the equipment.For more information about the games and materials discussed here, visit canadago4sport.com and gophersport.com.

Note: This article also appears in the Spring 2021 edition of Runner, Health and Physical Education Council (a specialist council of the Alberta Teachers Association).

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John Byl, PhD, is the Canadian Gopher Educational Consultant, was president of CIRA Ontario (2003–18), and is a retired professor of physical education at Redeemer University in Ancaster, Ontario (1986–2014). Dr. Byl has authored or coauthored over thirty books. He is the winner of several professional awards, including the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for promoting physical activity across Canada, and he regularly leads workshops across Canada. He has a special interest in promoting fun, active participation for all children and developing and maintaining personal wellness. Find out more information from his website: www.canadago4sport.com