Greetings PE Nation!
Today I discuss essential "Level Two" equipment additions to enhance any physical education program, highlighting nine versatile items that balance cost with educational impact.
• Cup stacking and bucket stacks serve multiple functions from dedicated stacking activities to targets for games
• Deck rings work as frisbees, collectible items, and ball holders
• Hockey/soccer nets provide clear goals and enhance game experiences
• Rubber "critters" add fun elements for throwing, catching, and creative play
• Parachutes engage students of all ages in collaborative movement activities
• Expanding your ball collection creates more skill-building opportunities
• Jump bands/Chinese jump ropes complement traditional jump rope units
• Scoops make catching accessible while remaining challenging for all ages
• Scooters provide unique movement experiences despite requiring careful safety instruction
Download the free Ultimate PE Equipment Checklist from the link in the show notes to guide your program building, and please take a moment to leave a five-star review to help grow our PE community!
Take care,
Dave
Please take 10 seconds to leave a review
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Episode Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Supersize Phys Ed podcast.
My name is Dave and today Iwant to up the notch a little
bit.
I want to up the level a littlebit of equipment we need to
acquire for our PE program.
So, without further ado, herewe go the level a little bit of
equipment we need to acquire forour PE program.
So, without further ado, herewe go.
(00:41):
All right, welcome in PE Nation.
I appreciate you listening intoday.
So if you listen to the firstepisode, I'm going to make three
on this of essential PEequipment you need for your
program.
I'd say level one, which is thelast podcast, is debatable.
You don't have to have allthose things.
But as we get to levels two andtwo today and three in the next
(01:05):
podcast of the series, it'smore debatable.
I mean, you could definitelysay, well, I don't need that,
it's cool to have, but I don'tneed that.
Now, level one I think thoseare pretty basic things you need
and again, you can add to that,you can take away things from
that, whatever.
But you know, for the most partthose are things you need,
(01:25):
right, and if you haven'tlistened to that, please go back
and listen to it If you findthese podcasts valuable.
I hope you do, and I havearticles linked to these as well
.
And if you want the equipmentchecklist, that is a free PDF
that'll be in the show notes.
That is a free PDF, that'll bein the show notes.
So let's talk about this.
(01:45):
So you know, slow and steadybuilds a program.
Rome wasn't built in a day,right?
So you need to build yourprogram slowly and as the years
go by hopefully at the sameschool or not, but hopefully at
the same school you start tothink of new things you could
(02:06):
add to your program.
You know new things you couldadd for opportunities for your
students, you know, just to addthe fun and excitement and build
skills at the same time.
So again, level one is like thebasics.
Level two we're building anarsenal.
So again, we want to look forthings that are.
I always look for three things.
I look for things that arerelatively inexpensive.
(02:26):
They can serve multiplefunctions and they work well
with the number of students youhave.
I'm not going to buy thingsthat only serve one small group
of kids because I have a lot ofkids at a time.
I want to make sure that itworks for my program and you
(02:48):
know, we'll talk about grantsand things later on.
So if you don't have access togrants or a lot of money, you
want to obviously get the mostbang for your buck, right.
So this is where I startedbranching out though level two.
I started getting things thatyou know are new, exciting,
different, but can serve a lotof purposes.
So here we go as a boomer,let's go, let's go.
(03:10):
Nine things to add this islevel two to your program.
Here we go.
Number one are cups or and orbucket stacks, and I have both.
So cup stacking.
I started cup stacking I don'tknow 10 years ago or so, maybe
more, actually it was more and Ireally fell in love with it.
(03:33):
I really do enjoy it, and Ihave a cup stacking club.
I just started two years agoand I have some really great
students that want to get betterand better and better, and even
beginners that just want toparticipate.
So I definitely use Cupstackinga lot and I do those on rainy
days as well.
I'll bring them into aclassroom and we'll just
(03:54):
practice, or we can do it with alarge group and I'll just give
especially the younger kids,just give them three cups each,
and we'll do different patterns,do different ways of stacking,
and even the real way.
I'll show them the real way.
So cups and buckets, again alot of fun.
And I've seen, if you don'thave a budget, I've seen people
use, like you know, red solocups, which are fine, but
(04:17):
they're not.
They stick together.
They're not the same thing.
So if you have the means,definitely get some speed stacks
and bucket stacks as well.
Again, you can use Home Depotbuckets, but not exactly the
same.
So here's how I use them.
Again, not only on rainy days.
I use them on free days wherethey can just choose to build,
and that goes with cups andbuckets, and they do.
There's some kids that justthey don't want to play soccer
(04:39):
or hockey or basketball, theywant to just build with their
friends, and that's fine.
Basketball, they want to justbuild with their friends, and
that's fine.
So, definitely free days.
I use them as targets,especially the buckets.
They could throw them at thebuckets or in the buckets.
I also use the cups kind of as arandom choice color thing.
So sometimes in games where Ihave students go collect
(05:00):
treasure, which will be likebeanbags or deck rings with
different colors, and I'll say,okay, there's going to be, uh,
magic color or a secret color.
That's worth more points, likefive points versus one, and I'll
take the colors, like the justregular colors of the rainbow
kind of thing, put them behindmy back and shuffle them and
I'll pull one out and be like,okay, yellow, those are worth
(05:21):
five.
So just you know, it helps outwith picking colors, I guess
randomly.
And again, buckets I do otherthings with them, like they can
be for collecting things, likethey would have to fill the
bucket with something, or, again, building, tossing objects into
them as well as throwing them,you know, at them.
So I definitely get somebuckets and cups.
(05:43):
They're just a great addition.
They bring color, they bringlife, they bring building to
your program.
And that is number one.
Number two are deck rings.
Now, when I first startedteaching PE, I didn't even know
what deck rings were.
I saw them.
I'm like, what are these weirdrubbery things?
(06:04):
But they, as I've gotten togotten used to them, I'm like,
oh, these are kind of cool andthey're versatile.
You use them for a lot ofthings.
Uh, now I have a bunch of them,uh, and there's different sizes
, there's bigger ones.
I just have the regular onesand I have a lot of them, so you
know they're pretty safe.
No-transcript, you can kind ofuse them as a frisbee.
(06:47):
They're not that easy to throwlike a frisbee but just
practicing that way you can usethem as treasure, like I said in
the last one, to collect, likethey collect treasure and kind
of like Froot Loops.
There's a game with like theirFroot Loops and I also use them
to put basketballs or like thebrain balls I have on top of
them, like they're a ball holder.
So again, the more things youhave, the better, and the more
(07:10):
variety you have, the better.
And I think deck rings are justa great addition.
So that is number two.
Number three are hockey orsoccer nets, and my current
school had really no nets when Ifirst got there.
They had those little pop-upsoccer nets that are really
cheap and I thought that waskind of a tragedy.
(07:32):
Like they need, uh, they needsomething to be able to, you
know, attempt to shoot at or in.
So we use cones for the firstcouple months.
Um, they serve as goals and youknow they're fine, but it's
hard to tell if you score or notscore or whatever, with nets or
with cones.
So I did take some of my moneyin the beginning and bought two
hockey nets which served also as, like soccer nets on the court,
(07:56):
like futsal kind of game whereit's small soccer games, hockey
games, where it's small soccergames, hockey games.
And then after my first year,into my second year, I bought
another two more.
So I have four hockey netswhich serve as hockey and soccer
and I use them for a coupleother things too.
Like you know, when we do thecannon launchers, we could shoot
(08:18):
them into the nets.
You know things like that.
So they're versatile to somedegree.
Again, cones are okay, but netsare way better.
And that is number three.
Number four are critters.
Now I have real critters in myoffice.
It's kind of creepy and dingyand dark, but I'm not talking
(08:39):
about them.
I'm talking about the rubberones or sort of rubber ones.
I guess that you can use fordifferent things.
They're fun, right?
Critters are just fun.
You can throw them, catch them,put them on top of your
parachute to launch them, youcan collect them.
And in my current school Idon't have a lot.
(09:00):
I have rubber chickens and Ihave inflatable sharks and fish
which we use a lot for relayraces and just for kids to dance
with kind of thing.
But the smaller critters I usedto have, like rubber chickens,
I had fish, I had other animalsin my former school.
So I'm trying to build that upin my current school and they're
(09:22):
just more fun, especially thelittle kids.
They love playing withdifferent things and not just,
you know, the same ball everytime.
They want to do differentthings and it helps build skills
while having fun.
So definitely again, not a needbut definitely a cool thing to
have are just a bunch ofcritters.
Again, even just rubberchickens.
They're just hey, who doesn'tlove a rubber chicken, right?
(09:43):
So definitely work on that,work on acquiring more things.
Again, they're fun, kids lovethem, especially the little kids
.
So definitely get some critters.
And that is number four.
Number five are parachutes, oreven just one parachute.
So I have.
(10:03):
I did a video on this last year, I think in the beginning of my
last school year, during mypre-service week I started
counting all the parachutes Ihave at my current school and
I've never bought one.
They've been there for years, Ithink I count 13.
I have 13 parachutes ofdifferent sizes.
Most of them are medium tolarge, so I only use probably
(10:25):
the same two the past couple orpast few years, because I have
one that serves two classes at atime and one that serves one
class at a time, and I guess youjust can't have too many
parachutes.
I don't think so.
Also, smaller parachutes.
I have a few no-transcriptkindergarten through second
(11:09):
grade, but you know, third,fourth and even fifth, they like
to do it at least one time.
And I've noticed that about myfifth graders.
They'll want to do it one moretime before they go to middle
school and I'll tell them like,hey, besides, like summer camps,
you're probably not going to doparachute like in middle school
.
So give it a try, have fun.
We do like ball launches andthings where you know it's a
(11:31):
little competitive with theolder kids.
We do tag games, we do lots ofthings so, and we launch
critters, like I said, andinflatable fish into the orbit.
So definitely get a parachute,or 13 of them, who cares?
You know, just get a bunch.
Number six, I'm just gonna saya variety of balls.
(11:53):
So in my first article I listedtennis balls as like a top
priority, because you can getthose for no money if you get
them donated, which I have, youknow, and every kid can get one
when I'm doing like it's like arainy day, everything's wet
(12:14):
except we're under the pavilion,everybody gets a tennis ball
and we're doing different drillswith them.
So I look for things that are,again, multiple kids can have
more, every kid can have one.
But now I want to expand thatin level two.
Here I want to get footballs,soccer balls, basketballs,
volleyballs, kickballs, softyarn balls, orange hockey balls.
I mean there's all sorts ofthings you can get and some of
(12:35):
them serve multiple functions,like, yes, you can use tennis
balls for hockey balls.
Or yes, you can use I meanthere's some kind of
multi-purpose balls you coulduse to play different games.
So just add to your collection,add to your program, just keep
(12:56):
collecting more.
And I've said balls a lot.
So I'm going to keep going.
And that is number six.
Number seven are jump bands, orchinese jump ropes, and they are
a little different and I'm noteven sure if that's politically
correct to say that anymore.
I don't even.
I have no idea.
But um, yeah, that's what Ihave.
I have the chinese jump ropes.
(13:16):
There are also jump bands.
I actually just call them jumpbands.
Um, I don't know why.
I just I just do again, it'snot a necessity, it's just a
nice upgrade to your jump ropingunit.
There are bands that stretchout and fit around your
students' legs.
There's three levels.
There's ankles behind thestudents' ankles facing each
(13:37):
other two students.
Then you move up levels to yourcalf level and then behind your
knee.
Calf level and then behind yourknee and again they face each
other two students.
They stretch them out and thena third student hops in and
performs a set pattern or like afree jump kind of pattern.
And I'm lucky enough, I've hadthem in both my schools, so
(13:57):
they're just perfect for smallgroups.
Rainy days Again, your jumproping unit when we do our Kids
Heart Challenge, the stationsthey're just a really good
addition to that.
And yeah, that's it and that'snumber seven.
Number eight are scoops, and Iprobably should have put them
number one.
(14:17):
I didn't really put these inorder of importance, but of this
list I'd say these might be themost important because you
really should have scoops.
But of this list, I'd say thesemight be the most important
because you really should havescoops.
Again, they're like I don'tthink I really need to tell
anybody what scoops are, butthey're like a thing at the end
of a lacrosse stick with a shorthandle and you know we use
(14:37):
those a lot for especially thelittle.
You know younger kids get tolearn how to throw and catch.
They're easy to catch with it.
Sometimes I feel like the balljust finds the scoop Like I
don't know how.
And you know you can dodifferent things with it.
You can play different gameswith it.
You play self-toss games, grouptoss, partner toss, almost like
a lacrosse type game with theolder students.
(14:59):
You could toss into a bucket orthrow it at a target or even
toss it into a hoop.
So again, I'm not going tospend a lot of time on this, but
you should have scoops.
I mean, everybody loves scoopsand with the little ones they do
way better than you thinkthey're going to do.
So it's really fun to see that.
(15:19):
So that is number eight.
That is number eight.
The final one today.
Number nine are scooters, andscooters have been around
forever, but it doesn't mean youhave to use them.
At my former school I had a tonof scooters and we played them
quite a bit, where every kid in,let's say, one class got
(15:44):
scooters.
I think I even had two classes,two scooters at a time.
I one class got scooters.
I think I even had two classes.
I do scooters.
At a time I had so manyscooters and we played games
like tag and um basketball, likeyou could hook basketball nets
which we had to like on a poleon one on some of them.
They have to kind of shoot themin and you play crab soccer
with them or some kind ofpassing game with them.
So they're fun.
I don't think you have to havethem, though, like at my current
(16:06):
school.
I only have about 10 good ones,I think even less.
So I only bring them out onfield days or special occasions
like relay races.
Again, I just don't have thebudget for them.
I could write a grant for them.
I just I like them.
I don't love them.
Kids get hurt, as far as youknow.
You really got to teach how to.
You know kids bang theirfingers.
(16:27):
You got to teach them how tohold them really well and kids
fall off them.
They bump into each other.
Again.
It's funny.
Then You're like well, why didyou put this on the list?
Because I think it's importantto have these experiences.
I think kids need to have someexperience on scooters, just for
fun and just because it's oneof those childhood games, but I
don't use them very often, Ijust so.
(16:48):
I think you should probablyhave some and give them the
experience.
But you know, make sure youteach them how to use them well,
and you know you don't wantpeople getting hurt.
So again, that's number nine.
Definitely not a necessity, butscooters are number nine.
And now it is time for yourcowbell tip of the day.
All right, so your tip of theday is to think of the things
(17:16):
you can use to expand yourprogram and hopefully this list
helps you get some ideas if youdon't already have some of these
things.
And I would definitely say,download a free copy of my
Ultimate PE Equipment Checklistthat has levels 1, 2, and 3 on
it.
And you know my word isn't likethe ultimate, you know final
(17:36):
word on this thing.
I definitely want you tocontact me or reach out to me.
If you think there's somethingI should add or take off or
something you just don't thinkis that important.
I'd love to hear from you.
So definitely do that, get thechecklist and think about things
you'd add to your program.
And that is your cowbell tip ofthe day.
(18:06):
Thank you everybody for tuningin today.
I really do appreciate it, asalways, go to supersizefizadcom
for more information or checkout the links and articles and
things I put in the show notes.
But I do have one thing for youto maybe do something different
, something new.
I don't often ask for this, butif you could take a I mean it
takes like I don't know fiveseconds I put 10 seconds in the
(18:27):
show notes to just click on thelink and give me a hopefully
five-star review.
If this gives you value, um, itdoesn't take long at all, just
a star rating or add a review.
It just helps grow the program,grow the podcast, and I'd love
to reach out to more PE teachersnot students, but PE teachers
(18:47):
around the globe and just keepthis movement going.
So I do thank you, as always,for listening in and if you
could help us out, that'd begreat.
So, pe Nation, have a great dayweek, weekend and it's still
summer for me when I'm recordingthis and let's keep pushing our
profession forward.
Thank you.
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