Moving and feeling good
Alberta combines physical education with health and wellness. In Grade 1 that means noticing what exercise does to your own body, the words that keep a friendship going, saying what you are and are not comfortable with, and the beginning of money having a value.
What Alberta asks for by the end of Grade 1
The subject: Physical education and wellness
- Notice the changes in the body that come from being active.
- Move safely through space in different ways during activity.
- Practise the words and actions that support friendship.
- Look at how decisions get made when choosing food.
- Practise ways to express, request, obtain or refuse consent about personal boundaries.
- Money has value and purpose in everyday living.
Consent appears here every year from Kindergarten onwards, in age-appropriate form. In Grade 1 it is about asking, accepting the answer, and knowing that your own answer counts too.
The words, first
These are the terms a teacher will use at a parent interview, defined before anything below uses them.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Exertion | How hard the body is working. In Grade 1 the evidence is a faster heartbeat, warmer skin and heavier breathing. |
| Personal space | The space around a person that is theirs. Different people want different amounts, and asking is allowed. |
| General space | The whole area everybody is moving in. Moving safely means watching both at once, which is genuinely hard at six. |
| Locomotor movement | Moving from one place to another: running, skipping, galloping, hopping. As opposed to moving on the spot. |
| Consent | Asking, and accepting the answer. At six this is hugs, tickling, borrowing and sharing. |
| Boundary | What a person is and is not comfortable with. “I don't want a hug right now” is a complete reason on its own. |
| Value | What a coin is worth, which is not the same as how big it is. The dime is the smallest coin and worth twice the nickel. |
| Spend, save, share | The three things money can do. Grade 1 meets the idea; later grades make decisions with it. |
One way
Quarter
25¢
Another way
Dime
10¢
Nickel
5¢
Nickel
5¢
Nickel
5¢
What to do at home
- Feel your own heartbeat — Before running and after. The outcome is noticing the change, and a hand on the chest is enough.
- Play a stopping game — Freeze dance, red light green light, musical statues. Stopping your body on purpose in a room full of people is the spatial-awareness outcome.
- Name the friendship words — “Can I play?” “Your turn.” “I'm sorry.” Friendship is a skill with a script, and the script can be practised.
- Ask before you tickle — And stop the first time. That is what makes the word work later.
- Let them pay — Hand over the coins and take the change. Money has value is an outcome that a till does better than a worksheet.
- Talk about the food choice, not the food — Why did we pick this one? Cost, time, how it makes you feel. The outcome is decision making, not nutrition rules.
Sheets you can print for this
- Make the amount — circle the coins
The expectations above are paraphrased from Alberta Education's New K–6 curriculum fact sheets, which publish a snapshot of each grade rather than the complete program of studies. Alberta's full programs are at alberta.ca/curriculum.