Moving and feeling good
Grade 2 adds the idea of a decision to almost every wellness outcome: how hard to work, what to eat, when to say yes or no, and what to do with money you have.
What Alberta asks for by the end of Grade 2
The subject: Physical education and wellness
- Take part in activities needing different levels of exertion and energy.
- Use a movement skill from one activity in a different activity.
- Reflect on how personal relationships are kept up or made stronger.
- Look at recommendations from food guidelines to support decisions about eating.
- Decisions for safety include requesting, obtaining, giving or refusing consent.
- Decisions about money include how much to spend, save and share.
Consent has been here every year since Kindergarten, and in Grade 2 it becomes explicitly a decision with four parts: asking, getting an answer, giving one, and refusing. All four are practised.
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. Grade 2 notices the difference between easy, moderate and hard, rather than only that it is tired. |
| Transfer of skill | Using something learnt in one activity somewhere else — throwing in baseball and in basketball, balance in skating and on a bike. |
| Relationship | A connection between people that is kept up by what both of them do. The outcome is about the maintaining. |
| Food guideline | A published recommendation, such as Canada's Food Guide. It is advice to weigh rather than a rule to obey. |
| Consent | Asking, and accepting the answer. Four parts in Grade 2: request, obtain, give, refuse. |
| Spend, save, share | The three things money can do. The Grade 2 outcome is about deciding how much goes to each. |
Spend
Use it now, on something you want.
Save
Keep it for something bigger later.
Share
Give some to someone else, or to a cause.
What to do at home
- Notice three levels — Walking, jogging, sprinting. Ask which one the body is doing and how it can tell.
- Name the transfer — “That is the same balance as on the bike.” Skills transfer far better when somebody points it out.
- Ask what keeps a friendship going — Not what makes one. Grade 2's outcome is about maintaining, which is the harder half.
- Read a food label together — Guidelines are advice to weigh, and weighing it out loud is the outcome.
- Practise refusing and accepting — Both sides of consent. A child who has only practised asking has done half of it.
- Use three jars — Spend, save, share. Let them decide the split, and let the decision be theirs even when it is not the one you would make.
Sheets you can print for this
- Spend, save, share — deciding what to do with money
- How hard am I working? — three levels of exertion
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.