Moving and feeling good
Grade 4 wellness gets more grown-up: fitness is broken into parts that can each be trained, bullying is named as something everyone has a right to be free of, and puberty, credible information and spending decisions all arrive in the same year.
What Alberta asks for by the end of Grade 4
The subject: Physical education and wellness
- Take part in a variety of activities that build different parts of physical fitness.
- Combine the elements of movement in different physical activities.
- Everyone has the right to live in a healthy, safe and bully-free environment.
- Describe the changes that happen during puberty.
- Find credible sources of nutrition information and use them to make balanced food choices.
- Consent is about respecting other people's rights, feelings and belongings.
- Weigh a variety of factors when deciding how to spend money.
Puberty is new this year. Since September 2025, Alberta schools must tell parents at least 30 days before lessons that deal primarily and explicitly with human sexuality, and a child takes part only if a parent opts them in — ask the school how it is handling the puberty lessons, and whether you have been asked. Whatever the school does, children this age have questions, and a plain answer at home is worth more than any lesson.
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 |
|---|---|
| Components of fitness | The parts of fitness that can be trained separately: heart and lung endurance, muscle strength, muscle endurance, and flexibility. |
| Elements of movement | Body, space, effort and relationships: the words for how a movement is done. Grade 4 combines them. |
| Bullying | Hurting someone on purpose, again and again, when they find it hard to stop. It can be physical, spoken, social or online. |
| Bystander / upstander | Someone who sees bullying. An upstander does something about it — tells an adult, helps the person, refuses to join in. |
| Puberty | The years when a child's body changes into an adult's, usually starting somewhere between about 8 and 14. Everyone's timing is different, and all of it is normal. |
| Hormones | Chemical messengers in the body. At puberty they start the changes: growth, body hair, sweat and body odour, skin changes, and changes in feelings. |
| Hygiene | Keeping clean. Puberty is when daily showers and deodorant start to matter. |
| Credible source | Information you can trust because of who made it and why. A company selling a drink is not a credible source about that drink. |
| Canada's Food Guide | Health Canada's advice: half the plate vegetables and fruits, a quarter protein foods, a quarter whole grains, and water to drink. |
| Consent | Asking and getting a clear yes. In Grade 4 it extends to belongings: borrowing without asking is a consent problem. |
| Needs and wants | Things you must have, and things you would like. Grade 4 adds other factors: price, quality, how long it lasts, and what else the money could do. |
What to do at home
- Name the fitness part — “Skipping is heart and lungs; hanging from the bars is strength; the stretch after is flexibility.” Once the parts have names, a child can plan for each.
- Ask what an upstander would do — About a story, a show, or something at school. Having a plan before it happens is what makes it possible to act.
- Answer puberty questions plainly — Correct names, calm tone, short answers. A child who gets a straight answer at home stops looking for one somewhere worse.
- Check who is selling — On a cereal box, a sports drink, an online video. “Who made this, and do they want us to buy something?” is the whole credibility test.
- Ask before borrowing, at home too — Siblings' things included. Consent about belongings is where the idea is easiest to practise.
- Compare two things to buy — Price, how long it lasts, and what else the money could do. “Cost per use” turns a cheap thing that breaks into an expensive one.
Sheets you can print for this
- A week of fitness — every part, not just one
- Is it credible? — checking food information
- Which one would you buy? — price is only one factor
- Be an upstander — having a plan before it happens
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.