Organizing idea: Active Living
Recommended by Tracey Coutts

This free download is ideal for introducing spatial awareness, navigation, and orienteering to K-6 students. It includes six, one hour-long lesson plans that can be used in a variety of outdoor settings. Our team has included it many times as part of our Explore Your 2.4 project work to build the skills necessary for neighbourhood mapping and safe, active community exploration. A great pick for recess or course planning, and serves the learning outcomes related to experiencing the benefits of physical activity in a variety of contexts!

Organizing idea: Movement Skill Development
Recommended by Jamie Anderson

I literally use these cards any opportunity that I can get! They are especially helpful to build movement into classroom activities or transitions, and make for easy brain and body breaks throughout the day. Whether you incorporate these into stations in your phys ed class, or use them to promote active responses to knowledge-check questions, they are ready-to-use and incredibly adaptable. The visuals are colourful and inclusive, showing students how to move their bodies! Teach and practice movement skills at any grade level, no matter what subject you teach with FMS Flip cards.

Organizing idea: Character Development
Recommended by Nathan White

Don’t just take it from me, this is EAS’ best selling resource! This deck of cards offers a fun, active way for students to learn about different emotions, and gives them healthy ways to express themselves. Through a variety of fun games and activities, students explore the spectrum of emotions, acting them out and moving their body in expressive ways. What I love most about this resource is that it helps youth to understand that feeling emotions, even negative ones, is completely okay, and it gives them tools to deal with their feelings. It is great for active moments in class, and helps to build social awareness within the classroom.

Organizing idea: Safety
Recommended by Jenn Mireau

Outdoor learning is a great way to teach students about safety at school, at home and in the community. The Outdoor Learning Quickdraw cards provide teachers with ideas on how to facilitate games and activities through physical literacy, outdoor skills, teamwork and environmental action. Students will have an opportunity to interact with the outdoor environment while learning about boundaries, responsibility and assessing risk.

Organizing idea: Healthy Eating
Recommended by Jamie Anderson

These school nutrition lesson plans offer easy and flexible cross-curricular opportunities to discuss food and nutrition in every K-12 classroom. They can be implemented as-is, or you can modify them for the needs of your students. Use these lesson plans to examine the role that food plays beyond just nutrition, and offer opportunities to teach healthy relationships with eating.

Organizing idea: Healthy Relationships
Recommended by Kerri Murray

What’s not to love about this free and easy-to-use resource? The site is well-organized so you can search by the skills you want students to learn and practice, including those to build healthy relationships like empathy, kindness, conflict resolution and being a good friend. The activities are so easy to pick up and implement, and each one provides ideas for adaptations, supplemental resources and links to the evidence that supports the practice.

Organizing idea: Growth and Development
Recommended by Melissa Tierney

This wonderful free resource from Alberta Health Services includes full lesson plans, talking tips and a plan to set up ground rules so staff and students can build trust and explore growth and development with a feeling of safety. Beginning with basic body functions and progressing through puberty and maturation, the resources here can lay a solid foundation for the learning outcomes across grades K-6, and well beyond! The lessons also include nuances like talking about birth with students who might not live with or know their birth families, and teaching to students with physical or developmental disabilities. There are resources on the same site discussing gender identity and expression to augment the lesson plans as well.

Organizing idea: Financial Literacy
Recommended by Payton Hall

Financial Literacy is such an important topic that often gets forgotten about at school. The Wallet Wellness resource from Ophea in Ontario provides a number of activities that can introduce students to basic financial skills that they will be able to carry with them as they progress into adulthood. The best part about the activities is that they all work in a very relatable, non-judgmental way that can be understood by students of all socio-economic backgrounds. It’s never a bad time to teach youth about personal finances so don’t be afraid to check out Wallet Wellness!