1st Grade PE Lesson Plans

Moving With Skill, and a Heart That Beats Faster

First grade is the year students learn to move with skill — and recognize that when you move fast, your heart beats faster and you breathe faster. Students hop, gallop, jog, and slide using a mature pattern, skip using a mature pattern, and perform jumping and landing actions with balance. They throw underhand with opposite foot forward, catch a large ball before it bounces, kick a stationary ball using inside of foot, strike a balloon with various body parts, and balance on different bases of support. They move in personal space and general space in response to designated beats, and travel demonstrating low, middle, and high levels and a variety of relationships with objects. They exhibit respect for self and others in response to teacher prompts, follow the rules and parameters of the learning environment, and work cooperatively with others. And they identify physical activity as a component of good health, describe positive feelings that result from participation in physical activity, and discuss personal likes and dislikes associated with participation in physical activity. First grade PE asks students to do all of that on purpose: to move with skill, to play with respect and cooperation, and to connect physical activity to good health.

That’s what makes it hard to plan. You can’t explain “a mature pattern” to a six-year-old. You have to build a moment where it shows itself — a partner toss where a large ball is caught before it bounces or isn’t, a hopscotch course where a landing holds its balance or wobbles, a station game where the group has to work cooperatively to finish — and then help students say what they noticed and follow the rules and parameters of the learning environment together. Each lesson needs a routine that works with the space and equipment you have, something students can practice and repeat, a way to show understanding for children still growing as writers, and enough structure that a class full of moving first graders stays safe and stays with it. That’s a long Sunday.

Nine first grade PE lessons are listed below, ready to open and read in full.

What First Grade PE Actually Asks of You

First grade PE on the platform runs on the SHAPE America framework — eighteen first grade codes, PE.1.1.1 through PE.1.4.4 — and a full year has to reach all of them:

• PE.1.1.1 — hops, gallops, jogs, and slides using a mature pattern.
• PE.1.1.2 — skips using a mature pattern.
• PE.1.1.3 — performs jumping and landing actions with balance.
• PE.1.1.4 — throws underhand with opposite foot forward.
• PE.1.1.5 — catches a large ball before it bounces.
• PE.1.1.6 — kicks a stationary ball using inside of foot.
• PE.1.1.7 — strikes a balloon with various body parts.
• PE.1.1.8 — balances on different bases of support.
• PE.1.2.1 — moves in personal space and general space in response to designated beats.
• PE.1.2.2 — travels demonstrating low, middle, and high levels.
• PE.1.2.3 — travels demonstrating a variety of relationships with objects.
• PE.1.3.1 — exhibits respect for self and others in response to teacher prompts.
• PE.1.3.2 — follows the rules and parameters of the learning environment.
• PE.1.3.3 — works cooperatively with others.
• PE.1.4.1 — identifies physical activity as a component of good health.
• PE.1.4.2 — recognizes that when you move fast, your heart beats faster and you breathe faster.
• PE.1.4.3 — describes positive feelings that result from participation in physical activity.
• PE.1.4.4 — discusses personal likes and dislikes associated with participation in physical activity.

The eighteen fall into four groups, and the file names them: Motor Skills Development (eight codes), Movement Concepts (three), Social Skills (three), and Personal Skills & Benefits (four). Each is a big idea for a six-year-old: hopping, galloping, jogging, sliding, and skipping, jumping and landing, throwing, catching, kicking, striking a balloon, and balancing; personal and general space, levels, and relationships with objects; respect for self and others, the rules and parameters of the learning environment, and working cooperatively; and physical activity as a component of good health, a faster heartbeat and faster breathing, positive feelings, and personal likes and dislikes about participation. Knowing which codes a lesson reaches — and noticing in spring that catching or working cooperatively never came up — is real work. It’s the part of planning that has nothing to do with the game itself and everything to do with accounting.

Every Lesson Aligned, Without the Cross-Referencing

TeacherAICenter was built so that the standards accounting happens on its own. The platform has 1,706 national K-5 standards loaded across eight frameworks and ten subjects. PE runs on the SHAPE America framework’s eighteen first grade codes, so when you select first grade and Physical Education, the standards that appear are those codes — PE.1.1.1 through PE.1.4.4 — not a generic “elementary PE” list. You describe the lesson you want in your own words. The platform’s assistive intelligence (AI) correlates it to the right first grade standards, writes measurable objectives tied to them, and builds the lesson around them. You review the standards it chose, deselect anything you’ve already covered, add anything it missed. The teacher’s choice is always the last word.

The point isn’t that the platform decides what your students need. It’s that the time you’d spend matching an activity to a standard happens in the background, so the time goes back to the rest of teaching.

What a First Grade PE Lesson Looks Like

Say you’re teaching underhand throwing and catching. You open the Lesson Builder, choose first grade and Physical Education, set the lesson length, and type something like: “I want partners tossing underhand with the opposite foot forward, catching a large ball before it bounces, and counting their catches — then adding the counts up on the whiteboard.” You list what’s in your room: soft foam balls, a whiteboard, and chart paper.

What comes back is a complete lesson. It’s aligned to first grade PE standards like PE.1.1.4 and PE.1.1.5, with four or five measurable objectives written against them. It’s paced into an opening, a main activity, and a closing. The activities are built from the supplies you named — partner tosses with soft foam balls, catch counts added up on the whiteboard, and a round where each pair works cooperatively to beat its own count — not a shopping list of things you’d have to go buy. It includes differentiation for three levels of learner and support for English learners, a formative assessment that measures the objectives the lesson actually teaches, and a printable exit ticket with an answer key. Then it saves to your library, exports to Google Drive, and registers its standards to your coverage Tracker.

That’s the shape of it: you bring the skill and the supplies; the standards alignment, the objectives, the differentiation, and the assessment get done with you, in minutes instead of an evening.

PE With a Partner Subject in Every Lesson

First grade PE asks students to hop, skip, throw, catch, and balance, to work cooperatively with others, to follow the rules and parameters of the learning environment, and to identify physical activity as a component of good health, so the lessons in this curriculum pair PE with the subjects that do each job best. Every first grade PE lesson on the platform is a fusion lesson with at least one partner subject. Four carry health education, four carry ELA, and two carry math, one of them alongside ELA. Together they are a sound hopscotch champions, a skip and walk vowel dash, a toss and add ball champions, a sight word station shuffle, a math statue garden: true or false freeze, a heartbeat heroes: discovering strong body choices, a community health heroes and movement match, a team up for healthy choices, and a balloon balance goal champions. The movement supplies the skill; health education carries it into healthy habits that promote wellness and what can happen when we practice unhealthy behaviors, ways to prevent common childhood injuries, health helpers in the community and asking trusted adults for health information, health-related decisions, and a simple personal health goal in four lessons, ELA brings isolating and segmenting the sounds in spoken words, long vowel sounds and syllables, irregularly spelled words, and reading with fluency into four, and math brings addition and subtraction word problems within 20, adding three whole numbers, the meaning of the equal sign, and the unknown whole number in an equation into two. A single lesson on this platform can span up to three subjects and up to two grade levels at once, with the standards from each subject tracked back to their own bucket. That’s how a fusion lesson does the work of two or three single-subject lessons in the time of one — and it’s how a teacher running a 1/2 combination class can teach one shared lesson that earns coverage for both grades.

First Grade PE Lessons You Can Open Right Now

These are the first grade lessons in the curriculum that carry PE standards. They’re grouped the way the curriculum itself is built — into blocks, each one a stretch of the year with its own question to answer. Every lesson is a fusion lesson with at least one partner subject. Four also teach health education, four teach ELA, and two teach math, one of them alongside ELA. Open any of them and read the whole plan.

Word Builders — hopping, galloping, jogging, sliding, and skipping, jumping and landing with balance, throwing and catching, space and designated beats, levels and relationships with objects, and respect and the rules and parameters of the learning environment

• Sound Hopscotch Champions — Reading/ELA, Physical Education
• Skip and Walk Vowel Dash — Reading/ELA, Physical Education
• Toss and Add Ball Champions — Math, Physical Education
• Sight Word Station Shuffle — Reading/ELA, Physical Education
• Math Statue Garden: True or False Freeze — Math, Physical Education, Reading/ELA

Healthy Leaders — kicking, striking a balloon, and balancing, working cooperatively, physical activity and good health, a faster heartbeat and faster breathing, and positive feelings and personal likes and dislikes about physical activity

• Heartbeat Heroes: Discovering Strong Body Choices — Health Education, Physical Education
• Community Health Heroes and Movement Match — Health Education, Physical Education
• Team Up for Healthy Choices — Health Education, Physical Education
• Balloon Balance Goal Champions — Health Education, Physical Education

What’s Included With Every Lesson

A first grade PE lesson from TeacherAICenter isn’t a worksheet. Every one arrives as a complete teaching package: a standards-aligned plan with pacing, measurable learning objectives, activities built from supplies you already have, differentiation for struggling and advanced learners, English-learner support, a formative assessment aligned to the objectives, a printable exit ticket with an answer key, a Google Drive export, a permanent spot in your personal library, and automatic entry into your standards coverage Tracker. Generated, ready to teach.

What This Isn’t

You’ve likely pieced together first grade PE from several places already. Teachers Pay Teachers carries a wide range of PE games and fitness units, and some are very good — but each one is bought separately, written for another teacher’s schedule, and may assume equipment you don’t have. PE curriculum guides lay out a sequence, but a sequence isn’t tomorrow’s lesson built for your room. Game books and warm-up cards bring the activity, along with the ongoing job of turning each one into something aligned to what your students need next.

TeacherAICenter isn’t a PE program, a textbook, or a marketplace of other people’s lessons. It builds the lesson to your grade, your standards, and your supplies, every time you ask. The difference is whether you’re adapting something close enough, or generating exactly what your room needs.

A Starting Point, Not a Ceiling

A generated lesson isn’t meant to be the final word — it’s meant to be the foundation that saves you the first two hours. You edit it. You regenerate a section that didn’t land. You add a second round of practice when the first one comes back shaky. Everything you build stays in your library, alive, ready to be reshaped for the next class. The platform does the heavy lifting so the professional judgment — the part that’s actually yours — is where your time goes.

Questions Teachers Ask

What standards are the lessons aligned to?

First grade PE on the platform is built on the SHAPE America framework — eighteen first grade codes in four groups: Motor Skills Development (eight), Movement Concepts (three), Social Skills (three), and Personal Skills & Benefits (four). They reach from hopping, galloping, jogging, and sliding using a mature pattern, skipping, and throwing underhand with opposite foot forward to moving in personal space and general space in response to designated beats, working cooperatively with others, following the rules and parameters of the learning environment, and identifying physical activity as a component of good health. Your state may write its own PE standards, so it’s worth setting the eighteen beside your state’s first grade list.

Can I get a lesson for a specific standard, like PE.1.3.2 rules and parameters or PE.1.4.2 heartbeat and breathing?

Yes. You can build toward whichever standard you’re teaching next — a freeze game where students follow the rules and parameters of the learning environment for PE.1.3.2, a heartbeat check before and after a movement song where students recognize that when you move fast, your heart beats faster and you breathe faster for PE.1.4.2. You describe the topic; the platform aligns it to the right code and builds the lesson around it.

Does this replace my PE program?

No. It builds the lesson you’re teaching next, aligned to the first grade standards you choose — a lesson on kicking a stationary ball using inside of foot, skipping using a mature pattern, a first look at physical activity as a component of good health. The nine lessons on this page are the first grade PE lessons in the curriculum, and together they carry all eighteen first grade PE codes; the Lesson Builder can build as many more as your year needs, toward any of them, alongside whatever program your school uses.

Why do these PE lessons also teach health education, math, or ELA?

Because first grade PE is learned by moving and by understanding what movement does for you — health education carries four of the lessons into healthy habits that promote wellness and what can happen when we practice unhealthy behaviors, ways to prevent common childhood injuries, health helpers in the community and asking trusted adults for health information, health-related decisions, and a simple personal health goal, ELA brings isolating and segmenting the sounds in spoken words, long vowel sounds and syllables, irregularly spelled words, and reading with fluency into four, and math brings addition and subtraction word problems within 20, adding three whole numbers, the meaning of the equal sign, and the unknown whole number in an equation into two. Every first grade PE lesson in the curriculum is a fusion lesson, and the standards from each partner subject are tracked in their own bucket, separate from PE. You get credit for each subject taught.

Do I need special materials?

Lessons are built around your Supply Closet — the supplies you tell the platform you have — and they use those first. Every supply list marks the difference: green for what’s in your closet, yellow for recommended items outside it. In PE, the yellow items are usually common equipment, and six of the nine lessons here recommend at least one. Two recommend balls — soft foam or tennis balls, or playground or soccer balls. One recommends balloons, and one recommends orange cones or markers. Others recommend masking tape, upbeat music, sight word cards, or small prizes or stickers (one each). The other three need nothing outside your closet. Add them to your Supply Closet and the Builder works from them.

Can I edit the lessons after they’re generated?

Yes. Every lesson is yours to edit, regenerate, or extend, and it exports to Google Drive if you’d rather work there. The generated version is a starting point, not a fixed product.

Does it track which standards I’ve covered?

Yes. Every lesson you save registers its standards to your coverage Tracker automatically, so at any point in the year you can see which first grade PE standards you’ve covered and which are still open.

Is it only first grade PE, or other grades and subjects too?

The platform covers all of K-5 across ten subjects — math, ELA, science, social studies, health, PE, visual arts, music, technology, and social-emotional learning. First grade PE is one corner of it.

How much does it cost?

One subscription covers everything the platform does — the full curriculum and unlimited lesson building across all grades and subjects, with no add-ons. Your first five lessons are free, with no account required, so you can see a first grade PE lesson before you decide.

See Your Next First Grade PE Lesson

The fastest way to know whether this fits your classroom is to build one lesson and look at it. Try the Lesson Builder — choose first grade and Physical Education, describe the lesson you’re planning next in your own words, and see the standards-aligned lesson it builds from the supplies you already have. Your first five lessons are free.