Health and Physical Education

In this unit you will find out what makes activity fun for you, try individual, small-group and lead-up activities, and check your whole day against Canada's 24-hour movement guidelines (Sweat, Step, Sleep, Sit). You will plan and lead a 20-minute DPA with a warm-up and cool-down, measure how hard you are working with the talk test, your heart rate and a 0 to 10 effort scale, check your fitness in all four parts and build a FITT plan that starts from your strengths. You will learn how to help prevent concussions and injuries, and how to read the UV index and the Air Quality Health Index to stay safe from sun, heat, poor air, insects and cold.

Then you will build your movement skills: balance sequences with smooth transitions and partner balances, jumping and landing with control (and a look at Arctic sports), passing and moving with a give-and-go, and dribbling and stickhandling in traffic. Finally, you will learn how rules work and how to learn any new activity, find common features (including in lacrosse, first played by Indigenous peoples), adapt games so everyone can play, and use tactics like pacing and breathing rhythm, with healthy competition. Social-emotional skills are woven in throughout: reframing your mindset, managing feelings, coping under pressure, working with others and thinking critically.

Most practice is Do it and check: try the move, then compare it with what a good attempt looks like. Activities are designed for home, a yard or a park. You will need some open space, soft balls (or rolled socks), a skipping rope, a few markers (shoes or cones), a timer, a measuring tape, and a grown-up to play with.

Curriculum expectations covered: A1.1, A1.2, A1.3, A1.4, A1.5, A1.6, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2 (Ontario Health and Physical Education, Grades 1–8, 2019, Grade 5).

In this unit you will learn how advertising and media try to shape what you eat, and how to use Nutrition Facts tables and ingredient lists to choose healthy, safe foods. You will name the trusted people and support services who can help you, practise handling threatening situations with calm, assertive skills, and explore how actions in person and online affect others' feelings, self-concept, mental health and reputation. You will learn the effects of alcohol, the factors that influence decisions about alcohol and cannabis, and refusal skills for pressures that could lead to addiction. You will learn the parts of the reproductive system, how the body changes at puberty, and how menstruation and sperm production work. Finally, you will explore your self-concept, ways to manage puberty stress and care for your mental health, and how to help a friend and stop mental health stigma.

Some topics in this unit are sensitive. Each lesson has a note for parents. Lessons 8, 9, 10 and 11 are part of Ontario's human development and sexual health expectations; they follow the Grade 5 wording and are kept factual and age-appropriate, and parents may request an exemption from this instruction at school.

Curriculum expectations covered: D1.1, D1.2, D1.3, D1.4, D2.1, D2.2, D2.3, D2.4, D2.5, D2.6, D3.1, D3.2, D3.3, D3.4, plus social-emotional learning skills A1.1, A1.2, A1.3, A1.4, A1.5, A1.6 (Ontario Health and Physical Education, Grades 1–8, 2019, Grade 5).