Health and Physical Education

In this Grade 8 unit you get ready to stay active for life, as you head into high school. You will explore what makes activity enjoyable, how people and messages influence activity, and how you can be a positive influence. You will find your own heart-rate zones, learn the difference between health-related and skill-related fitness, test and graph your fitness, and build a long-term fitness plan with short-term steps. You will learn to rate and control risks, prevent concussion for yourself and others, and respond to emergencies, including suspected concussions.

Then you will move: shifting smoothly between balances, sending and receiving under pressure, refining skills with the phases of movement and a feedback loop, navigating with a map in orienteering, and using tactics to win the space in many kinds of games. Social-emotional skills are woven in throughout: managing emotions, coping with stress, motivation and perseverance, healthy relationships, self-awareness, and critical and creative thinking.

Every activity is designed for home, a yard or a park, with a warm-up and safety notes. You will need open space, running shoes, a soft ball, a beach ball, a skipping rope, a few markers (shoes or cones), a 30 cm ruler, a measuring tape, a timer, a notebook, and a grown-up or friend 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 8).

In this unit you will learn the signs and symptoms of concussions and how to support a healthy recovery, identify situations that could lead to injury or death, and practise assessing situations for danger, in person and online (including sextortion and requests for images). You will analyse the impact of violent behaviours (bullying online and in person, dating violence, and gender-based and racially based violence) on everyone involved, and the role of support services. You will evaluate your own eating using Canada's Food Guide and plan ways to promote healthy eating at school, at home and in the community. You will learn the warning signs of problematic substance use and related behaviours like gaming and gambling, including cannabis, build healthy habits and coping strategies for resilience, and explain how words and societal views create mental health stigma and how to counteract it. Finally, you will learn about gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation, healthy relationships, the factors in decisions about sexual activity and sources of support, and abstinence, contraception, protection, consent and the skills to make safe and healthy decisions.

Some topics in this unit are sensitive. Each lesson has a note for parents. Lessons 10, 11, 12 and 13 are part of Ontario's human development and sexual health expectations (D1.4, D1.5, D2.3, D3.3); they follow the Grade 8 wording, 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, D1.5, D2.1, D2.2, D2.3, D2.4, 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 8).