A–B. Active Living and Movement Competence · Active Living and Movement: Move Well, Train Smart, Stay Safe

Show Up, Gear Up, Try It: Active Participation

A1.1 1.1About 70 minutes

Learning goals

I can explain what active participation means in Healthy Active Living Education.
I can come prepared for activity with suitable clothing, footwear, water and any medical devices I need.
I can name activities from the three groups: fitness and individual or partner activities, group games and sports, and recreational and outdoor pursuits.
I can work toward my personal best and adapt when a new activity feels hard.
I can track my own progress and successes and explain how that builds confidence.

Words to know

active participation
Taking part fully: coming prepared, staying engaged, trying your best and adapting when things get hard.

personal best
The best result or effort you can give at your own level today, compared with yourself, not with others.

self-monitoring
Keeping track of your own effort, progress and feelings so you can see how you are doing.

perseverance
Sticking with something even when it is difficult or you do not succeed at first.

living skills
Personal skills, interpersonal skills, and critical and creative thinking skills that you use in every part of this course.

credit
What you earn for passing a high-school course. Ontario's diploma requires at least one credit in health and physical education.

Remember from Grade 8

In Grade 8 you explored what makes activity enjoyable, how family, friends and media influence activity, and how you can be a positive influence. You also found your heart-rate zones, learned health-related and skill-related fitness, and practised safety, concussion response and tactics.

Grade 9 is your first high-school Health and Physical Education course: PPL1O, Healthy Active Living Education. It is worth one credit, and Ontario's high-school diploma requires at least one credit in health and physical education. The "O" stands for Open, which means the course is for every student.

Hook: the first day of high-school gym

Picture two students on the first day.

Jordan forgot running shoes, sits on the bench, and says "I'm just not sporty."
Priya isn't the fastest or strongest, but she brings her shoes and water bottle, joins every drill, asks a question when she's confused, and writes down one thing she improved.

By June, who do you think is fitter, more skilled and more confident? Almost always, it's the student who participates. In this course, how you participate matters as much as how talented you are.

How the course is organized

PPL1O has three strands (big parts):

A. Active Living: taking part, fitness, and safety.
B. Movement Competence: movement skills, concepts and strategies.
C. Healthy Living: healthy eating, mental health, relationships, substance use and more (taught in the Healthy Living unit).

Running through all three are the living skills:

Self-awareness and self-monitoring (knowing your strengths and needs, tracking progress)
Adaptive, management and coping skills (handling challenges and stress)
Communication skills
Relationship and social skills
Critical and creative thinking (planning, problem solving, decisions)

This unit covers strands A and B, with the living skills built into every lesson.

What active participation looks like

The curriculum describes active participation in a few clear parts. You:

Come prepared. Wear clothes you can move in, proper footwear (laced running shoes for most activities), bring water, and bring any equipment you need. If you use an asthma inhaler or an epinephrine auto-injector, it comes with you.
Stay engaged. Join in from start to finish. Listen to instructions. Keep moving between turns.
Strive for your personal best. Your goal is to beat your last effort, not someone else's.
Adapt to challenges. New activities can feel awkward. Instead of quitting, adjust: slow down, simplify, ask for a tip, or try a modified version.
Monitor your progress and successes. Write down what you did and what improved. Seeing progress builds confidence, and confidence makes you more willing to try new activities.

Active participation is a cycle: preparing lets you engage, engaging lets you reach your personal best, tracking shows your progress, and that builds the confidence to try more.

A wide range of activities

The course asks you to choose from many kinds of activity, not just traditional team sports. The curriculum groups them like this:

Fitness and individual or partner activities: yoga, Pilates, skipping, strength circuits, dance.
Small- and large-group activities, sports and games: wheelchair curling, shinny (informal pick-up hockey), sepak takraw (a net game played mostly with the feet, knees and head, popular in Southeast Asia), rounders (a bat-and-ball game like softball).
Recreational and outdoor pursuits: orienteering, cycling, hiking, snowshoeing.

Trying different activities helps you find ones you enjoy, and people who enjoy an activity are much more likely to keep doing it as adults.

The three groups of activities named in the curriculum, with examples. A balanced program samples all three: a tree pose from yoga, a passing game, and a hike on a trail.

Living skill: self-awareness (1.1)

Knowing your preferences, strengths and abilities helps you choose activities you will enjoy and stick with. Ask yourself:

Do I like being alone or with others? Indoors or outdoors? Competing or just moving?
What am I already good at (for example, rhythm, endurance, balance)?
What would I like to get better at?

There are no wrong answers. Self-knowledge is a tool.

Worked example

Let's coach a struggle into a plan

Ali tries yoga for the first time. He can't hold tree pose for more than 3 seconds, laughs it off, and says, "Yoga isn't for me." How could Ali use active participation to respond?

Notice the feeling: it's normal to feel awkward in a new activity. Feeling awkward is not the same as being bad at it.
Adapt: Ali could put his raised foot on his ankle instead of his thigh, or rest one fingertip on a wall.
Set a personal-best target: hold 10 seconds on each leg this week, 20 seconds next week.
Monitor: write the seconds in a log after each try.
Reflect: after two weeks, look back at the log. If the numbers went up, that's real progress, and a reason to keep going.

Ali changes "Yoga isn't for me" into "I can't do it yet, so I'll adapt, set a small goal and track it." That's active participation and self-monitoring in action.

Day	Activity	Minutes	Effort (0 to 10)	One success
Mon	Yoga flow (video)	25	4	Held tree pose 12 s on each leg
Tue	Shinny at the outdoor rink	45	7	Made 3 good passes
Wed	Walk to school and back	30	4	Walked the hill without stopping
Thu	Skipping intervals	20	8	Did 50 skips in a row
Fri	Rest day: stretching	15	2	Felt loose before bed

A sample participation log. Notice the "One success" column: writing down a success every day builds confidence.

Hands-on activity

Try-It Sampler: one activity from each group

You need: running shoes, comfortable clothes, water, a mat or towel, a soft ball or a pair of rolled-up socks, a timer, and a notebook. Go outside only with a grown-up's OK, and choose a park path or quiet street with sidewalks.

Warm-up (5 min): march on the spot, arm circles, shoulder rolls, gentle side bends, 10 heel raises, then jog on the spot for 1 minute.

Fitness / individual (10 min): yoga sampler. Hold each pose for 5 slow breaths: mountain pose (stand tall), chair pose (sit back like into a chair), warrior II (feet wide, front knee bent over ankle, arms out), tree pose (foot on ankle or calf, never on the side of the knee), child's pose (kneel and fold forward). Stop any pose that hurts.
Game (10 min): keep-it-up challenge. With a partner, keep the soft ball (or socks) in the air using feet, knees and thighs, like sepak takraw. Count your best rally. Play on grass or in a clear room away from windows, lamps and stairs.
Outdoor pursuit (15 min): mini-hike. With a grown-up, walk a park path or trail at a pace where you can talk but feel warm. Notice one plant, tree or animal.
Cool-down (5 min): slow walking, then hold calf, hamstring and quadriceps stretches for 20 to 30 seconds each.
Log it: for each activity, record minutes, effort (0 to 10), how much you enjoyed it (1 to 5) and one success.

Safety: Drink water. Stop if anything hurts (sharp pain, dizziness, chest pain). Dress for the weather: layers and a hat in winter, sunscreen and a hat in summer.

Just for fun

Why did the running shoe get a perfect participation mark?

Because it always showed up laced and ready and never once dragged its heels.

Your turn

List the five parts of active participation from this lesson.

Name the three groups of activities in the curriculum and give one example of each.

Why should a student with asthma bring their inhaler to every class?

What does "personal best" compare you to?

Give two ways to adapt a new activity that feels too hard.

How does tracking your successes help you try new activities?

What are the three strands of PPL1O?

More practice: warm-up

What does the "O" in PPL1O mean?

What kind of footwear do most activities need?

What is shinny?

Name the living skill about knowing your strengths and tracking your progress.

True or false: active participation means being the best player in the class.

More practice: on your own

Jordan says, "I'm just not sporty." Rewrite this as a growth-minded sentence and explain why it matters.

Look at the sample log. Which day had the highest effort, and which had the most minutes?

Why does the curriculum list activities like sepak takraw and wheelchair curling, not just hockey and basketball?

Describe three things you would pack for an outdoor class on a snowy day.

Explain the difference between being active and actively participating.

Challenge

Design a one-week sampler with at least one activity from each of the three groups, 4 active days and 1 rest or stretching day. Include minutes for each day.

Ali's tree-pose log over 4 weeks is 3 s, 8 s, 7 s, 15 s. Did he improve? Explain using the idea of a trend.

A classmate rarely participates because they feel embarrassed in front of others. Suggest three changes the class or the student could make, linked to the parts of active participation.

Check your understanding

Quiz

Which is the best example of active participation?

"Personal best" means:

Which activity belongs to recreational and outdoor pursuits?

Why does monitoring your progress matter?

A new activity feels awkward. The best response is to:

Which of these is one of the five living skills?

For parents and teachers

Big idea: PPL1O (Healthy Active Living Education, Grade 9, Open) is a full credit course. Expectation A1.1 asks students to participate actively: come prepared, stay engaged, strive for a personal best, adapt to challenges and monitor progress, across a wide range of activities. Living skill 1.1 (self-awareness and self-monitoring) runs through it.

How to help at home:

Help your teen keep a simple log (paper or phone) for a week. Ask about the "one success" column more than the numbers.
Try a new activity together, such as a family hike or a yoga video, and model adapting when it feels hard.
Check that gym clothes, shoes, water bottle and any medical devices are packed on PE days.

Common difficulties:

Comparing with others. Redirect to their own progress.
"I'm not sporty." Many teens enjoy non-traditional activities (dance, climbing, hiking, yoga). Variety helps them find one.
Forgetting gear. A checklist by the door helps.

Safety: In yoga, the raised foot goes on the ankle, calf or inner thigh, never against the side of the knee. Outdoor activities should be in a safe place with your permission.