Whole Earth Curriculum WEC

Lesson 05 — Designing My Movement Routine

Learners design a short movement routine and explain how each part builds strength, endurance, or flexibility. They build a warm-up, a strength part, an endurance part, a flexibility part, and a cool-down, labeling each and offering a seated or adapted version.

D03 P2: Physical & Somatic Awareness D03.S2 50 minutes Draft

Objectives

Essential question

How do I design a short movement routine and explain how each part builds strength, endurance, or flexibility?

routinewarm-upcool-downdesignlabeladapt

Materials

Standard materials

Low-tech / no-cost

Enriched / lab & device

Works in different contexts

A routine-builder template with five labeled boxes — warm-up, strength, endurance, flexibility, and cool-down — each with an example movement and a blank space to write, including a seated adapted example
A routine-builder template with five labeled boxes — warm-up, strength, endurance, flexibility, and cool-down — each with an example movement and a blank space to write, including a seated adapted example

Lesson 5 — Designing My Movement Routine

Summary

Learners design a short movement routine and explain how each part builds strength, endurance, or flexibility. They assemble a warm-up, a strength part, an endurance part, a flexibility part, and a cool-down, label each, and include a seated or adapted version.

Objectives

  • Design a short movement routine and explain how each part builds strength, endurance, or flexibility. (D03.S2.08.01)

Connection

Athletes, dancers, and people who simply care for their bodies do the same quiet thing: they design their movement on purpose, choosing each part for what it builds. You can too, with no gym and no coach — just a clear plan and your own body. Today you build a routine you could do anywhere, and you will be able to say exactly why each part helps.

Materials

  • Routine-builder card
  • Movement menu

Preparation

  • Copy the routine-builder card and movement menu.
  • Retrieval: from Lesson 4, recall the three qualities — strength, endurance, flexibility — and one example of each. Today we put them together into one routine.

Facilitator note

This lesson is written to the learner (“you”). The ideas to land: (1) a routine has a shape — warm-up, a strength part, an endurance part, a flexibility part, and a cool-down; (2) each part has a job — strength works muscles against a load, endurance works heart and lungs over time, flexibility works range of motion; (3) a good routine is safe, gentle to start, and adaptable to any body. Design is a skill — model one full routine as a worked example, then guide learners through building their own, then let them do it (explicit instruction → guided → independent, S-011). The WHO frames a balanced mix of movement (S-341). Body dignity is non-negotiable: never rank routines against each other, never comment on a body’s shape, never push anyone past comfort. “Your level is the right level.” Ensure every movement on the menu has a seated or adapted version, and treat assistive devices as ordinary. The ethics lens: designing for safety and self-care is acting responsibly toward one’s own body. The egalitarian lens: a routine anyone can do — seated, standing, fast, slow — widens movement’s door to every body. The global lens: routines can draw on movement from many cultures — dance, stretching, martial-arts forms such as capoeira (Brazil) or tai chi (China), and daily work — all valid sources. The technology & environment lens: a routine that needs no equipment, screen, or paid space works in more lives and more places. The critical-thinking lens: “this part builds endurance because it keeps my heart and lungs working over time” is a checkable reason, not a guess.

Procedure

  1. Recall (5 min). From Lesson 4: name the three qualities and one movement for each. Today we arrange them into a routine.
  2. Meet the routine’s shape (10 min). A routine has five parts: a warm-up (gentle movement to prepare the body), a strength part, an endurance part, a flexibility part, and a cool-down (slow, easy movement to settle the body).
  3. Watch one modeled (10 min). Follow a sample routine: warm-up — march gently in place or roll your shoulders; strength — ten wall pushes or lifts; endurance — two steady minutes of walking, wheeling, or marching; flexibility — a slow reach to the sky and a gentle side stretch; cool-down — slow breaths and a soft shake of the hands. Each part has a label and a reason.
  4. Design your own (15 min). On your routine-builder card, write your own five parts, choosing from the movement menu (or inventing your own). Label each part and write one sentence saying what it builds and why.
  5. Do it and check (10 min). Do your routine once. Check: did each part do its job? Move gently and stop if anything hurts. Adjust one part if you want to.

Differentiation

  • Support: Provide a partially filled routine-builder card with the five parts labeled, so the learner only chooses one movement for each.
  • Extension: Add a note to each part explaining how to adapt it for a friend who needs a seated or slower version.

Assessment

  • Formative (performance): Can the learner do their routine and explain what each part builds?
  • Portfolio artifact: The completed routine-builder card, kept in the portfolio.

Home connection

Teach one part of your routine to someone at home — one strength, endurance, or flexibility movement — and tell them why it helps.

Resources