Online Physical Education for Homeschoolers

If you went to public school, you probably remember PE classes. There was calisthenics in the gym and kickball in the field.  Physical education  at home is  easy when your students are  elementary age.  We need them to expend their excess energy as much as they do, so a bike ride  around the block or a trip the neighborhood playground is  a regular occurrence. As kids get older, their desire to get outdoors may wane.  Added to that is  the fact that many states and umbrella schools require at least one PE credit in high school. Many homeschool parents may find themselves at a loss as to how to effectively meet the requirement, particularly if their children aren’t involved in organized sports. What Is Online Physical Education? Despite the name, online physical education classes take place in the real world, not on a computer screen. Thirty states allow their public school students - usually middle school or high school - to take PE online, according to fitness expert Catherine Holecko. Some public and private online PE programs are open to homeschoolers as well. Online PE usually consists of a computer-based portion and an activity portion. The computer portion can involve learning about physiology,  completing writing assignments on different parts of the body and various exercises, and taking tests. The real-life portion is often up to the student. Some use sports theyre already involved in, others add walking, running, swimming, or other activities to their schedule. Students are usually  required to monitor what theyre doing, either with technology like a heart-rate monitor or pedometer or by keeping records that they  submit with their other class materials. The Pros of Online PE For public school students, online PE allows them to fulfill their physical education requirement outside of regular school hours. That frees up more time during the school day for other subjects. Similarly, for homeschooled students an online PE course allows teens to take a self-directed approach to physical education, allowing the teaching parent more time to focus on other subjects and siblings. Online PE also allows homeschoolers to  have supervision by trained physical education professionals without the need to join a gym or seek a private instructor. For kids who are already involved in sports or other  physical activity, online PE adds a written component that might be covered only briefly or not at all by real-world coaches. Online PE courses also offer a health component which may satisfy state or umbrella school requirements. Both public school and homeschool students also get the chance to get credit for sports that may not be part of a traditional physical education program, such as roller blading, surfing, ballet, or equestrian sports. The Cons of Online PE Students who have taken it say online PE isnt easy. In some programs, students must complete certain goals, no matter how long it takes them. They are also all held to the same standards, regardless of their ability, conditioning, strengths, or weaknesses. Students who choose to do activities on their own dont get the same level of supervision and instruction as kids who take a real-world class. They dont have a coach who can monitor their progress and give feedback on their form. They may be tempted to embellish their activity records - although programs often require parents to verify their childrens reports. Where to Find Online PE Programs for Homeschoolers Florida Virtual School, the first and largest online public school in the United States, offers individual classes in Personal Fitness, Fitness Lifestyle and Design, and other Physical Education topics. Florida residents may take the classes for free, but they are also available on a tuition basis to students who live outside the state. The courses are approved by NCAA. Carone Fitness is an accredited school and provider of online health and PE courses for grades K-12 and higher education. Options include adaptive PE and homebound courses. Students set individual goals, participate in a weekly exercise program, and receive one-on-one feedback from an instructor. Family Time Fitness is a company founded specifically for homeschoolers, although it is also available through some public schools. Its physical education programs consist mainly of printable lesson plans and videos, although parents also get reminder emails and access to supplemental downloads and online webinars. Updated by Kris Bales

Informative Essay About Themed Consumer Environment

Themed Consumer Environment Analysis I have not been to many themed environments in my lifetime for many reasons including financial, time, and travel constraints as well as the fact that my family hold the belief that we dont need to go anywhere grand to have a good time. The emphasis has always been placed on simplicity and quality time spent with family and friends. We used to go snow skiing many years ago so my recollection is hazy. We go camping every summer which is almost the opposite of a consumer environment. However, a couple of years ago, for my mother s birthday, we did manage to make a trip to Arlington, Texas to watch a Texas Ranger baseball game. This is a huge consumer environment which correlates well with everything I have read and learned during this course and so it will be the focus of this analysis. The 270-acre Globe Life Park in Arlington which opened in April of 1994, was a successor of the Arlington Stadium which closed that same year. I vaguely remember goi ng to the old one a couple years before it closed. With the new park, the capacity increased by about 6,000 and many more areas were made available for shops, restaurants, new technology, suites, and other means of consumption. As George Ritzer details modern athletic facilities further in A Tour of the New Means of Consumption, â€Å"Although these stadiums often resemble earlier versions and even seek to copt them in many ways, they also have a number of innovations. For example, they all

Concepts of Family Nursing Theory Free Essays

Nurses hold a unique position among health care professionals in terms of prolonged proximity to patients during a stay in hospital or while a person with a long-term health problem is being cared for at home. In contemporary context it is necessary to address the needs of the families whose lives may be irrevocably changed by the illness of one member. As Friedman (1992:29) put it: â€Å"The psychosocial strains on a family with a member suffering a chronic or life-threatening condition can rival the physical strains on the patient. We will write a custom essay sample on Concepts of Family Nursing Theory or any similar topic only for you Order Now † However, it is not only in relation to chronic illness and disability that families may stand in need of help. The family developmental life cycle involves natural transitions which may create considerable stress. One example might be a woman trying to deal with an adolescent son who is engaging in risk-taking with drugs and alcohol, to protect her younger son from his brother’s influence, to persuade her busy husband to give more attention to his family while providing some support for her mother who is caring for an increasingly frail husband. There is potential for conflict in all of these relationships as family members attempt to balance their own needs with those of other members of the family, and of the family as a unit. Such family tensions are likely to influence the health and well-being of each family member, and their ability to deal with unanticipated events such as accidents or unemployment. Wherever families are struggling to maintain or restore equilibrium, to find ways of coping effectively with crisis or with long-term stress, nurses may find themselves in a supportive role. Frude (1990) identifies that in the literature on families some authors focus upon individuals and regard other members as being the social context of the person. Other authors look at the family unit as a whole with individual members as parts of the whole. This distinction is pertinent to discussions on family nursing. Currently nurses and their colleagues see it as both legitimate and important to take into account the family context of their patients or clients. Much more discussion and collaboration takes place with relatives than in the past. Nurses in some specialties, for instance community nursing, pediatrics or psychiatric nursing, might argue that because of the nature of their work they have always been concerned with the family of the particular client or patient. From the contemporary perspective, it is useful to be aware of how family composition is changing in order to have a mind to the wider context of society as a whole. It is possible to be under the impression that the family today is in terminal decline if all that one reads in the popular press is to be believed. A closer look behind the headlines reveals that what is understood to be under threat is the traditional two biological parent household with dependent children, the nuclear family. It is increasingly apparent that a growing minority of children will experience life in a family that is headed by a lone parent, usually the mother, before they reach adulthood. A popular misconception is that the majority of these mothers are single women. Their numbers are growing faster than other groups, the figures for which seem to have established at the end of the 1990s, but divorced, separated and widowed mothers still constitute the majority. In addition, the divorce rate in remarried couples remains higher than for the general population. There are many factors involved in this but the additional stresses of a reconstituted family may make them more vulnerable to breakdown, for instance the parent-child bond predating the marital bond can lead to step-parents competing with their children for primacy with their spouse. Dimmock (1992) notes that too often the blended family is cast in the mould or ideal of the nuclear family. Indeed, many of those involved are keen to view it in that light. Remarried families can often be struggling with unresolved emotional issues at the same time as coping with family transitions. Dimmock (1992) also indicates that society offers the choice of two conceptual models, that of the nuclear family or the wicked step-parent (mostly stepmothers) of fairy tales. The family nursing model allows accommodation of a family with less rigid boundaries. A nurse, perhaps in the role of health visitor, with an understanding of family systems and family nursing could provide valuable support and help for these families to work through some of the issues involved. There is another group of families which is becoming more prominent, particularly in the United States. Lesbian and gay parenting is currently a topic of hot interest as our society struggles to decide whether it will move forward on human rights issues or attempt to retrench and move back into a mythical past of â€Å"family values.† Increasingly in the US this is an area of interest and debate, especially as reproductive technologies have advanced so that it is possible for the lesbian woman to contemplate pregnancy without a male partner. Gay men wishing to raise a family are also becoming a focus for media interest and debate in this country. The impact of AIDS and HIV infection has also highlighted issues concerning next of kin with gay men, particularly within the health service and in legal terms. This demonstrates the appropriateness of accepting the notion that, from a nursing perspective, the family is who the individual identifies, although it may not necessarily conform to biological or legal ways of thinking. From the personal viewpoint, the strongest argument for the appropriateness of family nursing in the United States now is the massive shift of care from hospitals and institutions to the community. Patients in hospital are more acutely ill, with resultant stress for families who need support. In the community families are in the first line of caring for individuals with intractable, often severe, health problems. At the same time, the purpose of nursing is to provide care for those with continuous needs in partnership with people and with other organizations. Therefore, I totally agree with the purpose of family nursing described by Hanson (1987:8) which is to promote, maintain, and restore family health. Moreover, family nursing is concerned with the interactions between the family and society and among the family and individual family members. References Dimmock, B. (1992) A child of our own, Health Visitor, 65, 10:368-370 Friedman, M.M. (1992) Family nursing: Theory and practice, 3rd edn, Connecticut: Appleton Lange. Frude, N. (1990) Understanding family problems: A psychological approach, Chichester: John Wiley Sons Hanson, S.M.H. (1987) Family nursing and chronic illness, in Wright, L., Leahey, M. (1987) Families and chronic illness, Pennsylvania: Springhouse. How to cite Concepts of Family Nursing Theory, Essay examples