New Professional Development Opportunity coming to you, FREE, if you are an ND SHAPE member! Team Building Through a Pandemic highlights the value of Connection Before Content through the use of virtual Team Building & Adventure Education Activities.  Participants will learn valuable practices and favorite activities that promote social skills, cooperation, problem solving and most importantly connection in a virtual setting.  Activities learned in this presentation can instantly be applied in the classroom by participants.

For more information and to register, go to http://www.ndshape.org/adventure-education-professional-development/

Please go to this page to register!

Check out our conference page often to get updated schedule and presentation descriptions as well!

We are currently planning on a face to face conference on February 12, 2021 at Simle Middle School, Bismarck, ND! Do you have an activity that you would like to share? We are currently accepting proposals for presentations, so go here, scroll down and fill in your information to present! Looking forward to seeing you there!!

Have you seen the new COVID Resource page from SHAPE America? Take a look at what they have developed here!

Three Ways to Support Health and Physical Education TODAY

• Get educated in your state/district reentry plans

SHAPE America’s School Reentry Considerations for Health, Physical Education and Physical Activity can be found here along with other resources to help you plan for back to school. Use this Google Map to find state specific reentry guidelines.

• Email a letter to your superintendent & school board

Letter writing is one of the most successful advocacy tools you have! We have crafted an example for you to use or edit to fit your needs and it is BELOW!

• Advocate on social media

Tag members of your school board, your superintendent, state leaders and more to share your message. Be sure to use the hashtag #SHAPEAdvocacy. We have messages below to help you get started!

• Students will do their best when they’re active + healthy! Support #HPE! Participate in @SHAPE_America’s Online Backyard Advocacy Day! #SHAPEAdvocacy
  http://bit.ly/2fLifL7
• Health + PE are part of a student’s well-rounded education + support their path to health + physical literacy. #SHAPEAdvocacy (Tag your superintendent and school board members) http://bit.ly/2fLifL7 
• I help prepare students to live their best life! I strongly urge you to support health and physical education http://bit.ly/2fLifL7
• Research shows students want to embrace a healthy, active lifestyle and value health and PE! #SHAPEAdvocacy http://bit.ly/2fLifL7
• Health and Physical Education is essential for students’ physical, mental and social-emotional health! #SHAPEAdvocacy http://bit.ly/2fLifL7

Our 2nd annual ND SHAPE Golf Scramble was another great success! Check out pics of the event here: http://www.ndshape.org/2020-golf-scramble/

Check out our latest newsletter, with information for Sport and PE Week, as well as implementation of health.moves.minds.

As we are entering our 5th week of e-Learning in North Dakota schools, we are beginning to adapt to our new normal. We continue with the uncertainty surrounding seeing our students before the end of this school year. There are a few things we need to be considering:

• Take care of yourself. Many of us have our own children at home, and are juggling helping them while teaching your school children. Be sure to include self-care into your daily routines.  Practice what we teach!
• This is a new environment, we need to accept that we might make mistakes, and that we are learning how to teach electronically. 
• If you are asking your students to video themselves, be courageous and put yourself on video doing the activities as well.
• Recognize the difference between Physical Education and physical activity.  Emphasize this in your lessons.  PE is going to look different when we do get back, be sure we make ourselves necessary instead of expendable.
• This is a time when Health Education should be at the forefront.  We need our school families to recognize our importance moving forward.  Not only learning about infectious diseases, but including self-care, mental health, the importance of physical activity and nutrition for strengthening our immune systems, health advocacy, just to name a few.

Hopefully as we are settling in, we are starting to be more comfortable in the planning of our lessons.  If you haven’t checked out SHAPE America’s (our national HPE organization) website for resources, now is a great time to bookmark it.  You will find a ton of resources and tutorials to help.  Go to:  https://www.shapeamerica.org/covid19-resources.aspx to get some great Standards Based activities to add to your lessons, as well as resources for online teaching.

As HPE teachers, we often feel like our own island at our schools, but our current environment is well beyond the isolation we may be accustomed to.  To help combat that, ND SHAPE would like to host a weekly Zoom meeting to give us an opportunity to share info, find community, and help us get through the next 4 weeks.  Our first Zoom will be this Sunday at 7 pm.  Join by using the following link:

Topic: ND SHAPE’s Zoom Member Meeting
Time: Apr 26, 2020 07:00 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/99682921031
Meeting ID: 996 8292 1031

We will get through this stronger, together!

Dear Fellow North Dakota Health and Physical Educators,

As you are certainly aware, we are currently experiencing unprecedented events that leave us all searching for ways to adapt, both personally and professionally. We have been forced into school closures for the unforeseeable future, which leaves many of us asking for help and direction.

At ND SHAPE we are committed to helping you through the process of ensuring you, your families, and your students are in the best place possible. Health and Physical educators around the world are working diligently to ensure our students continue to receive an appropriate and viable education.

The Health and Physical Education family is one of the most passionate and compassionate groups in the education world. Many educators have already created resources for you to share with your students in this challenging time of distance education.

To ensure that you and your students are maintaining a vision of staying healthy and active, please know that we are here to help. ND SHAPE will continue to share websites, individual social media accounts, and best practice activities to ease the burden on you and your students.

Please follow ND SHAPE on Twitter and Facebook in order to stay up to date on the latest news and to gain access to lessons and activities developed by the health and physical education professional community.

Yours in Education,

Jason T. Steele

2019-2020 NDSHAPE President