When we start the new school year, we won’t be using any equipment. Not only this, but students must maintain 6ft apart. I’m sure many of you are in a similar situation, but don’t worry we got this! 😅

What’s the secret?!

The secret is creating a grid for your students. You might have seen/heard of this before. It’s an easy technique to use and it can be created in about 15 minutes.

I’ve been using this grid system for years and even made a video on it back in 2016 called “Assigning seats in P.E. and Improving Classroom Management.” The concept is exactly the same, but I felt like it needed to be spoofed up a bit.

By using this technique, not only will it allow you to socially distance in P.E., but it will also improve your classroom management and make lining up a breeze!

How Does It Work?

You will need to create rows and columns in one of the corners of your gym.

I always create mine in the corner where students enter and so it’s right in front of my white board.

Your rows and columns should be some type of category. For example: numbers, letters, sports, food, colors, etc. (I typically do numbers for my rows and colors for my columns)

Who Does This Work For?

I’ve used this for all of my 1st-5th grade classes and it’s been extremely successful

It will take 1st grade a few weeks to remember their spot, but if you’re patient, I promise it will work for them as well

This could definitely be used for grades 6-12

The only grade I haven’t used this for is Kindergarten. Kindergarten has a hard time remembering their assigned spot from week to week

Creating

Figure out how many students you have in your biggest class

This will help you determine how many rows and columns to create. For example 20 students = 4 rows and 5 columns

If your column category is colors. You would find 5 different colors and then tape them onto the wall 6 feet apart from one another. It’s important they are different colors, otherwise students will get confused! I’ve made this mistake before 😆

If your row category is numbers. You would write/print out 1-4 each on a separate piece of paper and tape them to the wall 6 feet apart from one another.

By doing this you just created something similar to the picture down below and easily created 20 spots without having to put any tape on the floor:

Assigning Students A Spot

Students will only need to remember 2 things: the column and row category that they are assigned.

For example in this demonstration they would need to remember their color and their number.

So if I was assigned red-1, I would first line up with the color red with 1 hand, and then line up with the number 1 with the other hand. Draw a line with your hands and where they come together would be my spot. Think of it as the board game battleship!

Video Overview:

If you’re interested in the complete video overview it can be found here:

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