Coaches and teachers across the world know that time is precious and there is increasingly less of it in our daily lives. PLAYBuilder was created to be an all-encompassing programming and delivery tool to help solve the issue of time in sports and physical literacy programming. There are many features built into the system that help make life easier for coaches and teachers alike. This blog post will break down the top PLAYBuilder features in detail so you can easily understand how to best use the tool to your advantage when planning and running your lessons.
Best aspects of PLAYBuilder overall
PLAYBuilder has many different features that are beneficial for all users of PLAYBuilder (coaches and teachers included). These features help save time, make for better long-term planning, and can make for more dynamic physical literacy understanding for all involved. The top features to get excited about include:
- Advanced searching – Search for any physical literacy and quality sport content with advanced filter criteria such as age, environment, development focus, and more. Sport for Life has built 900+ activities to choose from!
- Playlists – Select the programs you enjoy and group them into folders for easy and tailored access.
- Favorites – Star content to keep it on your dashboard for ideas later on.
- Create-Your-Own – Make your own lesson plans, activities, progressions, or collections to tailor your programming even more.
- Sharing – If you are an administrator, you have the ability to share lesson plans, activities, progressions, and packs with other people on your account.
- Mobile-friendly – Lead programming directly from your phone or tablet. No more wasted paper!
Best PLAYBuilder feature for teachers
For teachers, one of the best aspects of PLAYBuilder is the pre-built content and the ability to organize it how you want. With over 900 activities and 250 lessons at your disposal, there is a lot to choose from! Content is broken down into Packs, which contain lesson plans, activities, progressions, and collections. One of the hardest things for teachers is to align programming with learning outcome goals. As well, understanding what the base physical literacy level of their class is to start with. Luckily, PLAYBuilder has the content built in that teachers need most to get started running the right programming at the right times for each grade level.
Assessments Content Pack for teachers
Sport for Life has developed two physical literacy assessment tools over the past years. PLAYfun and PLAYbasic are meant to improve the level of physical literacy for all. They are directed at individuals aged seven and up by determining gaps in physical literacy development, and provide calls-to-action to help improve these areas.
While these tools have existed on our physical literacy website, we are proud to announce that all PLAYBuilder clients now can have access to use them within the PLAYBuilder system. The packs include videos on what to look for from your participants, step-by-step instructions on how to run each assessment activity, and a grid to track participant development.
After the assessments are run, you can search which content in PLAYBuilder matches the needs of your participants (ie. if the class is lacking balance skills, then you can run a balance lesson for your specific age range).
Grade 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-10 Content Packs for teachers
These four content packs develop age-appropriate physical literacy for grades 1-10 and can be extremely helpful in understanding what to run and at what times. Pick and choose from 650 activities and over 130 lesson plans that will be perfect for the ages range you are teaching. From object manipulation skills, balance activities, volleyball and soccer drills, and other fun games, these content packs have everything you need as a teacher to be able to run quality programming for your specific age range focus. Save yourself time by using these activities as your base to start from for grade-specific physical literacy programming. Remember, you can always add activities to your own playlists to re-order lesson plans and activities in the order that fits your needs!
Pro tip: Click the purple “Collection” for each grade you are focused on to get a full list of lesson plans to run in order for 20+ straight classes.
Best PLAYBuilder feature for coaches
In contrast to the more general physical literacy training run by physical education teachers, coaches tend to prefer programming specific to their exact sport once a broad range of basic skills have been acquired by their participants. PLAYBuilder also has a solution for that: the ability to create your own programming! While there is a good mix of sport-specific programming built into PLAYBuilder, it would be impossible to build exact programming for every sport-specific group in the world. That’s why there’s the ability to add your own content in addition to the content that Sport for Life has made.
How to create your own lesson plans for coaching
Lesson plans can be created using any of the activities found within the PLAYBuilder Tool. Staff can create lesson plans specific to their program needs or requirements by selecting activities through the search menu. Lesson plans are divided into 5 sections; Overview, Introduction, Warm-Up, Skill Lessons & Activities, and Cool Down. You have the option to create the following information for each lesson plan in addition to selecting activities:
- Title and description of lesson plan
- Overview of the lesson plan
- Introduction to the lesson plan
- Water breaks or notes/reminders to staff
- Any activity specific or lesson plan specific safety considerations
You also have the ability to add videos, pictures, supporting PDF documents as well to ensure that you’ve got everything you need to coach through PLAYBuilder. Watch our full step-by-step video of how to create content below.
Best warm-up options for coaches
Coaches often struggle to find warm-up options that get participants properly moving before practice. Within PLAYBuilder, you have access to dozens of unique warm-up drills in our Movement Prep series. These 44 activities are pre-loaded with video examples, clear instructions, and are broken down into skill level so you can be sure your teams are doing what they need to prior to practice or games.
Physical literacy movement preparation is movement that focuses on incorporating and improving fundamental movement skills and fundamental sport skills into activity. It prepares the body for movement and enhances the way you move for short-term and long-term benefits. Movement Preparation improves the way you move, which reduces the risk of injury during physical activity. It also teaches skills that will benefit participation in unfamiliar activities.
Movement preparation that is geared toward physical literacy – focusing on the techniques that improve and incorporate fundamental movement skills and fundamental sport skills – can also foster a more physically active and healthy lifestyle.
If you tried out PLAYBuilder and ran an activity or two, let us know how it went in the comments below!
If you are new to PLAYBuilder and do not yet have an account with us, request a demo today and we will show you everything you need to know to get up and running quickly with your physical literacy programming.
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