Each year I develop a 6-8 week long fitness portfolio project for the 225 students in grades 4-6 in my school. This year's project - "Building Fit Kids for Life" incorporated New York State and National Physical Education learning standards as students learned how to design and maintain individualized fitness plans. They monitored and recorded all physical activity done during school, after school, on weekends, and vacations in their individual fitness portfolios, which they had access to any time they needed to record something.

Taped inside their portfolio was an activity pyramid. For every 30 minutes of physical activity completed, students earned a "fitness building block." Their goal was to try to fill as much of their fitness pyramid as possible. Students were totally responsible for maintaining their portfolios, and for keeping them up to date. Students also earned certificates for reaching certain fitness block levels. Parents were notified of the project by a letter and sample pyramid sent home, along with six building block slips to start the student off. (Any activity done at home had to be "signed off" by a parent, or it could not be entered on the pyramid.)

Student's goals were to try to earn at least 8 building blocks per week, not counting physical education class, which had its own 45 minute blocks on the pyramid. Only 30 minute increments were allowed to be used. Less than 30 minutes didn't earn a block, and more than 30 (ex: 42) were rounded down to 30. 60 minutes = 2 blocks, 90 minutes = 3 blocks, etc. No more than 4 blocks (2 hours) could be earned outside of school on any day.

Students were also graded/evaluated on the effort they put into their portfolios, using student-developed rubrics.

The main goal of this program was to have students realize that fitness is a lifestyle. Parents were asked to be role models for their students - get out and walk together as a family, etc. This program culminated with our spring fitness assessment, which saw a definite improvement in scores from the fall assessment! My office (where the portfolios were stored between PE classes) became the central point in the school for over 6 weeks, as students constantly came in to enter building blocks done at home, weekends, etc. In 6 weeks, 4,149 building blocks were earned, which equaled 144,270 minutes of activity, or 1,415 hours!

Portfolio Assessment Rubric
Activity Pyramid Sheets
Parent Letter
Fitness Building Blocks

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