When teaching fitness activities, Paranto stresses that fitness is about working out at your own level. Fitness activities are structured to allow for individual differences. Today, with a second-grade class, Paranto turns on two tape machines, one with music, one with beeps that gradually get closer together. The kids run the width of the gym, then wait for the beep before running back. If they lag behind the beep three times, Paranto tells them, they are to walk clockwise around the gym's outer edge.
Kids learn skills at different rates too.
Like Yuka's riding the unicycle. Other kids aren't doing that right now. Maybe she can learn in five hours. Maybe for me it's 18 hours. The emphasis, though, is on the kinesthetic.