One of the most significant and influential environmental factors in late childhood is
movement, which affects the overall development of learners, and consequently affects their
performance in school and motivation. Movement is also one of the basic needs of children;
therefore, learners are unable to sit for longer periods of time during the first years of primary
school, and sitting also reduces their concentration for learning. Through movement, children
learn about the world, and for that reason, teachers should pay special attention to the regular
and thoughtful inclusion of movement in teaching.
In the theoretical part, child development and stages of cognitive development are presented,
which is the starting point for planning activities for learners. The influence of physical/sports
activities on individual areas of development are also described. Furthermore, theories that
promote the inclusion of physical activities in lessons are summarised, as well as ways in which
the teacher can include movement in their lessons. Finally, the principles of teaching maths
and the reasons for the inclusion of physical activities in maths lessons are presented.
In the empirical part, we presented the implementation of 4 hours of maths lessons, in which
we included physical activities, in three departments of the 2nd year of primary school, which
represents a total of 61 pupils, as we investigated the effect of using physical activities in maths
lessons on the knowledge of all second year pupils. Among other things, we were also
interested in the effect of the inclusion of physical activities on the knowledge of differently
performing second year pupils. We used a quantitative approach to the pedagogical research.
We measured their progress in arithmetic, more precisely in mathematical content: natural
numbers up to 100 and number 0, ordering numbers by size, numerical relations, addition and
subtraction in a set of natural numbers up to 100 without transition, and in searching for an
unknown term in the range of numbers up to 20.
The results of the research showed that the inclusion of physical activities when revising
mathematical content had a positive effect on the progress of knowledge of almost all learners,
as the majority of learners (85.3%) performed better in at least one learning content on the final
exam when compared to the pre-exam. In determining the effect of the inclusion of physical
activities on the knowledge of differently performing pupils, who were divided into groups
according to their performance on the pre-exam, we found that revising selected mathematical
content with physical activities has the least effect on students with the best mathematical
knowledge, while it has the most pronounced effect on students with the worst prior knowledge
of maths. We found that during lessons, intended for revision, physical activities not only affect
the learners’ knowledge and understanding of the learning content, but also learners' well-being
and their motivation to learn.
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