La etapa de Educación Infantil está directamente relacionada con el desarrollo personal y es crucial en el proceso de crecimiento personal. Las experiencias de aprendizaje no pueden ser desgajadas en áreas diferenciadas de desarrollo cognitivo, social, emocional y físico, sino que se encuentran integradas y son dependientes. Este equilibrio se puede lograr a través del juego creativo e interactivo, que soporta y proporciona andamiaje a todas las áreas de desarrollo y de contenido curricular. Desde esta perspectiva, el presente trabajo realiza una puesta en común entre legislación y conocimiento científico en relación al juego y la actividad física en Educación Infantil finalizando con una propuesta de aplicación práctica. Los objetivos de la investigación son: (I) Revisar el conocimiento científico y legislación en relación a la utilización metodológica del juego en educación infantil, (II) revisar el conocimiento científico y legislación en relación a la actividad física en Educación Infantil y (III) realizar una propuesta de aplicación práctica. Se concluye que el juego y actividad física son dos variables fundamentales para lograr una metodología globalizadora, significativa y motivante que aporte calidad al proceso formativo del alumnado en la etapa de educación infantil que puede complementarse con la utilización de recursos digitales y tecnológicos para el aprendizaje. A su vez, se presentan unas líneas generales de intervención, por áreas y bloques de contenidos, al objeto de mejorar la calidad del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Abstract. The stage of Early Childhood Education is directly related to personal development and is crucial in the process of personal growth. Learning experiences cannot be split into differentiated areas of cognitive, social, emotional and physical development, however they are integrated and dependent. This balance can be achieved by means of creative and interactive play, which supports and provides scaffolding to all areas of curriculum development and content. From this perspective, the present work brings together legislation and scientific knowledge in relation to play and physical activity in Early Childhood Education, ending with a practical application proposal. The research objectives are: (I) Review scientific knowledge and legislation regarding the methodological use of play in early childhood education; (II) Reviewing scientific knowledge and legislation in relation to physical activity in early childhood education; and (III) Making a practical implementation proposal. It is concluded that play and physical activity are two fundamental variables to achieve a globalizing, meaningful and motivating methodology which provides quality to the students’ formative process in childhood education stage which can be complemented with the use of digital and learning technological resources. At the same time, general lines of intervention are provided, in areas and blocks of contents, in order to improve the quality of the teaching-learning process.

The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the educational landscape worldwide. One year after the disease outbreak, blended learning, which combines distance and face-to-face learning, became an alternative to fully online learning to address the demands of ensuring students’ health and education. Physical education teachers faced an additional challenge, given the experiential nature of their subject, but research on teachers’ perspectives is scarce. This study aims to explore high school physical education teachers’ perceptions of the potential, advantages, and disadvantages of the blended learning model of instruction. An online survey was used to register the views of 174 Spanish high school physical education teachers (120 men and 54 women). The main findings revealed that physical education teachers considered that blended learning, compared with full face-to-face learning, implied a work overload, worsened social relationships, and did not help to increase students’ motivation. Likewise, most teachers considered the physical activity performed by students during the blended learning period as being lower than usual. Furthermore, teachers reported that the students from lower-income families were the ones that experienced a lack of technological means the most. These results may guide both present and future policies and procedures for blended physical education. More research is needed to analyze the usefulness of blended learning in high school physical education.

The purposes of this study were to examine how fitness at the baseline could predict both academic achievement and academic achievement changes one school year in advance. A total of 194 adolescents (mean age: 14.15 ± 0.97 years old, 112 boys) who attended secondary school participated in our study. Cardiorespiratory fitness was measured with the 20 m endurance shuttle-run test. We also assessed the lower-limbs muscular strength with the standing long jump test and flexibility with the sit-and-reach test. The academic achievement was assessed by school grades. We performed linear regression analyses. Additionally, we examined the relationship between fitness and changes in the academic performance following the same statistical methodology. Cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with mathematics one school year in advance (p = 0.025). Cardiorespiratory fitness was also positively associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.005), mathematics (p = 0.023), and the grade point average (p = 0.006). Muscular strength was also positively associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.040) and mathematics (p = 0.010), while flexibility was associated with changes in Spanish language (p = 0.039) and the grade point average (0.027). Our results suggest that cardiorespiratory fitness was positively associated with academic achievement in adolescents.