It Might Be Easier Than You Think!
The snow this past week (brought on by yet another Nor’easter which kept schools closed) got me thinking about the question/concern I get more often than not from teachers: What is the easiest way to get kids moving?
It is a good question! Teachers have so much on their daily to-do lists that adding one more thing can seem very overwhelming. The first step is a real commitment to adding more movement into the daily plan. The second step is assembling a tool box of go-to games and adding to it frequently. Making a commitment to add one or two new games or activities each week means that by year end that toolbox is full. If an activity flops, throw it out and find another one. If I had a penny for all the flops I have had along the way!!! But slowly assembling this arsenal of fun will make committing to it the following year much easier.
Here are some ideas to start:
Transitions
- Transitions can be challenging but also a great time to sneak in some solid physical activity. I have a group of preschoolers whose activity room with me is on the third floor of a church. They think taking the elevator is the greatest thing ever, but for obvious reasons, I am not a fan. So the first day we were together, I told them a very quick story about a bunch of mountain climbers and a challenging summit they needed to climb. We talked about the snow on the mountain and how it snows harder at the top, and sometimes when we are at the top we can’t see the bottom, and so on. Now, we always climb the stairs, aka mountain, and each time they add a new piece to the story. Result: heart pumping, brain building, big aerobic movement, crossing the midline, patterning, upper and lower body work. Score!
- Imagine your first grade class rounds the corner to the long hall that will take you to the cafeteria and you see there is a line to get in for lunch. In an effort to slow your class down so there is less time waiting in that perilous line, make up a story about a jungle adventure. This adventure includes monkeys, bears, giraffes, elephants, locusts, etc. and each time an animal in the story enters the narrative, the children must move towards the cafeteria like that animal: bear crawl, tiptoe, stomping, crab walking, etc. Result: upper and lower body strengthening, grip strengthening, patterning, crossing the midline, heart pumping, brain building, big aerobic movement. Excellent!
- This one I credit to the amazing Brenda T., 5th grade teacher in the Alexandria, VA public school system: Imagine your fifth grade is stuck in that cafeteria line. How about a quick game of rock, paper, scissors? No, not the one with hands, but the full body, heart pumping kind! Children get a partner and proceed to jump three times counting with each jump: 1, 2, 3. Then they either do rock (feet together), paper (feet apart) or scissors (feet split, one forward one back). One person wins and gets a point, proceeding to play two out of three. Then switch partners and play the game with the person on the other side. Result: heart pumping, brain building, big aerobic movement, crossing the midline, proprioceptive stimulation. Boom!
- Imagine it is a fire drill. Children are stuck in line outside. They are wiggly, getting edgy and yes, it might be a little cold. Solution: you have a deck of cards in your pocket. You have an extra piece of paper that has 13 exercises on it, each exercises assigned to Ace through King. Children take turns drawing two cards: the first is the exercise as indicated by your chart, the second is the number of exercises 1-13. For example, a child draws a jack and a 9. Jacks are jumping jacks so the children will do 9 jumping jacks. The next child draw a 5 and a Queen. The 5 is for pushups, so the children will do 12 pushups and so on. Result: heart pumping, brain building, big aerobic movement, proprioceptive and vestibular strengthening, upper and lower body strengthening, bilateral and crossing the midline. Woohoo!
- Even easier, what if you had a dice in your pocket? One child picks an exercise and rolls. Everyone does that number of the exercise. The child passes it to the next person. Allowing them to take leadership is a great way to instill a love of movement!
What about in the classroom? There is little to no little to no space for big activity.
True. Classrooms are tight, but there always room to move.
- A school in Ontario, Canada implemented FUNtervals into their daily class schedule with terrific results. Not only were cognitive skills improved, but on task behaviors improved as well. Simple 4-minute breaks were high intensity and heart pumping. One example was a FUNterval of making s’mores: the children needed to collect wood where they would lunge in different directions, then start the fire and star jump, then finally roast the marshmallows which meant intense jumps into the air. The goal was to get kids moving for 20 seconds very intensely, rest for 10 seconds and repeat eight times. These 4-min high intensity activities lead to 50 minutes of on task behavior immediately afterwards.
- Incorporating movement directly into a lesson is another way to get kids moving. The easiest way is to do jumping jacks, pushups, burpees or mountain climbers for a numerical answer. If the answer is 15, then 15 mountain climbers it is. But this doesn’t have to be numerical. What if the answer is from multiple choice? A is 10 mountain climbers, B is 15 jumping jacks, C is 10 pushups, D is 15 situps, and so on.
- I recently met a teacher who had been working on character analysis with some of her students. She had them write down their thoughts on a character then share those thoughts with a partner, who followed up with some constructive criticism. Both partners then did 8 burpees and the partner then read their thoughts to which constructive criticism was returned, they did 8 burpees and switched partners repeating the process.
- Perhaps dancing is more appealing. Then dance parties as a brain break are a great way to get kids moving and shake up the structure of the day. The key is picking the right music — music they like, so ask them to help pick the soundtrack.
- Or have kids move to the beat by using a metronome. There are plenty of metronome apps for free. This will get them moving while supporting the neural pathways that build math skills.
Keep in mind, children learn best when the adults in their lives are committed participants in the process. Children are more likely to get moving if the grownups, teachers, parents and other adults in their lives are moving too. Of course, some teachers prefer a more athletic style of movement. Great! Then use that as the jumping off point for activities but always be sure to add in activities that are more in line with free style movement/dance for kids who are more comfortable moving that way. Some are more comfortable dancing. So dance party it is!
As with everything, practice makes perfect. At first, incorporating physical activity into the day might be a little daunting, but after a while, with repetition, commitment to movement and commitment to building a toolbox, it can easily be become something that is part of the class, or even better, the school, DNA.
No matter which style of movement is the driver, the repercussions of including significant physical activity and movement into our children’s days are far reaching. The immediate impact is more on-task behavior, improved cognition, memory and retention, making a more smoothly running day, with better academic results. The long term impact is improved health and wellness for our next generation. What an awesome legacy!
Other resources:
Reebok offers free weekly planning for physical activity in your classroom: www.bokskids.com
Fitbound has some fun free videos
Greater Richmond Fit4Kids is an incredible resource. Their HealthyClassroomsRVA has some super fun and innovative ideas
James City County, VA also has some super resources on their Wellness Integration Page.
Runningbrooke.org has a whole list of fantastic resources and links
