Building a community where fitness and play are the foundation for all families.
Here’s a simple warm-up for your PE classes called OLYMPIC ALPHABET FITNESS BINGO! Organize your students in groups of four. Give them an Olympic Alphabet Fitness Bingo card.
Challenge: How many squares can your group complete together in 5 minutes?
Example:
LUGE
L – 25 lunges
U – 15 Squats
G – 10 Arm Circles
E – 20 Mountain Climbers
Click OLYMPIC ALPHABET FITNESS BINGO for a copy of the challenge!
I’m sure there are other ways to use this challenge. Let me know if your discover any!
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“Instant activities are designed to actively engage students in PE class the moment they walk through the gymnasium doors. Usually posted on a whiteboard or monitor, instant activities involve every student with very little teacher involvement. They’re typically high energy, but can also take on a cooperative component. Instant activities are an effective way to stimulate student learning prior to the day’s lesson.” Click here – (Top 7 Instant Activities for PE)
Instant activities are also a useful means to spiral back to a previous unit. For example, if we cover basketball skills in September, we will incorporate similar basketball skills as instant activities periodically throughout the school year.
What about fitness? We love incorporating bodyweight challenges, AMRAPs (as many rounds/repetitions as possible), jump ropes, and hula hoops as instant activities. Instant activities help to fulfill our mission of keeping our students thinking and in motion throughout each class.
Below is a list of ten more of my favorite instant activities. Enjoy!
Instant activities allowing students to create with a partner are always popular. Try leaving sets of 2-3 pieces of equipment around the gym. Challenge your students to create a game using the equipment. Give them parameters such as boundary limits and basic guidelines to keep everyone safe.
In the following video, students were challenged to create a core exercise with a foam cylinder. Prior to their arrival, I spread out the cylinders throughout the gym. As they entered I quickly partnered them up. After reading the challenge on our video screen (or whiteboard), they immediately began the task. As the students create, I like to filter through the gym, observing partner dynamics.
As the students enter the gym, I hand them a noodle and call out, “Welcome to Australia! It’s time for Kangaroo Tag. Green kangaroos are it.” Students immediately put the noodle between their feet and begin jumping. Anyone with a green noodle is a tagger, while everyone else is a fleer. When tagged by a green kangaroo, the student performs ten mountain climbers on the sideline with hands on the noodle before reentering the game. After one minute, I call out a different color kangaroo to be the taggers.
I’ve done this with groups of 2-4 students depending on class size. Spread out the Roll for Fitness sheets along with two foam dice throughout the gym. As the students enter, quickly group them up and immediately send them to a challenge sheet. Partners each toss a die into the air then catch it. They add the two numbers that are facing up. Each number, from 1-12, has a corresponding exercise on the Roll for Fitness challenge sheet.
Note: I’ve used this as a station during prior PE classes. For this reason, students are familiar with the directions, and I’m able to use it as an instant activity.
Click Roll for Fitness Instant Activity for a copy of the challenge.
Evenly space enough paddles with a bean bag throughout the gym for each student.
Instant Activity #1 – Individual challenges
Students practice tossing and catching the bean bag in their own space. I’ll post individual challenges on the screen.
Instant Activity #2 – Partner Challenge
Students toss their bean bags to each other, attempting to catch the bean bag in their hands. I’ll post the following challenges on the screen?
https://youtu.be/5OJasnR16ms&rel=0
Students enter the gym and without hesitation begin the challenge. In plank position, each student tries to tap the opposing student’s hand. The first one to tap the opponent’s hand three times wins the round. Each player then searches for another challenger.
This is a favorite instant activity with my first-grade students. Before the students enter the gym, I greet them at the door and tell them that the ice cream parlor is open. Students enter the gym and retrieve a plastic scoop, a yarn ball, and a small cone and practice tossing the ice cream with their scoop into the cone. After a brief amount of time, students will partner up and toss the ice cream to each other. I’ll let the videos speak for themselves.
Individual Ice Cream Scooper
Partner Ice Cream Scoopers
You’ll never know what the kids will discover when given the opportunity to create with swim noodles. Before your students arrive, spread out one swim noodle for each student. Below are two videos showcasing movements create by first graders. I now use their ideas with my other classes!
Noodle Skate Boarding
Noddle Pogo Stick
Students enter the gym and begin dancing to the beat of the music. When the music stops, they freeze!
For more INSTANT ACTIVITIES check out one of my previous posts called, TOP 7 INSTANT ACTIVITIES FOR PE!
If you enjoyed this post, consider following my blog to receive future posts.
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/justybubpe.
Search #trinitype to see what my amazing PE team is doing with their classes.
Check out my Facebook group called Keeping Kids in Motion!
Students, teachers, and families have enjoyed each of the first five monthly fitness challenges I’ve presented to them this year. However, for February, I’m offering a healthy breakfast challenge (link to document below) instead of a fitness challenge. This idea came to me as I overheard a group of 5th grade students discussing their morning routines before school. Several of the students mentioned that they either didn’t have time for breakfast or just didn’t like to eat breakfast. I then took a quick survey of the class and discovered that some students eat breakfast everyday, others sometimes eat breakfast, and more than a few never eat breakfast.
February’s Nutritious Breakfast Challenge Goals
Click February’s Nutritious Breakfast Challenge for an editable copy of the challenge.
The Challenge: Students will choose one food from each of the three columns (carbohydrates, protein, fruit) listed below for breakfast. One their calendar, they will mark each of the items they ate. They only mark the calendar on days they eat a complete, nutritious breakfast. At the end of the month, students turn in their calendars to receive an award certificate and toe token.
Click February’s Nutritious Breakfast Challenge for an editable copy of the challenge.
Click Healthy Breakfast Certificate 2018 for an editable copy of the February certificate.
“Breakfast Basics.” KidsHealth. The Nemours Foundation, n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2017.
If you enjoyed this post, consider following my blog to receive future posts.
Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/justybubpe.
Check out my Facebook group called Keeping Kids in Motion!