Warm-up Activities for Elementary Physical Education
Physical education gives elementary school students a chance to gain physical activity, release some energy and learn about the importance of exercise. When students head to the gymnasium, most physical education teachers like to start with a warm-up activity to get the students' bodies ready for exercise.
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Captain's Deck
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The warm-up activity called Captain's Deck will have kids running around in no time. Students to use their imagination to pretend the gymnasium is a boat. Before starting, the physical education teacher must tell the students where the bow (front), stern (back), port (left) and starboard (right) sides of the boat are, as well as explain other commands, such as "Hit the deck" (lay on your stomach), "Attention" (salute and yell, "Aye, aye captain"), or "Sick turtle" (children fall on their backs and wave hands and feet in the air). The rules are simple: the physical education teacher yells out a command and the students carry it out.
Turtle Tips
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Turtle Tips is a variation of the classic warm-up game, tag. In this version, two or so students are "tippers," two are "rescuers" and everyone else is a turtle. When the game starts, tippers run around and try to "tip" the turtles by tagging them. When tagged, the turtles lay on their back and wiggle their arms and legs in air. Luckily, the rescuers can come to the rescue and "roll them over" by tagging them again.
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Juggling
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Anyone who has tried it, can tell you that juggling is a difficult task to master. Juggling can make a challenging warm-up activity and a good, quiet way to begin physical education class. Juggling strengthens hand-eye coordination and is also an exercise in patience and determination. Children can start learning the technique by juggling scarves, which float through the air and are significantly less challenging. Eventually, when students are ready to move onto something more difficult, they may try juggling rings or balls.
Obstacle Course
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Students seem to love making their way through an obstacle course. An obstacle course is a great way to use the different equipment in a gymnasium and let kids warm-up for physical education class. Obstacles courses can be creative and embrace a theme. For instance, in a jungle theme, students can scooter across "a creek" by pulling their way with a rope, walk through the mud (tires), swing from a vine (rope), step on stones and crawl through a cave.
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References
- Photo Credit exercise image by IKO from Fotolia.com
