Jump Rope Fun

Description

Hand out one jump rope per student. Allow students to jump rope for five minutes. After they have had a chance to jump rope on their own, encourage them to try the following jump rope ideas or come up with their own unique way of getting exercise with a jump rope.

X-it – Cross your feet so your legs look like and X.
Slalom – Jump side to side like you are going downhill.
Jumping jacks – Move your legs apart and together like you are doing a jumping jack.
Twister – Jump and twist at the waist.
Hop on one foot – Jump on one foot at a time.
Alternating step – Jump on one foot at a time, kicking the other foot out in front like the running man.
Boxer – Jump rope like boxers do, running while jumping.
Heel tap – Tap your heels in front of you while jumping, one foot at a time.
Toe tap – Tap your toe in front of you while jumping, one foot at a time.

Act it Out

Description

While reading out loud, ask the youth to listen for the action verbs. Each time one comes up, move like the word! For example, if a sentence says, “The worm wiggled through the hole in the dirt”, have youth wiggle!

Heart Walk Activity

Description

Remind students that physical activity is good for the heart. The heart is a muscle that works better when we are active.

Ask students to trace their footprint on a sheet of drawing paper or construction paper. Inside the footprint, have the student write in a simple activity, such as:

“Do 10 jumping jacks” or “Do five curl-ups.”

Have the students trace their other foot on the backside of the paper and write a different activity on this footprint.

Make a path by laying the footprints around the edge of the classroom or the gym. Invite students to exercise their heart muscle and their other muscles by following the path and doing the activities written on the footprints.

Heart Pumping Activity

Description

Five minutes before the class is ready to go to the gym or outside to do the physical activity, have the students do the following hand/heart pump.

The class should stand up, push their chairs in, if appropriate, and raise both hands to shoulder level. Open and close each hand continually: close the hand, and then open it all the way.

Continue this pattern (open, close, open, etc.) for 5 minutes. During this time, keep watching the students. If someone stops, remind him or her to keep going.

After 1 minute, ask if they are tired of doing it yet. If no one is tired of it yet, continue to do it for 5 minutes.

Ask again if anyone is tired of doing this hand pumping yet.

When someone finally announces that he or she is tired, explain that this hand pumping action is just like the heart. The heart is continually pumping and cannot stop at any time. When it is tired, it has to keep on going.

Explain that this is one reason that you have to keep feeding it good, healthful food. The heart needs good food to keep it going, whether it is tired or not. If there is too much fat around the heart and other parts of the body, it makes the heart work harder in order to get the blood to all parts of the body.

Make sure to eat the right foods so that the heart can work well. Avoid eating too much, or the wrong types of food, because the heart has to work all the harder to do its job.

As you are walking to the gym or outdoors, have the students continue to pump their hands all the way there. Gather the students to talk about the activity that they will next be doing. Have them continue to pump their hands. As you notice students “dropping out,” remind them to keep doing it.

Hacky Sack Challenge

Description

Keep it up and moving – hands free!

Pass out one hacky sack (often called a footbag) to each student. Explain and demonstrate the basic concept of using their feet, legs and head to keep the bag off of the floor.

Hands are only used to start the movement of the hacky sack, but shouldn’t be used once the bag is in motion. Once the students have had a few minutes to experiment with the hacky sack, tell them to pair up with another student or two. Have each group try to use the hacky sack between their group members. Remind the students to count the number of times it hits a body part before falling to the floor.

Other variations include:

• The person who can keep the hacky sack in motion the longest wins.

• The person who was able to bounce the hacky sack off of the most body parts wins.

• Challenge a group of three or more to pass it to each participant at least once before it hits the ground.

Five Food Group Corners

Description

Choose five corners/walls to be stations. Label each of the five stations as one of the five main food groups (fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy, protein). The teacher will then close his or her eyes and count aloud from 10 down to zero.

As the teacher counts, the students move quickly around the gym or play space to any food group wall/corner of their choice. The students need to select and stop at one of the five stations before the teacher reaches zero.

When the teacher is down to zero, with eyes still closed, he or she will choose a food group, call out that name (such as vegetables) and all students standing at that station will be eliminated. The eliminated students will then go to the center of the gym and the game starts over with the remaining students. The game continues until only a few students remain standing and they are considered the winners of the game or that round.

Fill MyPlate

Description

Using plastic or paper food models, have students take turns filling up a paper plate. When the students are finished, have them look to see if all the five food groups (fruits, vegetables, grains, protein and dairy) are on their plate.

Another variation would be to have each student draw last night’s dinner on the paper plate, then add any missing food groups. Have each student come up with unique ways to fill their plate. For example, if the plate is missing vegetables, the student could say they’d go to the farmers market to pick up green beans.

Feather Fun

Description

Pass out one feather to each student.

Have the students spread out so they each have their own space to work.

Tell the students to hold the feather high in the air and let it go. Have them watch how it slowly and softly floats to the ground.

Now challenge the kids to the following feather tests. Have them hold the feather up in the air as high as is possible again and let it go.

As it floats down, see if they can catch it or have it land on the following body parts:

back of the hand
elbow or forearm
shoe or foot
lay on floor and have it land on your back
knee
nose
any other body part.

Additional Feather Activities

The feathers could be used to represent the colors of the five food groups:
- orange for grains
- red for fruits
- green for vegetables
- blue for milk and dairy products
- purple for protein.

Spread the feathers out on the floor. When you say “go,” have the students run to the feathers, grab one, and then quickly go to a corner or area of the room that represents that food group. The students with the green feathers could group in one corner and so on. The students with black, brown or yellow feathers could all represent the fats/oils group.

Follow up this activity by having the students think of a healthful snack or food item that is the same color as the feather or think of a food item that is from the food category that their feather represents.

Contagious

Description

Contagious is a game that teaches the importance of good hand washing to prevent the spread of germs and illness.

Start with two players designated as “it” (the contagious germs). The rest of the players spread out in the gym or designated area.

The players that are the germs work to tag the other players. Once another person has been tagged they are considered contagious and become a germ. They either hold hands or link arms with the first germ to become a two-person (germ) team.

This germ team moves around the gym trying to tag or “infect” other players with their germs. Each tagged person becomes part of the growing link of germs.

Once the group of germs has six people, they divide into two groups. The game ends when all players have been caught.

The goal of the game is to stay healthy and free from the germs by moving quickly about the room and avoid being tagged. Emphasize the importance in our daily lives to wash hands regularly to avoid the spread of germs.

Modification Option

Youth who use a wheelchair can also participate! Make it more challenging for the others by having them sit their bottoms on scooters (if available).

Choose MyPlate Chaser

Description

Choose three students to be the “chasers.” Have these three students pick one of the five colors from the Choose MyPlate food categories: green for vegetables, red for fruit, blue for dairy, purple for protein or orange for grain. You can also include the fats/oils group if you would like. Once they have picked their color, have them each choose one nutritious food item from that food category.

Have the rest of students line up at one end of the gym and the three chasers in the middle of the gym. One of the chasers tells the group which food category was chosen. He or she then tells their classmates that they need to decide to be one of the three chosen food items.

The chaser calls out one of the three food choices. All of the students who have chosen that food item run from one side of the gym to the other without getting tagged by the chasers. If the student is tagged they are out of the round and need to go to the side of the gym and wait for the next round to start. For example: The fruit category is chosen by the chaser group. From the fruit category, the first student picks strawberries, the second student picks grapes and the third student picks watermelon.

One of the chasers tells the group that they have chosen the fruit category. He or she then tells their classmates that they need to decide if they would like to be a strawberry, a grape or a watermelon.

The chaser calls out grapes. All of the students who have chosen to be grapes run from one side of the gym to the other without getting tagged by the chasers.

If the chasers would like all of the students to run at once, they might call:

“Fruit Salad” for the fruit group, “Salsa” for the vegetable group, “Milk shake” for the dairy group, “Popcorn” for the grain group, “Chili” for the protein (meat and bean group), “Grease” for the fat and oil group

Or some other food category name that the group has decided upon.

The game starts over when there are only three participants left to run. These three students then become the new chasers and a new food category and foods choices are chosen.