Warm-up activities prepare the students for more intense gym class exercise. Creative warm-up activities help grab the attention of the students, making them interested in PE class. Warm-up activities also give you a chance to practice specific skills with the kids as a way to review and improve basic physical movements.
Laps
Walking or running laps around the outside of the gym is a common option for warming up. Add other elements to the laps for extra skill practice and a more entertaining option for the kids. Calling out a particular way to move is an option that doesn't require any extra equipment. Examples include skipping, hopping, walking backward or moving like a particular animal. Another option is to add in equipment for additional skill work, such as bouncing a basketball or maneuvering on a scooter as they complete laps around the gym.
Scooters
Gym scooters can be used in an obstacle course using cones to guide the students. Another idea is to play a quick game of scooter tag. One student holds a foam ball to identify himself as the tagger. A child tagged goes to a particular area of the gym or becomes a tagger himself.
Drawing Cards
PE Central website recommends writing different warm-up exercises on note cards. Place the cards inside a box. Divide the kids into small groups. Each group draws out a different card with an exercise written on it. The groups complete the specified exercise before drawing another card. Let the kids know how many cards they need to draw for the warm-up.
Train Tag
This version of tag requires no extra equipment. Students are divided into groups of three or four to make up trains. The kids in the trains hold on to the waist of the person ahead of them and move as a group. Leave two or three students as individuals. The trains of kids run around the gym, trying to avoid the individual players. The individual players try to catch up with a train, grabbing on to the last student to create a new caboose. If a player catches up to a train and links on as the caboose, the first student breaks off from the train. She then becomes an individual player trying to catch another train.
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