How Do You Incorporate Fitness?

Staying fit while having fun!

As a P.E. teacher, Fitness is an inportant part of our cirriculum, but how do we teach fitness in a way that students walk away thinking exercise is fun.  This would actually be a very easy task if all students liked to play sports, but this is not the case. We could set up game play for many of our envision games such as soccer, basketball, team handball and  hockey, and let them go go go.  The challenge is to disguise fitness in away that your atthletic students will find the competitive nature and your non athletic students will see  the same activty as a fun non competitive activity rather than excercise or sport.

Over the next couple of days I am going to open up the floor to you guys to chime in and give away all of your most prized secrets on fitness activities. This is the not only the season of giving, but also think about how great it feels to help some one out that really needs it. There are many teachers out there that freeze up and revert to the same boring activities that students despise. How many times can you possibly run the pacer, the mile, do mass sit ups and push ups or run relay races?

The activities you share do not have to but can be original activities. Most of the activities that any of us do have been seen or found somewhere else and modified to work for us. Why reenvent the wheel if you don't have to. I will get the ball rolling with two activities that have been a hit with our students.

Push-up Handshake

The first activity is called push up hand shake. Challenge your students to get with a partner and come up with a new super secret handshake. Tell them that their handshake must incorporate atleast 15 touches, 10 being in the push up position. Give the students 10 or 15 minutes to come up with and practice their routine with their partner. When they  have memorized and perfected  their routine, they can get with another group and perform their handshake.  Depending on if you are doing this as a warm up or an actual part of class, you can then get them to switch partners and create a new handshake.

 

 P.E. UNO

The second activity is called PE UNO. This game can be played with UNO cards that you can by at your local  bargain store or you can make your own cards. Split your students into groups where they will work togeter to make decisions. Each small group is playing their own little game and will need their own set of cards and rule sheet. One student will pick a card and the group will do what that card says.  After the whole group has completed the activity the next person in the group will pick a card. There is no end of the game so it is important to keep an eye on your students and allow water breaks as a group or as individuals.  Below are the different cards that are in the deck and what we have made them represent. 

Colored number cards - if a colored card is pulled  the group will do the exercise  represented by that color the amount of times that is on the card. 

 

Red = Push-ups

Green = Frog jumps

Blue = Curl-ups

Yellow = Mountain climbers

If a student picks a red 7 the group will do 7 Push-ups.

Locomotor cards

Skip = skip around the gym one lap

Reverse = walk or jog backwards around the gym

Special cards

Draw 2  = draw two cards and do both exercises

Draw 4 = draw four cards and do all four activities

Wild = pick any activity and do that activity

Make sure your students shuffle the cards when they reach the end of the deck and when they are finished for the day. This is important so that the next group that plays does not end up with four specialized cards in a row. Nothing like grabbing a Draw 4  followed by a draw two and have do do 17 push ups 5 curl ups  and 6 mountain climbers and 2 laps around the gym in one turn. 

Now it is your turn! . WE NEED COMMENTS!  My challenge to you  is to share your fitness best practices with everyone in the comment section. It does not have to be a long comment. If you think it is too long post something short and email me the description.  I will collect them and them post them as files on the blog in a future post that I hope to post over the Christmas Holidays that will showcase the top 10 fitness activities.