Among the many challenges teachers face as children return to the classroom as the world recovers from apandemic is how to get children active in school.
Public health recommendations may vary from province to province, but there’s no doubt that kids need to get moving !
In addition to the many health benefits, physical activity is also beneficial for mental health. It is therefore more important than ever to provide opportunities for children to play actively every day.
Achieving this while maintaining physical distance between students and limiting the use of shared equipment is a challenge, but it is possible
Here are some ways educators could incorporate physical activity into special activities and daily routines, while limiting closeness between students:
Card Specialist Challenge
Ask the children to bring their own deck of cards to school. Go play this game outside or in a more spacious place inside. The instructions are easy to undestand:
They perform the action as many times as their card requires, or they hold the pose for the same number of seconds.
If you have enough space, have students place the cards on the floor and stand several feet apart. When you initiate the challenge, players must sprint to their deck to draw their cards.
Problems in the posters
Write your math problems on posters and put them on the gym wall or outside the school. The answer to the math problem can be combined with a movement challenge. For example, if the answer is 10, you have to do 10 jumps on one leg before moving on to the next poster. If the answer is 20, plank for 20 seconds.
When appropriate, take advantage of the distance between posters to work on motor skills, such as walking in a straight line one foot in front of the other, hoppig, leaping or frog-hopping to get from poster to poster. other.
A walk through history
Post the pages of a story on the gymnasium wall or outside the school walls and have students move from poster to poster to read the story. Use masking tape to mark the paths to follow. As in the activity above, you can add movement challenges as the children move between story pages.
A variation: shuffle the pages of the story and ask the students to put them back in order. If copyright is a factor, use student-written stories. Posters can also be used to write questions or messages.
Challenge your kids to find creative ways to get active! Allow students to plan and conduct DPA sessions of 15-20 minutes. You can have them work alone or in small teams to make it happen. Don’t forget to advise them on safety requirements and rules. You can direct your students to our activity section if they need some inspiration.
This initiative, developed by Ever Active Schools (English version), encourages participants to explore and map their neighborhood within a radius of 2.4 kilometers, which is the distance of many school walking areas. It aims to promote active transportation (on foot or by wheel) by taking your school or your home as a starting point. For more information on this program, see this story .
Bingo cards are an easy way to get kids involved. Use an empty bingo card and fill the boxes with items to find. If you want, shuffle the symbols on the cards so that each is different. Ask participants to find two lines, a line, an X, an H, or even a complete card.
You can add to your card: a fire hydrant, a school bus, the letter Y, a swing, a ball, something pink, a flower, a bicycle. If cameras are available, have participants take selfies with the items to prove they found them.
Hide four or five objects such as gnomes or garden ornaments around the schoolyard. Keep students interested by changing their location daily or weekly. To incorporate it into the curriculum, ask students to pinpoint where they found them or incorporate their location into stories.
You can also send the kids on a scavenger hunt. You can make a list, use written clues, or draw pictures for younger children who can’t read yet. You can also provide them with letters to decipher to obtain a secret message with each find.
If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to get the kids moving indoors, check out these online resources to add a little activity into the day. GoNoodle offers a large library of short videos on YouTube and other resources on their website to get kids moving. The songs and melodies are catchy! Ever Active Schools is another great online resource for activity ideas.