Instant Activity is a management and teaching strategy that gives your students a task to begin immediately upon walking into the gym. Usually this will act as their warm-up activity as well.
This is a great thing to do because it jump starts your students by allowing them to warmup you are energizing their bodies and also getting the blood flowing to their brain which will allow them to focus on your lesson topic more effectively. Another benefit if you teach 2 classes at once, is that you can allow the first class to jump into the activity instead of just sitting and waiting on the 2nd class to arrive – hopefully this will cut down on any management problems and reduce inactivity.
My instant activity for K-5th Grade is when the students come into the gym, I start the music and the students Walk the endlines, and jog the sidelines of the gym. We do this for 2-3 minutes before going to homebase and getting stretched out. Some variations we will do throughout the year are substituting different locomotors or placing hurdles on the jogging lines for students to jump over.
Not only does implementing an instant activity routine get your students moving quickly, it allows you to quickly prepare for a good lesson. While the students are engaged in activity, it is a good time for you to take role, review the lesson plan and prepare any equipment that you need to setup.
Some other instant activities that I’ve tried (there are tons of possibilities)
- Wall Stop Stations
- Physical Challenge Tasks
- Rock Paper Scissors Battles with exercise built in
- Interval Timers for Workout Stations
- Music Runs (run for time instead of distance)
- With Technology
- Sworkit App
- Fitnessblender.com
- Just Dance Videos on Youtube
What are some instant activities you’ve tried that have worked well?
Have Fun and Teach On!
Liz Altmeppen says
I love the instant activity as the kids enter the gym! I do this before even marking the roll as it only goes for 3-4 minutes and gets those “wriggles” out.
Some things I have tried…
* 2 laps of our running track
* AMRAP-10 handshake squats, 8 plank high fives, 5 burpee high tens, then run 2 laps. How many rounds can you do?
* just grab a ball and bounce along the gym lines
* I give each student a cone and ball and they try to catch their ball in the cone. (would have already done this in a previous lesson)
* basket ball warm up using a poster
* Plank, paper scissors rock; play paper scissors rock while planking. Start in two lines opposite each other.
* Push up hockey- in push up position opposite partner. Try to slide bean bag through PASS your partner
*High Fives- give as many high fives while moving around space using a designated locomotor movement.
Ben Landers says
Great ideas! Thanks for sharing.
I’ve never done the cone catch activity, so I’ll have to try that one