Elementary School Physical Activity Program
The Daily Physical Activity (DPA) Program is a new resource for elementary schools in the Peterborough area. Schools can book a day for a YMCA staff person to visit and lead DPA sessions right in the classroom. This is a chance for teachers to see some ideas in action! Sit back and let us lead a session in your class! Our goal is make teachers feel more comfortable leading DPA by sharing some safe and fun classroom activity ideas.
Staff will travel from class to class to lead a 25-30 minute DPA session for the students. Our games are all designed to be inclusive, objective oriented, safe for small spaces, and most of all fun. We aim to use minimal equipment or set up to make sure games can be easily repeated by teachers.
Due to the popularity of our Classroom DPA Program, we are introducing YMCA Lead Phys-ed for 2009. Have our staff visit for a day and take over you gymnasium. Teachers can bring their classes by for 40-45 minutes of fun physical activity in the gym. Just like our Classroom DPA games, these activities focus on participation and fun to help encourage students to get active! Once again we will try to keep our setup quick and simple, so these games can be easily replicated by teachers!
For more information and to book your DPA day please contact:
Kelly Ward
(705) 748-9642 ex705
physical_activity@ymca.ca
Some of our favorite DPA activities:
Islands
Grade: 1-3
Equipment: 4-6 sheets of scrap paper, cones, or place
markers.
Description:
- Distribute the place markers around the desks and tables in the classroom.
- Have the students hop around the 'Ocean' on one foot.
- Start a count down; “Find an Island in 3... 2... 1...” and have each student move to a desk with a marker on it and place one hand on the desk.
- Students who don't find a island before the countdown expires can perform a quick fitness task. Ex. Three jumping-jacks.
- Reduce the number of islands available as rounds progress.
Go Foods and Whoa Foods
Grade: 1-3
Equipment: Food flash cards, cones are optional to layout
start and finish lines.
Description
- Have all the students line up on end of the room.
- Choose one person to be it, move them to the finish line with their back to the other students. Give them the food flash cards.
- This game is played like Red Light Green Light. When IT flashes a healthy food, or a GO food, have the other students say 'Go' and take 3 hops towards the finish line.
- When an unhealthy food is shown on the flash cards, these are Whoa foods. Have the students say 'Whoa' and stay where they are.
- When a students makes it to the finish line they can be IT, and you can run through again!
Bag-It Relay
Grade: 3-4
Equipment: center marker, bean bags.
Description:
- Seat the students in four rows forming a square. Each row forms a team.
- Place a cone in the centre of the square.
- Give each of the students on the left end of their row a beanbag.
- On signal, the players with the beanbags travel to the cone using the called-out locomotion skill and then moves towards the right end of the team’s line.
- As the player moves towards the cone, the team all slides one seat to the left.
- When the player with the beanbag reaches the open seat, the bean bag is passed from one play to another back to the start.
- Continue until all 4 rows have rotated through and the lead-off players is back at the front of the line. Challenge the teams to see which can complete the rotation first.
Defend the Castle
Grade: 1-3 & 4-6
Equipment: 3 2L pop bottles, volley ball or similar size
Description for Grade 1-2:
- Have students form a circle by joining hands.
- Place 3 bottle in a triangle formation at the middle of the circle.
- Release a ball into the circle and have students work together to kick it and knock over the cones.
Description for Grades 4-6:
- Have students form a circle by joining hands.
- Place 3 bottle in a triangle formation at the middle of the circle.
- Assign one student to guard the triangle of bottles.
- Encourage the other students to pass the ball around the circle to expose a clear shot or catch the defender off-guard.
FIT!
Grade: 4-8
Equipment: Activity queue cards with the letters F-I-T-!
printed on the cards.
Description:
- Break students into groups of 5-6 and assign a captain for each team.
- Place FIT! Cards into a box, hat or basket the students will be able to easily draw them out of.
- Invite each team's captain to the box and choose a card. On signal, captains return to their groups and complete the fitness exercise printed on the card.
- When the exercise is complete captains return to the draw-box to get another card and complete the exercise with the group, repeat this process until a team has the letters to spell F-I-T-!.
- When a team successfully spells FIT! Have them place their hands on theirs heads and say ‘fit’ together.
- Use different letters/ words to add active time to you literacy block!
Fitness Card Fun
Grade: 6-8
Equipment: 3 or 4 decks of playing cards.
Organization:
- Divide the class into groups and give each group a deck of cards and activity list.
- Have each team draw 5 cards and lay them out in a random order.
- On signal teams begin working through the fitness routine by matching the numbers from the cards to the activities on the list.
- Challenge teams to see who can complete their routine first.
- Penalize poor quality by having teams start the card over and do the exercise properly.
2 = 8 jumping jacks
3 = 8 squats
4 = 8 heel touches
5 = 8 star jumps
6 = 8 wall push-ups
7 = 16 jumping jacks
8 = 16 squats
9 = 16 heel touches
10 =16 star jumps
JACK = 16 wall push-ups
QUEEN = jogging on the spot for 30 steps
KING = 8 hops on each foot
ACE = free choice of any activity on the sheet
Dogfight!
Grade: 3-8
Equipment: silk scarf or bandanna for each player.
Description:
- The leader may briefly describe dogfighting, or aerial combat to build the excitement.
- Arrange the group in a circle.
- Give each player a scarf and have them tuck the scarf into their waistband to make a tail.
- The leader then calls out a colour and anyone with that colour tail enters the circle to dogfight with the other players.
- When dogfighting players try to grab the tails of the others inside the circle, while dodging to protect their tail from being grabbed.
- When a player loses his tail he must return to the outside of the circle.
- The last plane with a tail wins the round!
Track: Elimination
Grade: 1-8
Equipment: 4 cones, dice.
Description
- Place each cone on desk to layout a track around the perimeter of the classroom or space. Number the cones 1 through 4.
- Have the students walk, skip or hop around the outside of the cones, on ‘The Track.’
- When the leader calls out ‘stop’ each player quickly moves to the nearest cone and places one hand on the desk.
- When everyone has found a place, the leader rolls a die to determine which group is out. If a five is rolled, then those who were out are back in, and those who were on the track are out. If a six is rolled everyone can rejoin the game.
- Consider having the students perform a simple activity (3 jumping jacks) when their number is rolled, rather than send them out. When a 5 or 6 is rolled, no one does jumping jacks, or everyone does jumping jacks.
