The Dish and the Superhero

Warm up: Controlled Chaos

  • Divide class into two groups at opposite ends over your hall. (Four groups if space is an issue, an extra group on each side)
  • Allocate numbers, Group 1, Group 2 etc.
  • Stress that each group can only move on specific instruction of “Go”
  • Start with running up and back a couple of times.
  • Then Hopping up on one foot and back on the other.
  • Then Bear Crawl
  • Then Broad/Superhero jumps.
  • Add Crab Walk for next round
  • Finish with running again.

Dish to Superhero

Dish

  • Children lie on their backs
  • They must make themselves long, stretching arms straight back over their heads and feet long and straight, no bend in the knees
  • Lift arms and legs at the same time, lifting shoulder blades slightly off the ground to create v/dish shape.
  • Repeat movement up and down keeping legs and arms straight.

Superhero

  • This time students lie on their tummies, again they make themselves long with arms straight and over the head and legs straight and as long as possible, again no bend in the knee.
  • To create the superhero position, students now lift arms and legs off the ground while pushing their tummy into the ground.

Practice

We now practice moving from one position to the other, rolling on our hips each time, from dish to superhero and superhero to dish, rolling first to the right then to the left.

Get everyone to complete this movement about 10 times.

Hungry Hippos

Fun game with movement variations:

  1. Divide class into teams and allocate each team an area at the edge of the playing area. In this area each team has a hula-hoop.
  2. Take a container(s) of balls of every size and shape, any kind of ball you can get your hands on and empty the balls onto the middle of the floor.
  3. When the teacher says go students take it in turns to run to the middle and grab a ball and return it to their hoop. Next player on each team then goes until all the balls have been collected.
  4. Team with the most balls collected and placed in their hoop(anything that rolls outside of the hoop doesn’t count) are the winners.
  5. Variations: Change the movement in subsequent rounds , hopping jumping, crab walk etc. Also put a time limit on some rounds to try to increase the pace the game is played at.
  6. For extra fun: If you are in an indoor space with a floor that is suitable try the following (this is super fun). On their turn players bear crawl to the middle to collect a ball. They are accompanied by two of their team mates. Once the player has collected the ball they must lie flat on their tummy holding the ball forward in front of them. The two team mates must then pull the player with the ball back along the floor to their hula hoop. Next player goes and roles change. This is a big hit, check out the video.
DOWNLOAD LESSON PLAN (PDF)