Warm Up

Squat: Key points

  • Big chest, superhero chest, gorilla chest, whatever comparison you can come up with(Swimmers chest, National anthem at Croke Park are a couple of others)
  • Feet in the Goldilocks position shoulder width apart(Not too wide, not too narrow, just right)
  • Maintain natural curve in the spine
  • Feet stuck to the floor, heels down all the time
  • Drop below parallel
  • Keep those knees over the toes, no knobbly knees!

Lunges: Key points

  • Step forward into lunge position 
  • Back knee kisses the ground
  • Keep front knee over the toes
  • Keep back nice and 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.

 

Hungry Hippo Sliders

  • A great fun version of Hungry Hippos
  • Divide your groups into teams with four or five players on each team.
  • Each team has a designated starting point and a designated hula hoop placed beside each other in the middle of the floor.
  • Each hula hoop has as many balls as possible placed in the centre.Hungry
  • Using the Bear Crawl, players take it turns to get to their hula hoop as quickly as possible and grab one ball. Then they must immediately lie flat on their stomachs while holding the ball stretched in front of their heads.
  • Two of their team mates must then run to the middle and pull the player with the ball by the legs, sliding them along the ground, until they are back at the starting point where the player can deposit the ball.
  • The next player then bear crawls to the middle and we complete the process again.
  • The game can be timed or can be completed when all the balls have been collected.
  • Teacher can add functional movements throughout the game, e.g. before a player takes their turn or after their turn, they have to complete a certain amount of exercises, Lunges, squats, dish to superhero etc.
  • N.B. SAFETY: Floor must be clean and slide friendly for this game to work. It must also be made clear to students that there is no lifting, only pulling back to base along the floor.
  • We recommend maybe showing a you tube clip of Hungry Hippos board game to give the children a visual of the game.  
DOWNLOAD LESSON PLAN (PDF)