During any extended break from school, even just spring break or a weekend, it’s important to keep kids moving — and not just academically, we’re talking about physical movement.
You can do this with your students through distance learning and encourage parents to get on board with, too.
Here are some suggestions to get started.
5 ways to make moving easy at home. It needs to:
Be attainable
Be fun and builds classroom community (even virtually)
Help students focus
Connect students and families
Allow for healthy habits to be created
How to implement movement virtually:
- Weekly Goal
Have each child/family/classroom share a movement goal at the start of each week. Hold a Monday meeting, either in the classroom or as a family. Do this with your child or in the classroom — showing them will help get and keep them motivated. Here are some examples: My goal is to do 5 minutes every day (or more), I want to go for family walks, or I want to have a virtual dance party with my classmates. - Keep Track
Have kids get creative and make a chart that they can post at home and share together as a family or class. Each day, they write what they did for 5 minutes and put a smiley face, tally mark, sticker, or check next to it each time they did 5 minutes. If they did more than 5 minutes, they could easily show this with their tracking. - Friday Check-In
Share one fun movement activity you did this week. If you’re working with younger kids, maybe check in once a day. Remember, it’s not about who gets the most minutes, it’s about you all doing the minutes together to feel good. You could, for upper grades, tally everyone’s minutes together, and see collectively how many hours of movement happened altogether, or do this as a family. - Have Fun
Encourage your students to take videos and pictures to share! - Adjust as needed
Maybe one week, you need a specific goal as a family or class, and maybe the next week you need daily goals. Doing what works for you and your child is most important. Remember, 5 minutes is attainable, if you do more, great. If not, 5 minutes is just what you need.
Here’s some inspiration for movement to try at home:
ABC Workout. Give an exercise move to each letter of the alphabet. You can use this to spell out sight/vocabulary words:
Example: they, t= 10 toe reaches h= 10 jumping jacks e=10 mountain climbers y=30 second free dance.
I am statements.
I am strong (strong = 5 push-ups) I am capable (capable = 20 jumping jacks).
Stream Online Apps
GoNoodle, Cosmic Kids Yoga, CALM KIDS Meditation in the Calm App.
Kids create a workout game.
With a ball, paper plates, tennis ball, soup cans: have them write the workout and share together.
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