Activity Description: Gymnastics Activities are fun way to engage students in physical activity while teaching fundamental movement skills.  Chances are that you are already doing more gymnastics than you think - though you might not be calling it that.  Check out these great activity ideas!

Overview:
Prior to Activities:
• Outline a boundary prior to the lesson, a safe distance from the wall.
• For support documents, sample stretching routing and additional ideas visit Gymnastics Ontario at www.ogf.com

Activity 1: Free Space

• Students move in a defined general space within the activity area (e.g., half of the activity area) to find their own personal space. On your signal, students do jumping jacks in their new personal space.

Activity 2: Free Space 2

• Students move in a defined general space to find their own personal space, and on your signal, change their locomotion to the following suggestions: gallop, run, hop, skip, and jump.
• When you call out “Free Space”, students perform various fitness activities, including jogging on the spot, push-ups, sky punches, can-can kicks, as they choose, or as you direct.

Activity 3: Skipping North

• Directions North, South, East and West are labeled on each wall around the gymnasium.
• Students spread out, all facing the same direction.
• Call out and point to a direction and a type of movement (e.g., “Gallop South”); students perform that movement in the designated direction.
• Outline a boundary prior to the lesson a safe distance from the wall.
• Once students reach the boundary, they can perform jumping jacks until a new direction and movement is called.

Activity 4: Change Pathway

• As you specify, students use an animal locomotion to travel in various pathways (e.g., zigzag, straight, curved, circular).
• Continuing as animals, students travel in a pathway that spells out their name or that forms a shape.

Activity 5: Change Level

• Students use animal locomotion to move in a defined space, periodically changing the level (e.g., high, medium, low) and animal, on your signal.
• Students then use various movements to travel at the level you specify.

Activity 6: Bend, Stretch, Twist, Turn, Balance

• Demonstrate examples of actions that bend (fold from the waist), stretch (lengthen the body), twist (feet face one wall while body is twisted to face another), turn (turn the entire body in one direction), and balance (hold a static position).
• Students move around the area in a specified locomotion (e.g., skip, hop, gallop, run). Call out a movement category (e.g., bend), and students choose an action in that category.

Activity 7: Follow the Leader

• Students work with a partner and share their favorite way of traveling around the gymnasium.
• Together, students combine their favourite ways of traveling in a repeatable sequence.
• Students play follow-the-leader with their partner, traveling together in their sequence and focusing on pathways, directions, and levels.

Source: Ophea DPA Support Services Activity Cards, DPA the Gymnastics Way, February edition. Developed in partnership with Gymnastics Ontario. For more information visit www.ogf.com

Back to Activity Ideas List