Stretches and Warm-Ups
All Over Stretch: Start with your hair, forehead, eyebrows, ears, eyes, cheeks, nose, lips and teeth and move down the entire body.
Criss-Cross: Criss-cross your legs and attempt to hop, trying to increase the length of each lateral movement until a limit is reached.
Crow Hop: Hop from side to side, attempting to gradually increase the length of each lateral hop until no more distance can be added. Encourage participants to set their own pace.
Fried Egg Stretch: Set up a breakfast scenario of someone cooking and tell the group they are the eggs. Begin by lying on the ground and imitate an egg being fried in a frying pan. Start out slowly and end by flopping all over.
Heel and Toe Touch: While hopping on two feet, lock your knees together and alternate touching your toes then heels together. This is a very odd exercise to perform and observe.
Heel Clicker: A heel clicker is a dance step that involves alternating heel kicks laterally to the left and then to the right
Hop 'N Spin: Hop on one leg while spinning, letting the other leg centrifuge up into an “L” position in front of you. Use your arms for balance.
Olympic Speed Walking Duck Race: First, have participants practice their speed walking techniques. Have them really get their arms and hips into the motion. Then have participants waddle, quack, and flap their arms like a duck. Now they need to combine all of these motions as gracefully as possible and have a race with their buddies. As a judge, you are looking for form and a good laugh!
Pair Stretch: Pairs stand back to back and lock elbows. Each person takes turns bending at the waist while keeping their arms locked with their partner. It works best with people of similar heights.
Row Boat Stretch: Partners sit facing each other and put the soles of their shoes together. Have them grasp hands and take turns pulling (gently) one another back and forth. Partners may need to bend their knees because of tight muscles, tight psyche or heredity in order to grab hold of the others hand.
Toika Hop: Select two volunteers and stand between them with your arms around their waists, having them do the same. Have all three of you hop together in sequence. Then start kicking together in sets of one, two, or three (your choice) beginning with the left leg, kicking to the right. Sounds confusing but simple enough. A little chorus line!
Find a Place: All the children silently think of a place in the room. As the facilitator counts from one to five, each child walks to the place that he/she thought of. The facilitator counts from one to five again and each child walks to a new place before the facilitator reaches five. Then they return to their first place, hopping on one foot, while the facilitator counts to five. Children next return to their second place, hoping on one foot while the facilitator counts to five. The group can continue varying the movements –for example, skipping, walking backwards, jumping like a frog, etc.