JUMPING!

It is time to introduce jump ropes to my little people (Kindergarten, first, second).  After 10 minutes of fitness, 25 minutes of jump rope was a little long so today I tried this:

We started on one side of the gym.  I told the children we were going to do an “all jumping” obstacle course.  I set up one row of jump ropes on the floor in a line.  Second row was hula hoops.  Third row was a line of cones.  Then I demonstrated the course:  jump side to side over the line of jump ropes.  The hula hoops were “lily pads”.  I told the students to frog jump from lily pad to lily pad.  This made for tired legs so I then told them to shake their legs out before starting the third row.  The final row was to jump high over each cone.  Then sit against the wall on the opposite wall.  Whenever we do obstacle courses, they get to start when I touch their head.  That way I can control the flow and keep things moving along.  It moves fairly quickly so there isn’t too much wait time.

After the obstacle course, I brought out the jump ropes.  I told them they had to try three things and pass them off . . . not to me, but to themselves in their head. 1. swing rope correctly over their head 2. swing rope, let it land, then jump over 3. swing and jump three times continuously.  Once they could do those three things, they could try a trick.  I demonstrated a “jumping jack” (feet in and out while jumping rope).  I passed out ropes and let them start working.  The sequence seemed to help those that haven’t jumped before while giving those experts something to work on.  Their is a huge variety of skill level at this age!  Every few minutes I stopped class and demonstrated a new trick (or let a student do it) for them to try.