Animal warm-up
Add some fun and creativity to your warm-ups with this animal warm-up. It is perfect for your youngest students!
Set up 4 or more cones around the perimeter of your space. As children enter, instruct them to choose a cone and sit next to it. Choose an animal for the students to imitate. For example, I started with a seal. I had the students lay on their bellies and stretch their “flippers” behind their back. Then they seal-walked by pulling themselves with their flippers to the next closest cone. We repeated with a new animal. “Stand up and stretch your quadricep. Now use your quadriceps to jump like a frog to the next cone.” Once we had done 4 animals (or as many as you have cones set up) as a group, I placed a label on each cone that matched the animals we had just practiced. One cone was labeled “seal”, one was “frog”, “bear”, and “crab”. I played music and starting at their current cone the students would move like that animal until they got to the next cone. They then read the label and switched their movement to a different animal. We continued for about 3 minutes in this fashion. Total time equals about 8 minutes and the students were warmed up and ready to go.
