Warming up 5 year olds

RavenX · White Belt

Lately i've been "promoted" to being able to do the stretching/warming up of the students in the 4 - 6 yr olds class at my dojo, but instead of just dry old "jumping jacks...good...stretch to your toes....good....crunches...good..." I want to have some input about some fun things to do with them that wouldn't be considered a "game" (Head Instructer hates games) any suggestions on how to make class more fun?
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ncole_91 · Pre-Black Belt

Here a couple things that might work, have to kids facing each other and try and get them to touch the inside of the other persons knee, also (this one might not be too good) do the same, two ppl facing each other. On person holds the other persons wrists and the person that wrists are being held try to hit the kids cheek lightly..... if you understand lol... if you dont tell me and I can try to clarify...

Beiner · Orange Belt

Indian leg wrestling

When two kids lie on their backs facing eachother, then link legs at the knee trying to get the opposing persons knee to touch the ground.

Get 2 people to stand on one leg facing eacohter, then have them put the palms of both their hands together, and push eachother till one of them is off balance and falls.

ncole_91 · Pre-Black Belt

those are good too

Squawman · Orange Belt

Kids respond to imitating animals. Say things like cheetah and then run really fast in place. Squat down and ask them what does a frog sound like, then have them jump and sound like a frog. Make them pretend they are swimming across a river so they warm up there arms. Just remember that when warming up kids that it shouldn't be anymore than 5 - 7 min. Kids get bored and really don't need that much stretching. I've been to other studios and actually watched 15 - 20 min warm-ups. I almost fell asleep in the chair.

Budderfly · Orange Belt

Relay races with props works great with our kids.

AngelaG · Pre-Black Belt

Young children have a fairly short attention span and can be prone to drifting off if not kept properly stimulated. You can do this by altering the tone of your voice, cracking jokes and changing activities. One of the things If you make their warm-ups fun they do not even realise that they are warming up/doing exercise, and they put in a lot more effort than if you just had them jogging around the class. Some suggestions for things I do are:
- Get the children running around the edge of the mats. To test their reaction speed shout out commands such as left hand, right hand, duck, jump, change direction etc. Then point out that they are slowing down and that therefore you are going to start running too, and if you touch them they get 10 push ups/sit ups/sprint thrusts etc. To them this is just like a game of ‘it’ at school, but you are going to get much better effort out of them.
- Another thing I will do is line up the children on the edge of the mat, I will get them to run across the mat and touch the other side 5 times. I will stay in the middle and try to catch them as they try to run across the mat, if I touch them they get allocated press-ups, sit-ups, sprint thrusts (like the game British Bulldog with a difference). The trick here is to spot who you have already tagged so that they all get equal shares and one child is not ‘victimised’.
- Finally if you have a fairly small class line them up opposite each other on the mats. Explain to them that when you say go they have to run around the mats and touch the back of the person opposite them. This means they will be effectively racing against each other, and unless on is really slow and one really fast this can go on for quite a while.

A good full warm up should last for 17 minutes this includes warming and stretching.

Try and get a good all round stretch when doing the warm up, from the toes to the (perhaps most importantly) neck. Make sure the children aren’t bouncing into the stretches as well. Look into which stretches may be potentially harmful to still developing bodies. Exercises such as knuckle push ups can cause problems in the formation of the bones in the hand if performed by children. Some exercises are ok in moderation, but not over extended periods of time.
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Shane · Purple Belt

Yes the young kids tend to let their minds wonder hahahaha

During some of the simple stretches/exercises tell them how hard it is, and in their response you should get a few telling you how easy it is for them and then the other can comment on it also. Its actually become a pretty funny joke in our kids class during the stretches.

The relay races is a great Idea, I have them fetch gloves from one side of the training area and bring them back to the other side while being timed. Only the first & second place winners are announced and when asked who got last you just tell them it does not matter who got last now lets do this or that etc.
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Shane · Purple Belt

I forgot one!

Our kids love this drill

GROUND DRILLS

Start them off running in place, then yell to the FRONT everyone should drop to the front, then yell UP, everyone is up, then yell to the BACK and you get the point mix these up a bit and then what I like to do is call each student up to yell out a few commands, it builds their confident level as far as being infront of a group and make them yell it. It works great for our class
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foreveryoung001 · Purple Belt

There is a really nice web site where instructors share lots of great ideas. It's not a forum... it's more like a bulletine board. Some of the ideas are only so-so, but I have found a lot of new ideas that my students, both kids and adults, are really enjoying.

http://www.4kicks.com/
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Master: "Hitting him with a chair was the only karate I could think of at the time."
Lesson: Practice until you don't have to think.

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