Holiday Lesson Ideas

I made 6 green trees from oak tag and construction paper. I also made 6 different ornaments for each tree. Store signs were made to go with each ornament. For instance, for your group to buy a candy cane ornament, your group must do 8 gym laps (more examples below). Best to have the students get into groups of no more than 4/5.

The groups then traveled to each store (each store had a poster telling what to do for that ornament and the ornaments were on a folding chair), completed each exercise, and then posted their ornament to their tree (which you can put anywhere in the gym). Their task was to try to complete each exercise (6 in all) before the class period was completed.

The stores that I chose were:

• Reindeer Barn - crab walk from 1 end of the gym to the other
• Candy Cane Shop - 8 gym laps (put cones on the perimeter so they know to go around those.
• Snowman Store - 4 different appropriate stretches for 1 minute each
• Christmas Ball- 5 minutes of single jump rope
• The Star Shop - 50 sit-ups
• Santa Shop - 100 jumping jacks!

It is also important for you as the teacher to encourage them to work together and to help each other and to encourage each other to complete the tasks to the best of their ability. Stop the activity if you see poor team work or team members not encouraging one another.