At the beginning of the year, divide the students into 4 teams. Use ability grouping and gender equity to even out the teams. Each team has the name of an animal. Change names of animal groups according to habitat on a yearly basis such as rainforest animals, mammals, dinosaurs, North American animals, etc. Each animal name starts with a letter that will spell the word TEAM. For example, endangered animals: Turtles, Egrets, Aye-ayes and Macaws; dinosaurs: Triceratops, Eoraptors, Ankylosaurus,and Megalosaurus; rainforest: Toucans, Electric Eels, Anacondas, and Morphos. Place polyspots in 4 X 6 rows on the gym floor for a 24 student class. Spread them out so that students can not touch each other when they do warm-up exercises. Place a poster of each animal on a cone at the front of each row. You can use the name of the teams to have the kids get out equipment, to line up to play against each other in a game, etc. Other options: call them by the T's, the E's, the A's, the M's, or combine teams by calling the vowels or the consonants.

At the end of the first class period of the year, students receive a fact sheet about their animal. At the beginning of the following class when stretching, I ask some students to tell one fact about their animal so that other students can learn about the various animals. Additional facts may be added if time permitting. Then ask if anyone can tell what all of the animals have in common this year such as mammals, rainforest, etc.