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Fitness Zone

Balanced Squat

This can be a fitness break activity individuals, small groups, or the whole class.

• Stand on your right leg with your hands on your hips.
• Touch your left toe to the floor. Bend your right knee. Push your hips back.
• Straighten your spine while tightening your core muscles.
• Lean forward so that your back is diagonal from your hips and head.

Push your hips behind you and bend your right knee to lower yourself into a one-legged squat.

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Cross Shoulder Stretch

Students can stand at their desks, or stretch standing in a circle for a quick wake-up break during class.

• From a standing position, cross your left arm in from of your chest.
• Grab the arm with the left hand and gently pull the right arm.
• Keep arm close to body.
• Hold stretches for 20 to 30 seconds.

Repeat with the other arm.

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Music March

This activity is great at the beginning of a class period to wake students up, in the middle of a long class or block schedule to keep them energized, or as a stress reliever at the end of the class to wind students down. Choose a popular musical CD or a song that all your students know. Students will march to the music with a dance, a saunter, or an exercise.

• Students line in groups of four through six students.
• Designate a leader to come up with a move or an exercise.
• Have each group follow their leader by mimicking the dance or the exercise they have chosen. They should follow a path around the classroom, outdoors, or in the gym that allows them to march to the music.

Make sure to change the music and the leaders every few minutes so that everyone gets a turn to create a march.

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Group Juggling-Sit-up Style

With a group of six to eight students in bent-knee positions, perform the following:

• In a circle, with feet touching in the middle, everyone sits up at the same time, and the person with the ball tosses the ball/beanbag to another player across the circle.
• The group continues until each person has received and tossed the ball, and then the ball goes back to the first person.
• After completing one pattern, the group continues with the same pattern, seeing if they can go faster without dropping the ball.

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