Warm Up

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Warm up activity demonstrating the choreography

Choreographed by Lindsey Catherine Mullis from the Human Development Institute at the University of Kentucky. This Warm up is based on Anne Green Gilbert’s BrainDance.

This BrainDance focuses on eight developmental movement patterns that healthy human beings naturally move through in the first year of life and focuses on those pathways and patterns to promote healthy body and brain flow that prepares the body for physical activity and learning.

The nice thing about this warm up is that as you prepare your body and mind for activity and education, it is structured movement but allows each individual to move in their own creative way and make the warm-up their own.

Breath: 3 Big Breaths

  • Simply take a large breathe in of air and feel your chest and lungs expand while reaching up and out wide with your arms.  As you breathe out let your arms float from above your head slowly back down to your sides.  Repeat for three breaths.

Tactile: Wake Up Your Body

  • Roll first from neck to shoulders to hips to knees and then shake
  • Next tap your body starting with your arms down your body to your toes and back to your head

Core-Distal: X Stretch

  • 3 times each way step out like an X, stretching your arms up and wide, and then back together bending down low in a bug squat touching the ground

Head-Tail:

  • Only move upper body while keeping your legs planted and still. Follow with only moving the lower body and keeping upper body still with hands on hips

Body Side:

  • Only move the right side of your body starting with arm only, then leg only, then both
  • Follow with the left side of the body moving only your left arm and left leg

Cross Lateral: The CrissCross

  • Take your right hand and swing it down to touch your left knee. Repeat this same motion with your left hand touching your right knee. The goal is to cross your body with opposite hand going to opposite knee.  The lowest level of intensity is keeping the foot planted on the ground while you bend to touch your hand to your knee.
  • To make it a higher level of intensity, lift your left knee to reach your right hand as you move and alternate with right knee lifting to your left hand.
  • The highest level of difficulty is to kick your right toe to your left fingertips and alternate with left toe and right fingertips.

Step Touches:

  • Start slow and low intensity with one step from side to side by stepping together back and fourth. Then take it up a level of intensity by taking two step touches to the same side before switching to the other side.
  • Add Arms:
    • Out, in, out, up
  • Toe Tap Stretch:
    • Start with toe taps by tapping each toe on the ground, pointing your toes so you can to actively stretch the shin muscle at the front of your lower leg
  • Heel Tap Stretch:
    • Next switch to heel taps where you flex your foot reaching your toe up to the ceiling and getting a nice active stretch in the calf muscle on the back of the leg

Vestibular: 

  • Hop to stand on 1 foot and hold your balance as best you can for several seconds then switch and hop to the other
  • When you are ready you can up the intensity by adding a spin jump for the finishing move. You can spin jump a half turn or a full turn. The goal is to work on throwing your body off balance just a little bit and then working to get that balance back

Now you are all warmed up! Ready to stretch and ready to be active and exercise and learn about healthy choices!

Health and Wellness Jeopardy

This Health & Wellness Jeopardy game has done all the hard work for you!  Included in the automatic powerpoint presentation are 30 health and wellness questions along with the bells and whistles including sound effects, Double Jeopardy with double points, and even ‘FABS Surprises!’ which consist of physical activity components to add a level of movement to the game. FABS is a component borrowed from HealthMatters that stands for Flexibility-Aerobics-Balance- Strength and demonstrates all the components of physical fitness.  You can use this as another educational moment to discuss physical activity or talk about participants being active to feel ‘fabulous’!

Resources Needed:

  • Computer or internet accessible device to access the online game
  • Projector if needed to make the game larger than the computer screen
  • Speakers for sound effects
  • Participants can raise hands to answer questions or have some kind of buzzer device
  • Paper or whiteboard to keep score

Instructions for Play:

  1. Set up the game for play with additional sound effects at the ready if desired. (If you have time to click through the game board prior to so that you can be familiar with the function of the game and the questions/answers, that would be helpful)
  2. Divide into teams and keep score if you would like.
  3. Have teams of participants select categories and points and answer questions just like on the real Jeopardy show!

Helpful Tips for Game Show Host:

  • Allow the main categories home page to fully load before clicking on the first question
  • On a question slide:
    • Click down on your keyboard or anywhere on slide to have the correct answer appear (or accent the FABS Surprise with sound effect)
    • Specifically select the large black arrow in the bottom right of the slide to go back to the main categories home page for another question to be selected
  • The function of clicking down to show the correct answer can take away the opportunity for other teams to steal points
  • Double Jeopardy ‘FABS Surprises’ are bonus physical activity components within the game and can be done several ways:
    • Have all participants engage in the physical activity or just the team that selected that question
    • Offer the points to all teams and participants for completing the physical activity or offer no points at all or just offer points to the team that did the activity
    • On a ‘FABS Surprise’ slide, make sure to click down to start the 30 second Jeopardy Think Song sound effect and you can do that activity for the 30 seconds
  • There is no Final Jeopardy on this game board so you could create one of your own if desired
  • This PowerPoint is downloadable and can be updated per your specific group’s interests or needs

Along with the link to the game itself there are also links to Jeopardy sound effects to make the game more exciting and fun! If there are any questions or feedback on the development of this free game. Enjoy!

Jeopardy Game Resources:

The below links will take you to additional sound bytes used to make the game more fun and interactive! Some of these are already incorporated into the game board however the correct and wrong answer sounds would be additional.