Distance learning and teaching remotely might have you feeling a bit overwhelmed and anxious, but with time and patience you can do it! My goal with distance learning is to find a variety of activities that help students foster their love for movement and athletics. When students become responsible for their own learning at home they become better learners and are fully engaged in improving their overall personal fitness and skills. Some of my most popular distance learning resources include: exercise cup stacking, dice games, spinner activities, task cards, coin flipping, active Boom cards, exercise ten frames and the most popular scavenger hunts.
If you are new to virtual/distance learning try one new thing each week and keep building your curriculum from there. I start my Google Meets with five warm up sticks. I put the sticks in a cup and draw out 5. These sticks have familiar exercises on them that the kids do for their normal warm up time in the gym. In class my student of the day, "Superstar" draws the sticks and announces them to the class. Virtually I draw the sticks instead. Next you could move into a fitness focus time that could include one of many things, A u Tube this or that, would you rather activity, A power point yes or no, a game like fitness spinners, dice addition or flip it coin fitness. In the next few weeks I will describe these and share with you some more ideas to expand your options. Feel free to browse my distance learning PE activity ideas in my TPT store to help get you through this transitional period to make learning at home a bit easier. This week I would like to tell you about at home scavenger hunts. This has become my go to #1 activity and my students favorite!
Scavenger Hunts
A scavenger hunt gets your students up and moving around the house with big smiles on their faces. Students will "search" for a household item and then complete a fun task once they have found that item. Parents love this activity because students are totally engaged and can do this activity on their own. An example is, find a sock and then toss and catch it 10 times, or find a pillow and jump on it 20 times.
When I am live virtual in my Google Meets we read it together and do it as a group. This helps the emerging readers and makes it so much easier on them. When we have an e learning day I post it as an assignment in my Google Classroom and that does require studnets to read it and do their best. Many of my families do it together and have been so excited to complete the searches.
My elementary and middle school colleagues have had a lot of success and enjoyed using these resources. The feedback from my TPT store is so much fun to read and see just how many teachers are enjoying this activity with their classes.
Here is what other teachers are saying about some of my favorite Scavenger Hunts.
"My students loved participating in these scavenger hunts. They even had family challenges to increase the competition!! Thanks for the great resource."
"I had Zoom meetings with my second graders and this scavenger hunt was a huge hit! They LOVED it and so did I. Most of the time our Zoom meetings were meant to be community building and support. This is a wonderful resource. Thank You!"
"This was a great resource to include in my distance learning packets at the end of the year. I loved the variety of activities and the fact that it would get the kids up and moving."
"Love it! I will also have the students take a picture with all the objects they are to scavenger for as well. I love that you put in there.. put all the items back where you found them."
Knowing that teachers and students were loving the idea of a scavenger hunts, I created a few variations. Check them out!
My kids are asking me what is next? I plan to create an Easter, Spring and Valentines scavenger hunt next. Do you have any hunts you would like to see created? Please share your thoughts and ideas with me. I would love to hear from you. Good luck with the distance learning. I believe in you and know you can do it! Let me know if I can be of any help. Until then, get those kids up and moving and having tons of fun!
Ready Set Go! Get Up & Get Moving!
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