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Playtime Workout Warm Up for Moms and Toddlers
By Cindy | January 23, 2008
A sound workout includes a good warm up. A light aerobic activity elevates the body temperature. It signals your body to shift it’s focus from your organs and main body functions to your muscles and outer body extremities. As your body adjusts to the increased activity, you prepare the muscles, joints and tendons for the extra stress they are about to received by stretching. A good warm up prevents the body from a shocking wake up call. Teaching our children the importance of a warm up is fun and instills a physical fitness habit that helps reduce injury and increases performance. Through child’s play, you can enjoy exercise and develop a great educational experience about the body.
Playtime Workout Warm Up
I. She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain
- Walk in place, exaggerate pumping your arms for the first chorus. Don’t forget the arm motions for the “Toot, Toot.” Have fun. Be loud.
- Gallop. Act as if you’re ropin’ horses with your arm raised up, and pat your hip with the other as if moving the horses along in the second chorus. Add a lean back, hands together come toward chest for the “Whoa.”
- Waving hands and walking in place for third chorus.
- Do different modeling poses for 4th Chorus . Hands on hips, Swing the hips. Pretend walk with one foot directly in front of the other like on the runway. Bring hands up to hair. Tilt the head from left to right. Create movement. This is fun.
- Pretend like you’re preparing to go to sleep. Outstretched arms toward the sky. Lay your head on your hands. Keep your feet moving by walking in place or stepping side to side.
- For the lyrics and a piano rendition of the song visit KIDiddles Song Lyrics.
II. The Hokey Pokey
- Right Foot (Rotate ankles both clockwise and counter clockwise)
- Left Foot
- Right Hand (Rotate wrists both clockwise and counter clockwise)
- Left Hand
- Right Elbow (Incorporate shoulder rotations clockwise and counter clockwise)
- Left Elbow
- Head (Concentrate on moving the head from one side, forward, other side. It’s best not to roll the head backwards as this has been found to add unnecessary stress to the spinal cord.
- Right Hip
- Left Hip
- Whole Body
- Backside
- Feel Free to add any body parts you want to the exercise. The more the merrier.
- Let’s Do the Hokey Pokey has fun graphics and follows the above list of body parts.
- Lyrics and Music contains an instrumental version of the song to dance.
III. Follow the Leader Stretches (Work up to 30 counts for each position. See if your child will count with you. The repetition will enforce counting. Their attention span may be short initially, but over time, they will be able to maintain the position for the optimal 30 second holds).
Giraffe Neck Stretch: Elongate the neck and hold the stretch to the left, forward and right side. Making faces and focusing on the child will also help keep their attention. The added perk will be facial muscle warm ups, too!
Crossing Arm Stretch: Take your left arm and cross it in front of your chest. Keep it straight and parallel to the floor. Bring your right arm closer to your body. Switch arms.
Rooster Chest Stretch: My demonstrators were getting a little testy for the photo. I wasn’t quick enough to get them in the full stretch. So make sure your arm is on the edge of the wall and the rest of your body is turned parallel to the wall. The arm should be perpendicular. Switch sides. With a little more of a forward twist, Stephanie demonstrates the pose.
Triceratops (Tricep Overhead) Stretch: Imagery for children is three quarters of the fun. Place your left hand behind your head and use your right hand to bring the elbow toward the center. Do you feel that nice long stretch along your triceps?
Leaning Trunk Stretch: Commonly known as side bend. Lean to one side. Feel free to extend your arm over your head. Switch sides.
Seal Stretch: Keep your hips on the floor. Extend your arms in front of you and lift your head and upper torso up toward the sky.
One-Legged Flamingo Stretch: Keep your knee pointed to the ground and your thigh beside your leg.
Butterfly Stretch: Bring your feet together and grasp with your hands. Pull in for a nice stretch. You may also push your legs out a little and lean forward.
Calf Stretch: Lean forward on right leg and stretch your left leg back. Sit you weight into your back leg and settle your heel into the ground. Switch legs.
Hamstring Stretch: Sit down and stretch your left leg out in front of you. Place your right foot against your inner thigh. Lean forward and reach for your outstretch toes. You may use both hands or one. Switch.
Check out 20 Reasons Why Warmup and Stretching is as Important to understand how you benefit from stretching. The full warm up is ten minutes long. Now, you’re ready to jump into Playtime Workouts. This routine will work great as a cool down. I’m working on a different cool down to release in the future and give you more variety.
Playtime Workout for Moms and Toddlers
Playtime Workout for Moms and Toddlers 2
More Playtime Workouts to come…
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Topics: Workouts with Kids |
January 23rd, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Hey,
Thanks for stopping by and giving me encouragement through your warm comments…I feel very good….and Loved your post on warm up…very informative …i didn’t know this…and your website is very nice…great job….will keep following it for tips…though am not a mom yet…
January 24th, 2008 at 12:59 am
How cute!! I wish I’d learned at such a young age how fun it can be to workout!
On the serious side though, you’re really helping your kids more than you can imagine (well, I know you can imagine
). This is a great tutorial for moms and dads who don’t have a plan for how to teach their little ones to get moving, while they’re moving at the same time!
January 24th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Ahhhh…now this is the kind of workout that’s right up my alley. Kids love any kind of activity at this age, it’s so hard to keep up with their energy. At least this way, I’ll be channeling that energy in the right direction. Thanks, Cindy!
January 24th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
You’re welcome, Rupa. Hopefully, the tips are helpful for anyone looking to add a little exercise into a busy schedule.
Thank you, JoLynn. It’s really helped me realize how much they understand and want to learn. It’s a blast to workout with the little ones.
Lovely, PreSchoolMama. Channeling their energy is a great thing! Of course, laps around the couch are now a constant source of chasing even when I want them to just come to me!
January 25th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
And you didn’t mention the added bonus Cindy, that your toddler will be so tired out that they’ll go down doe a nap like a lamb.
And I’ve just received my prize from your Goal Setting Monday. Thank you so much Cindy.
January 26th, 2008 at 6:40 am
Oh so cute! I plan on teaching kindy kids in Korea towards the end of this year - I love these songs with actions - I will definitely use them in classes!
ps - your demonstrators are so cute! They did a great job!!!
February 20th, 2008 at 5:00 am
What an excellent breakdown. Great post - keep up the good work please!
March 10th, 2008 at 6:03 am
nice article.
thanks for the tips.