"Spice Up Your Routine" by Gerry Cernicky

There are many ways to add some zip and spice to your usual physical education class that may instill more interest and variety to normal class procedures.

One of the ways is to provide musical accompaniment to exercises , running and rope jumping activities. There are some ideas on the PE CENTRAL web site that are found at http://pe.central.vt.edu. Check out the link for Amazon .com for background music and musical selections for rope jumping activities. The National Record Mart has the JOCK JAM series from various artists to provide an enthusiastic feeling for the students. This provides a great way to keep up with the times and shows the students that you are aware of present trends.

An exemplary running example would be to play some modern tunes by teaching pacing. As soon as they enter the gymnasium, the students begin to jog around assigned cones and when the music stops they will walk. Soon , they will forget about how far they are running and run for the pure joy of exercise.

Other ideas are as follows: Do a "Boy Scout " run in which the students jog for 50 steps and walk for 25 steps. Each step starts with the front foot and continue this process for 3- 5 minutes. Also , divide the class into 4-5 groups of five one behind the other. Give each leader a rubber " chicken " or "turkey (seasonal) and challenge them to stay in order while jogging but on a signal pass the OBJECT over their head to the next person in line. The first person then goes to the end of the line. The final quest will be to jog without dropping the object a certain number of laps .

Of course, any running activity can be used as a cross-curricular activity by changing miles into meters and tracking distances run each day/week. For rope jumping work, play music while using short or long ropes. Routines can be developed either individually or in small groups. When the music is played , the students will jump but when the music is stopped, they will change partners or different skills/routines.

Finally, the exercise routines can get very creative with a little imagination. Instead of counting in a normal procedure try the following : Hop your age on each foot and multiply that number on both feet...Jog -in -place the number of days in November...toss "dice and do an assigned exercise with addition or multiplication...Give each student an index card with five tasks or exercises to perform and when done exchange with another student. Some examples are: 10 push ups , touch the color red , dribble 10 times, jump rope 20 times and crab walk 10 paces. After completion, the students jog in place and wait for an exchange. Play music for more enjoyment and fun .

Sometimes an instant activity like Vest tag can be a great cardiovascular workout and has the students chasing /fleeing long distances with the normal lap progression. They seem to forget about running and care about not being tagged. In this activity each student wears a different colored vest. Call out one color to chase the rest(3 teams) for 30 seconds. If tagged, that student must wait to be set free from a teammate. Repeat the process and soon they have run about a half mile and they never knew it .

There are many ways to spice up your class such as music , cartoons , TV commercials, movies, radio and any multimedia aid. Try it and you will see the students participate with joy and excitement .

Gerry Cernicky