Fairy Tale Fitness

Last Friday night I was one of 5 women + 1 gym teacher who put on this event at our school, Fairy Tale Fitness. It was designed for kids Kindergarten through 2nd grade to come and do a variety of fitness activities, all based around Fairy Tales and Nursery rhymes. This was our first year to do this activity. We had a great time putting it together. Mr. Brenheiser, the gym teacher wants to do it every year!

Here's our flyer for the event:

The kids each received a "passport" card to do all 8 events and get them all checked off!

I got to color and laminate all of the posters!

Here Lachlan walks the "bridge" trying not to fall in the water, and then gets 3 chances to knock out the troll.

J.B. drew this troll for me!

He poses next to his artwork!

We decorated the beanstalk with vines and "clouds".

Soren shows us how to climb like a pro!

We had several "walls" for the children to knock down, bowling style.

I made these 4 of these cute little Humpties out of ballons and papier mache'.

The older kids you see in these photos are our 5th grade leaders. We couldn't get enough adults to volunteer, so we went to the 5th grade leaders and asked if any of them would like to help. Twenty-eight 5th graders signed up. We ended up having to draw 11 names from a hat. The 5th grade helpers were superb! They worked hard, and were very responsible.

This Humpty is looking pretty beat up!

Before the event, the school librarian and the K-2 teachers read all of these fairy tales to the kids so that they'd be "up to date" with the stories before the event.

A beanbag toss.

This obstacle course was supposed to represent "Hansel and Gretel getting lost in the woods,"...

The agility ladder beyond the blue tunnel had pictures of Jack jumping over the candlestick in each rung so that the kids could jump "over" those sections, and finally...

A serpentine course marked off by cones and swirly tape for the kids to "scooter" themselves back to the starting line. Most kids went on their tummies. This nursery rhyme connection for the scooters was supposed to be "Ride a Cock Horse." We were originally going to use stick horses, but we decided the scooters would be more fun.

Unforunately, I didn't get any photos of the kids riding the coach to Cinderella's ball. Here's how it worked: A child sat on a carpet square. A 5th grader had a rope harness around their chest and waist. They gave the ends of the tope to the child on the carpet square and then they pulled the young child across the gym and back.

That is Logan helping out with the rope swings. We had two ginormous pink bows tied at the top and at the bottom of each rope swing, to represent Rapunzel's hair.

For Jack and Jill's Hill we had the kids climb up and over the yellow ladder/scaffolding thing, and then roll down the hill.

Some of my fellow Wellness Committee members--Carole Alpert, dressed as the Beanstalk!

Liesl Christie dressed as a witch

Me, dressed as a Camelot Princess

Mr. Brenhiser, the gym teacher, and the Wellness committee, Carol, Liesl, Me, Nikki, and Carole.

When the kids went home, they each got a "non-poisoned apple."

Our shortcoming in this activity was underestimating how many families would attend. We were told to plan for 50. We had 3 times that many kids!