• Fitness & Health
• Sport & Exercise Science
• Physical Education
• Strength & Conditioning
• Sports Medicine
• Sport Management
• Dance

Toy Store

This is an excerpt from Moving with Words & Actions by Rhonda Clements & Sharon Schneider.

National Standards Addressed

Standard 1. The physically literate individual demonstrates competency in a variety of motor skills and movement patterns.

Instructional Materials/Props

Pictures of or actual play objects found in the toy store (optional)

Central Focus

To imagine their bodies have become their favorite playthings.

Objectives

• Cognitive: The child will acquire information regarding classic toys and playthings and participate in the actions associated with these objects.
• Affective: The child will express an interest in using his or her body and the body of a partner to imagine that he or she is a classic toy or plaything.
• Psychomotor: The child will enthusiastically participate with classmates and explore movements and actions common to toys.

Component of Health-Related Fitness

Cardiorespiratory endurance

Learning Task 1: Preparing Our Bodies to Move

Class organization: Children are scattered throughout general space.

Present the following: Toys are objects created for the enjoyment of children. Let's begin by moving like several favorite toys. Challenge the children to perform these actions:

• Who can show me how to spin like a top?
• Can you pretend to wiggle a Hula-Hoop around your waist?
• How high can you bounce your body into the air like a rubber ball?
• Jumping rope helps the heart grow stronger. Make believe you are jumping rope.
• The wooden toy rowboat has two oars. Raise your arms and pretend to row the boat down the river.
• The wooden rocking horse has been a favorite toy for many children. Place one foot in front of your body. Try to rock back and forth.
• The ballet dancer doll stretches up and walks on his or her toes. Find a way to walk on your toes and twirl around like the dancer.
• Show me how you can march like the toy robot.
• Let's pretend to strap on a pair of ice skates. Can you slide and move as if you were skating on slippery ice?
• Superhero dolls wear costumes in their adventure roles. Pretend to step into your costume and show me how strong you can make your body.
• Toy rockets blast off on a count of 10. Ready, lower your body and then spring up like a rocket.

Learning Task 2: Partner Challenge

Class organization: Partners are scattered in self-spaces.

Present the following:

• Children quickly find partners. To form a make-believe scooter, one child stands very tall and places his or her fists on the chest. The other child stands behind this person and grasps the partner's elbows.
• Together, partners move forward by taking sliding steps without bumping other sets of partners. Exchange roles.
• Explain to the children that wagons carry children'stoys. To begin, one partner clasps his or her hands together to form a circle in front of the body. This is the handle of the wagon.
• The other partner grasps the handle and pulls the wagon along. Exchange roles.

Learning Task 3: A Classic Toy

Class organization: Children are scattered in identified groups.

Present the following:

Divide the children into two groups. Explain to them that they can use their bodies to form a large jill- or jack-in-the-box. Some of the children form the box by standing side by side to make a square. Within the box is a group of children who stoop low to the floor like a folded Jack or Jill. These children grasp their knees while balancing on their toes as they stoop. One child must stand outside the box to crank the handle as the children forming the box recite this poem:

Jack-in-the-box,

Jill-in-the-box,

Tucked down in your box today,

We'll crank the handle so you'll

Come out and play!

The Jills and Jacks spring up on the word play. Exchange roles.

Assessment Questions

1. Build a large soft toy using a partner's body.
2. Is it possible to name a toy that uses technology and show your classmates how it might move?
3. Who can think of a toy we did not see today and show us how it moves?

Academic Language Demands

• Language function: Uses language to guide a partner in movements that imitate the physical actions associated with a classic toy or plaything.
• Vocabulary: oars, strap, spring, crank, the names of a variety of classic playthings
• Syntax or discourse: A verbal interchange to conclude that a classic toy or plaything moves in a particular manner or can be formed using the bodies of several classmates.

Learn more about Moving With Words & Actions.

More Excerpts From Moving with Words & Actions

---