Introducing intermediate balance

Key Stage 1

Physical education

Gymnastics activity: balancing

﻿Hi, and welcome to our fourth PE lesson focused on gymnastics. My name is Ms. King and I work with children and teachers all across Hampshire. Today, we are going to be introducing intermediate balance. So now is the time to pause the video if you don't have a grownup sat in the room with you. If you don't, can you pause the video and go and find one now? Great, so hopefully you have your grownup sat with you so we can run through the rest of the safety points together. If you have been with me for the last three lessons, you would have noticed that we have gone through this previously. So we're going to whiz through it quite quickly so that we can get to our activity today. So just to recap then, the lesson is going to take place inside. You are going to need that two by two metres space available to you. And if you're not sure what that looks like, we are going to model that to you. You need to ensure that you're working safely today. So have you got anything above your head that you might bump into? Just check by reaching up on tip toes and see that you're not going to bump. You are going to use bare feet. So no socks and shoes. And you have a moment to pause the video if you need to organise yourself, don't worry. You're going to need comfortable clothing. So something that you would wear for exercise or a PE kit. No jewellery today so take out your earrings and your watches and take off your bracelets. And if you need to put your hair up if it's long, that'd be great. Let's check to make sure there's nothing that can get in your way. So nothing to trip you up and that the floor is not too slippery. Pause the video now, if there's everything that you need to do to get yourself ready. So in this lesson today, you will need a space to exercise that is two by two metres, width and length and nothing above your head that you might bump into. You will need a yoga mat. If you have more than one, you can place next to each other without creating a trip hazard, then fabulous. Or you could use a soft rug as long as it doesn't slip on the floor because you will be moving on it. And you're going to need your PE kit. So pause the video now, if you need to get yourself ready. So if you'd been learning with me with the previous three lessons you would have seen this video before. So you will understand how to mark out. I suppose you could possibly skip this bit. But if you haven't, then this is how you do it. Just check your marks, don't slide as you spin around on them and that you don't bump into anything. And Lucas there is using 10 to 12 footsteps just to mark out the length and the width of the space that he's using. So check with you're grownup, how many of your footsteps you need need to be able to have a big enough space so that you can be safe in this lesson. So let's look at what we're learning today. We're going to begin with a warmup to get our bodies ready for a gymnastics, increase our heart rate, increase our breathing rate, make sure we're ready and nice and warm. Then we're going to learn our intermediate balances today. So this is a progression from the lessons that we've had previously where we focused on our basic balances. And then we're going to take a moment just to improve our balances, following that we are going to be creative and we're going to explore linking our intermediate balances with our travelling. And last of all, we're going to reflect on our work. And if our grownup agrees then we can share it. Excellent, so time for us star words of the day. We're beginning with that key word that we've been looking at all through this unit, which is safety. We should know what that means by now. So having the right space, the right equipment, making sure we're dressed properly, all of the things that we need, making sure we move our bodies in the right way so we don't hurt ourselves. So safety is always a star word. And today the focus is balanced again. So can you remember what balance means? Have a little think. So balance is when we hold up body still in a position for a period of time, three to five seconds at this level is great. And we're going to work on our intermediate balances today. So beginning with front support, back support, dish arch and shoulder stand. Great, so time to warm up our bodies, ready for gymnastics. We're going to make ourselves really warm. So our muscles are stretching. We're going to get that oxygen pumping around our body. This game is called superheroes. You've played this before. So the great recap for you Lucas is zooming around the room, flying as a superhero and he's going to show you some different poses. So he starts off, that was Hulk. And next he is Spider man. So if you can copy Lucas. So every time he's moving, you move around the space. Every time he's posing and stopping still, you do the same. If you've got a choice though, you could copy his actions or you could some different superheroes and do those if you'd like to. So here he's Superman and Spider man crouching down low. Superman flying through the air. Who is next? Spider man again. And Hulk this time with his big strong muscles. And who we've got next? Hulk again. And this time by Ironman so this big light on his chest. Okay, so I'm going to leave you in Lucas. Or you could pause the video if you want to play this game with your grownup. They could just call out lots of different actions for you, lots of different superhero names. You could even change the way you're moving between the poses. So you could be jumping or hopping or running or walking backwards up to you, okay? As long as you get your body warm and ready for exercise. Sure you're doing a brilliant job. Getting your body ready for our gym today. Right, if you completed the last three lessons, you would have noticed we've done this before. So we're mobilising our bodies and doing lots of stretches, starting with shoulder shrugs so up and down. Making some circular action. So reaching up as high as you can and as low as we can. Imagine a big truck tyre, a giant tyre, try and make your circle as big as that if you can. And we are going to now take out our imaginary glue stick and stick it to our chin, to our chest and just hold it there in a gentle stretch in the back of your neck. And then we are going to use the glue stick to glue our ear and stick one of our ears to our shoulder. Just hold it there. Really gentle stretch on the other side of your head. If you want to increase the stretch, you could just use one hand, just pull it over a little bit more and the same with the other side. So you could, if you want to increase the stretch, you could just pull your head if you want to as well just to make that stretch in your neck. And this time we're making some circles or side to side of your hips. Like I said before, you could write your name with your hips or you could write a special word with your hips. And this time we're swinging our arms from side to side, checking we don't bump ourselves as we do, pump into anything. And then we're reaching up high and we're just going to make that circle half circle with our arms so up and down just swinging it backwards and forwards. Excellent job. And time to do our wrists. So lots of circular movements. Get them really flexible for our gym today. Once you've done that with one hand, you're going to swap over to the other and do the same. Excellent job. I wonder if you can remember what comes next. Can you guess it? So we were stretching our hamstrings, which are the muscles at the back of our legs, we're reaching over, we're touching on toes, we're keeping those legs straight. That's the important thing, okay? This one we're glueing our little feet together. You hopefully have improved this stretch over the weeks. You might find yourself dropping lower, your knees dropping lower to the floor, and you might even now increase that stretch so much that you put your nose on your toes. You might've been able to do that all along. And so you could stretch out in front of you as well if you wanted to. I'm also doing that stretch. This one hopefully again, it's improved. We've got a long straight leg, reaching over, try and touch your toes, but if you can, that's fine. Just hold it where it feels a stretch and just keep that as still as you can. Excellent job. And now we are going to stand up and we're going to try a quadriceps stretch. This is the big muscle in the front of your leg and hopefully you should know what to do now. So key points; knees touching if you can, back up the heel touching a bottom, try and hold that stretch for a wobble. If you are balancing on your own, try focusing on one point in front of you and try and just keep looking at that point and it should help you to balance. So if you need to pause the video to practise that please do. Make sure you stretch both legs, okay? Whatever you do to one side of your body must do to the other. Okay, this one is for the lower part of the leg. I wonder if you can remember what that's called from before. It's your calf muscles. So key points, both feet facing forward. Slide the leg back. Back leg straight, front leg bent. But don't lean on that knee. 'Cause it's too much pressure on your knee. Okay, keep it there. Don't bounce. Just keep it nice and still in that position. You might want to pause the video and go through those again. If you do, that's fine. We're doing some ankle circles now. So side to side and run some circle movements. Keep focusing on that point in front of you and try and balance 'cause you're lifting one leg off the floor. Okay, remember what we do to one side of the body, we must do to the other. So it's really stretched and aligned. And we're going to do some calf raises now. So just 10 of those. Lift the heel off the floor and down to your up and tiptoes and down. Try and get 10 of those if you can. Well done. So we're going to learn our intermediate balances now. I have a video that shows Lucas demonstrating each of the intermediate balances for you. I am just going to talk you through the names of those balances. And later in the lesson, you will learn the key points in how to make those balances effective. And there, we will work at a much slower pace. So for now, just try and learn the names and what those balances feel like. This one is called front support. The second balance is called back support. The third intermediate balance is called dish Our fourth balance is called arch. And the last balance, be careful no to bump your head and make sure you have enough room. This one is called shoulder stand. What do you think makes a good balance? Is it option one? The body is held, but with floppy hands and legs, not really coordinated. Is it option two? Looking around the room and not keeping her head still as we're balancing. Is it option three? So keeping still for three to five seconds with our hands, legs, trunk, that's where our back and our tummy is. Our feet held in position or is it option four, keeping still for a second? I'm sure you got that right. So it's option three, keeping still for three to five seconds, making sure all the body parts are in the right position and held in that still position. Well done. Okay, so let's look at those balances again. So the first one was front support and here's a clearer picture of Lucas demonstrating that for you. So you can see he has his hands under his shoulders. What I mean by that is you could draw a straight line from his shoulder joint all the way down to his hands. So you don't want your hands too far in front of you where your face is or behind you. It makes you a bit unstable so that hands directly underneath the shoulders is great. Straight back, so again, not bent like a banana in any way with the bottom too high or too low but straight as you can make it and toes together. So just to recap, we have hands on the shoulders, straight back and toes together. Pause the video now if you would like to work on your front support. Our second intermediate balance is front support. You can see here, Lucas has a straight body so he isn't making his body a bit like a banana with his bottom too low or arched up. But there's a straight line running from his shoulders all the way down to his toes. Fingers are pointing towards the toes. So it's like those fingers are pointing in the direction of where his toes are. Not out to the side or pointing behind you but pointing towards the toes. And he's got his toes together. If you could point them even better, have a look here. So we're just recapping straight body. Squeeze that bottom muscle to keep yourself in that straight position. Fingers pointing towards toes and pointed toes. Pause the video now if you would like to work on your back support. Our third intermediate balance today is dish. So you can see here, it's all about pulling your tummy in and trying to lift your arms and legs together. If you find that too tricky, just try lifting your legs and move your arms down then try lifting your arms with your legs down. And then last of all, try lifting both together and see if you can raise your head off the floor. You're trying to hold that position. It's all about tensing those tummy muscles. And it is a bit like a banana, isn't it? That shape. And toes are pointed and fingers are together. It just makes it look a little bit more neat. So just to recap, making that banana shape, pulling your tummy in and lifting your legs and arms, pointed toes and fingers together. Pause the video now if you'd like to work on your dish shape. Our next intermediate balance is the arch. So here, we are squeezing and lifting arms and legs together, trying to get both of them off of the floor. Also ahead, if you find that tricky just try lifting, lay flat, lift just your legs behind you and then just try lifting your hands and then finally piece them together. Ask your grownup to help you if you need to. And it's all about holding your legs together and lifting your head. So just to recap, we are lifting our arms and legs if we can, and our head off the floor and we're keeping our legs together. So there's no gap between our legs. Pause the video now if you'd like to work on your arch. Our last intermediate balance that we're doing at home today is our shoulder stand. Lots of the children that I teach in like this balance. They think it's a really cool one to do. So you can see that Lucas has his toes pointed, his arms are supporting his lower back. If you want to extend that, if you're a gymnasts, you go to gym club, you could lay your hands flat on the floor if you want to. But the really important thing is that you have those legs stretched and reaching up to the sky, up to the ceiling and that shape is really important. So make sure you get that right before you take away the hand support. So to recap, we have toes pointed, arms supporting our lower back to begin with. Outstretched if we want to extend ourselves and legs reached up. If you look at Lucas's two toes there too, you can see he is pointing his toes. That would just finish the shape off. So pause the video now if you'd like to work on your shoulder stand. Can we improve our balances? Let's find out. I need you to be a detective now. Lucas is trying to do a dish shape. What do you think he needs to do to improve? That's right. He also needs to lift his legs off the floor. Doesn't he? The idea with the dish shape is to have both the hands and the legs lifted up off the floor. Head also lifted. Toes pointed if you can, great. Okay, detective, what's wrong with this arch shape? I've made this quite tricky, for you to spot you have to really carefully. Okay, there's nothing really too wrong with the shape but there's a slight adjustment, a slight change that we can make to make it even better. So have a look at his knees, he's actually bending this from his legs, from his knees. If you look st this next picture, you'll see your leg is more straight. So he's actually lifting it from his hips. So that's how you could possibly make your arch shape better because that's a common mistake I see when I'm teaching the children in the classes. Okay, how about this one? Can you spot what he needs to do to improve? I'll give you another clue. It's something to do with his hands. Okay, you guessed it. So Lucas needs to turn his hands, rotate his hands so that his fingers are pointing towards his toes and that would make it an even better shape. You remember what this balance is called? It's a back support, that's right. So to make it better back support, Lucas's fingers need to point towards his toes. So thinking about that, pause the video now to see if there's anything that you could do to improve your balances. Possibly ask your grownup to help you to spot the different points that you could maybe change to make it even better. Or you could use an iPad or a phone and ask your grownup to record you and then, or take pictures of you possibly. And then have a look at those and see if you can make them even better. Pause the video now and have a go at that. How can we link our balances and travel together? We've done this in our previous lessons, haven't we? But this time, we're also going to use some intermediate balances. So we're linking intermediate balances with travel movements, or we could use some of those roles that we've learned previously. I'm going to put that all together. Let's see how Lucas gets on. He's going to demonstrate an example to you. You could copy this if you'd like to, or you could watch and then you could have a go at creating your own. Let's see how he gets on. So he start us in tuck, he's doing a rock and roll. Into a straddle. He's now doing a teddy bear roll, into tuck. Here's another rock and roll. It's one of his favourite movements, he told me. Favourite travels into straight balance, and egg roll, into a back support, there you go. There's your intermediate balance. Now he's doing an egg roll into a shoulder stand. That's another intermediate balance, isn't it? So, time for you to have a go. Pause the video and see if you can create your own. Can you find your own ways of linking the balances in travel? We've looked at this previously, haven't we? In our other lessons but this time I would like you to focus on including some intermediate balances in your work. So let's recap. We had front support, back support, dish, arch, and shoulder stand. You don't have to include all of them but see if you can fit one or two into your sequence. If you can do more, even better. Pause the video now and have a go. What impact does exercise have on our body? So we've talked about our heart and lungs before, haven't we? Well done. It's time to celebrate and be proud of all that you've achieved today. Our lesson focus has been on an intermediate balances. I wonder if you can remember what those were called. We had front support, back support, dish, arch and shoulder stand. Well done. Then, we were creative and we explored linking some of our intermediate balances with travel. I'm sure you produce some great examples. And if you would like to share those, on the next page I will give you the link. If you would like to share your work with Oak National, that I and other team at Oak National would absolutely love to see it. So like I said previously, check with your grownup. That's very, very important. If they are happy, then your grown-up can share your work on Twitter by tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak. Well done for a brilliant third lesson today.

Introducing intermediate balance

Introducing intermediate balance

Slide deck

Lesson details

Key learning points

Equipment

Content guidance

Supervision

Licence

Video

Lesson appears in

UnitPhysical education / Gymnastics activity: balancing

Physical education