Physical activity breaks: Beach Ball

Kristi Evans<evanskr1@msu.edu>, Michigan State University Extension - October 09, 2018

Looking for a quick, fun physical activity break for youth or adults? Beach Ball is the answer.

A beach ball on a rocky shore. — Take a standard beach ball and use it as a fun physical activity break in your next meeting or lesson.

Have you ever been leading a meeting or teaching in a classroom that needed a little bit of an energy blast? Well, we have a solution for you that is healthy and fun for your audience, as well as a great facilitation skill for you. Our solution is physical activity breaks, adding these to your meetings will help keep your audience upbeat and entertained. A great, cheap and quick tool to use for your physical activity breaks is an activity titled Beach Ball!

There are two different kinds of beach balls that are great to use and both perfect for getting your audience up and moving:

A plain beach ball that you can pick up at local dollar or general stores.

For the activity, you should write 10 to 20 physical activities on the ball such as 10 jumping jacks, five arm circles or three squats.
There are some physical activity beach balls with activities already printed on them that you can purchase online. These are typically more expensive than making your own.

Directions

Have participants stand in a circle or behind their seats.
Toss the ball to any person in the room, whatever exercise their left thumb lands on, or is closest to, will be the exercise that the group does.
Lead the group in the exercise.
Repeat five to 10 times for two to five minutes.

Adaptions

To make the game simpler, you can write movements that can be done in their chairs.
To make the game more difficult, see how fast the group can go and add fast music to speed it up.

Above is just one tool that you can use for physical activity breaks, don’t be afraid to get creative with it and add your own spin to the activity. One variation would be to use this activity as an icebreaker and have your audience say their name and favorite city when they get the beach ball. For more information about physical activity breaks and how you can use them read the article Pump up your classroom and meetings with physical activity breaks.

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension. For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu. To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters. To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts, or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).