Shakedown

Jazz hands!

I recently learned this warm-up from one of our summer camp coaches, Natalie Cook. I don't know if the campers had ever seen it before. By the time they got to the end of the warm-up, they were having a ball.

No equipment needed - yay! Works with any number of kids - the bigger group, the better. Yay!

Players stand in a circle. Leader picks a number to count down from based on age of players. The younger the players, the lower the number. The day I saw it, we had about 20 players ages 4-10 and Natalie chose 10 as the countdown number.

Starting with the right hand, everyone shakes their right hand in the air while counting down from 10 to zero. Once that is done, they repeat the countdown from 10 to zero, shaking their left hand in the air instead. Then they move on to the right leg, then the left leg.

Once all four limbs have been shaken, repeat the process starting with 9 and counting down with all four limbs, one limb at a time.

Repeat, beginning with 8. And so forth until you get to 1. At the finish, you should end up shouting a quick One! One! One! One! as you shake your right hand, left hand, right leg and left leg.

This was fun. The lower the countdown got, the quicker it went and the more animated the kids became.  Even if they hadn't seen it done before, they caught on quickly.