Fall Fitness Day

Help your students stay active this school year participating in the annual Live Healthy Iowa Kids Fall Fitness Day – register today. Live Healthy Iowa Kids will award 25 - $100 mini-grants to support Fall Fitness Day activities at Iowa schools. Applications due September 12!

The activity options are endless for this fun day - check out these fun nature games that will get your students up and moving while learning about nature and wildlife.

Critter Crawl

Students compete as teams in a relay race. The first student in each line moves like the assigned animal to advance to each station. Each student completes the course.

Station 1 – slither like a snake

Station 2 – hop like a bunny

Station 3 – fly like a bird (flap arms)

Station 4 – walk like an elephant (legs straight, arms straight – extended in front)

Station 5 – gallop like a horse

Thumper in the Thicket

Arrange hula hoops across the playing area. Divide students into two groups: rabbits and foxes. Rabbits start on one side of the playing field and the foxes on the opposite side. At a signal the rabbits hop to the safe place (hula hoop) before getting tagged by a fox; there can only be two rabbits per safe place. If tagged by a fox, they become a fox. At the end of each round a safe place (hula hoop) is removed. Continue removing safe places until one remains.

Snake Tag

Designate one student as the snake tamer. Arrange the remaining students into groups of three or four. Each group forms a snake by holding onto the waist of the student in front of them. The student in front is the head of the snake and the student in back is the tail. Snakes must twist and turn to keep from losing their head. The snake tamer tries to catch the tail of one of the snakes and attach to it. If the snake tamer successfully attaches to a snake, the head must come off and become the new snake tamer. 

The Hungry Caterpillar

Scatter small balls or cones across the play area. Divide students into small groups. Each group is a hungry caterpillar searching for food. The first student in each group is the caterpillar’s head and the remaining students are the body. The last student carries a ball bag.

Caterpillars must travel around the play area in single file, holding onto the student in front of them. Each caterpillar must collect as much food (balls) as possible within the time limit (30 sec - 120 sec).

Only the head of the caterpillar can guide the body and only the head can pick up the food (one at a time) and pass it back through the body. The food must be passed to each student down the line (as in relay) to where it is collected in the caterpillar's stomach (ball bag).

Protect Your Harvest

Place 4 hula hoops in each corner of the playing area (make sure there is room around each side of the hula hoops for the students to move around them in a safe manner). Choose 4 students to be squirrels. Place a bucket in the middle with four bean bags. Each squirrel grabs a bean bag from the bucket and places it inside one of the hula hoops. Squirrels must stand outside the hula hoop and guard their nut (bean bag). The rest of the class moves around the hula hoops, trying to steal the nuts. Squirrels try to tag the thieves and stop them from stealing their nut. If a thief is tagged, he/she must move to the next hula hoop. If a thief successfully steals the bean bag without being tagged, he/she becomes the new squirrel. The old squirrel joins the rest of the class and tries to steal the nuts.