Learn to Teach Gymnastics Classes - Live Classes -20+ Pupils

Starting with leaps as a warm up activity this lesson then moves on to cover a number of gymnastics rolls and skills in an easy to replicate lesson style.

The children work in pairs for the majority of the lesson as gymnast and peer mentor, helping each other improve and develop.

The skills are modified to be made easier or more challenging so that all students abilities are stretched.

The lesson format has been created so that you can easily replicated it to incorporate any gymnastics skills you wish to cover. You can also pick and choose the skills to suit the age of children that you are teaching and ensure that all children are given achievable skills for their age and stage. Included in this section is a number of downloadable sheets for you to select other skills to use in these types of lessons.

If you have extremely different abilities within your class you could also give different children different skills to work on.

Lastly the lesson finishes with a one foot balance game, where the children have fun trying to balance in different shapes for as long as they can.

• Easy to replicate lesson format.

• Quick equipment set up.

• Teaching points for lots of easy to achieve rolls.

• Great warm up and cool down activities.

  
  

Starting with a topic related Warm Up, the children travel around the room in a variety of movements inspired by animals. This warm up can be adapted to any topic you are working on. For example you could choose different super powers to move with as Super Hero's or you could pretend to travel on different types of terrain if your topic was Ice Age.

The children then develop these movements that they have explored onto the benches linked to jumping and rolling off the benches.

The first activity that they do off the bench is to roll, this activity means that the children's hips are already above their shoulders, making tipping over into the forward roll much easier. I do this activity with all ages once I have explored different ways to roll in my floor lessons from section 1. You may wish to build up slower to this with the younger children however I find that the younger you start rolling the less fearful they will become as they progress through the older years in school.

The children move on to do a variety of jumps both on and off the bench, these can be modified to suit all abilities of children as necessary.

You will find that the children naturally travel in a variety of ways that includes weight bearing on their hands. This leads on to cartwheels and handstands, in this lesson you will see cartwheels and handstands broken down into one legged bunny hops on the bench as well as cartwheels over.

This lesson has a lot of content as I have tried to give you as many ideas as possible in the time allowed, you may wish to break in down into more than one lesson.

Lastly the children cool down with a group balancing activity, this again can be adapted for any lesson and even done on a line.

• Topic related warm up.

• Quick equipment set up.

• Cartwheel, Handstand and roll progressions.

• Fun and engaging cool down.

This lesson starts with the children using hoops to warm up. They are encouraged to explore different movements using this versatile piece of hand apparatus and then share their ideas. This is a great activity that not only works in the gymnasium but can also be replicated outside on the rare occasion that the hall is in use and you are asked to go outside onto the playground or the field.

I repeat this warm up with all sort of hand apparatus here are a few that it works really well with;

• Quoits

• Bean Bags

• Ribbons

• Scarves

• Skipping Ropes

In this lesson we use this activity to warm up the children however this could easily be made into a whole lesson and the children could develop their own routines with the hand apparatus. These routines could be created in pairs or individually, with or without music.

After the warm up the lesson moves on to teaching Leap Frog this is a skill that is extremely helpful for teaching vaulting and one that the children love to do. In this lesson I go through the progressions to teach this safely and build up from a very low jump over their partner to the full Leap Frog.

The Leap Frog and all Vaulting require a hurdle step at the beginning, and in the next step of the lesson this is the technique I move on to teach. Using the hoops, I explain the foot pattern that the children will need. I would recommend that you spend lots of time on this activity and again it is one that could be done outside of the gym.

Once the children have mastered a hurdle step you can move on to introducing the vaulting tables with and without the spring boards. In this lesson we use a variety of different vaulting apparatus to show you how versatile different apparatus can be.

During this lesson you will see a live class in action and I will show how important return activities are to keep the children busy and not standing in lines for long periods of time.

If you are looking for more return activities you will find more on the bench lesson and here are a few more ideas;

• Hopscotch

• Houla Hooping

• Burpees or any fitness activity

• Wheel-Barrow with a partner

• Skipping with a rope

• Holding a series of shapes

The children show a variety of different vaulting techniques and most importantly are encouraged to land in a landing shape. You will see how this is taught and it is really important that you teach this to your pupils.

Starting with Follow The Leader Warm Up, the children travel around the room in a variety of movements leading their partner and then swapping over. This lesson encourages lots of cooperation and collaboration. The pupils will learn to work together in a variety of skills and routines.

After the warm up I refresh that gymnasts on their knowledge of gymnastics shapes. You will slowly becoming aware of how much these fundamental shapes are used in all of our lessons. Here I use the children to recall the shapes that they have learnt however with younger children I might have to offer more suggestions. If you cannot remember the shapes use the downloadable posters included in this course.

Once the children have been familiarised with the shapes, they then begin to put together their own balances in their groups.. The children are given time to develop their own balances, you will see how how quickly they develop excellent balances now they have a good understanding of the fundamental skills.

Lastly the children create routines linking together the balances that they have created. I pack a lot into this lesson however I would recommend that you spread the activities shown in this lesson over a number of lessons. I would also recommend the children performing their routines to another pair so that they can assess each other's performance and offer feedback.

This lesson covers;

• Cooperation and Communication

• Refresh Gymnastics Shapes

• Easy, Adaptable Pair and Trio Balances.

• Linking Skills Together.

Included in this lesson is a number of excellent resources for your pupils from our Pair and Trio Balance Book.

The warm up for this lesson is Colour Touch and the children have to recall a series of instructions as well as raising their heart rates with a variety of movements. Once the children are nice and warm I move on to an activity where I teach the children a number of gymnastics shapes and then test their recall. I do this by tricking them and performing the wrong skill so that they have to use their own brains and not just copy.

You will notice in this course that I often demonstrate. You do not have to be an excellent gymnast yourself to be good at teaching gymnastics, if you cannot demonstrate us the pupils. I find that there is always someone in each class that is competent.

After the shape game I move on to teach the children a series of skills in unison forming the start of a routine. The children are given time to develop their timing and we discuss how best to do this. When teaching your class give them lots of time to practice working together and get them to perform and if you wish to have a competition.

Once they have learnt this first section they are then asked to add their own skills to their routines. Linking skills together is one of the hardest skills to teach, in this lesson I show the children lost of ideas. I would suggest that you also do this with your pupils. You are trying to encourage them not to walk in between their skills.

With time to practice the pupils in this video are really successful in creating nice little routines, I give them time to show these routines to another pair and offer each other feedback. This is important for the children as it allows them time to perform but also reflect on their own and their peers performances.

During this lesson you will learn about;

• Synchronisation

• Set Routines

• Freestyle Routines

• Linking Skills Together.

There two examples of a gymnastics routines in the downloadable resources.

I have the luxury of setting up for this lesson without the children in the room, but you may not be able to do this. So your first plan should be how to set this equipment up using the pupils. I would give very clear instructions letting the children know what you would like moved and how many people you would like to help. It may be that you decide to have the children all sitting down and just a few helping at a time.

Once the apparatus is set up I start this lesson by travelling around the apparatus in a variety of movements. This is a nice and simple warm up activity but the children learn not to touch the apparatus even though they are really excited to use it. So you know they can be controlled before going on the exciting apparatus.

When the children are warm and ready for the apparatus I split them into various groups to work on a circuit of gymnastics activities. In this lesson I have lots of stations, more than I would normally have in one class however I want to show you as many ideas as possible.

I talk through lots of the safety considerations for using things such as the large apparatus attached to the wall. The children love to use this equipment and I would really like to see teachers using it more often. So if you have it please get it out and use it!

If you struggle to think of ideas with the equipment you have in your gymnasium email me a list of your kit and I will help you come up with a suitable circuit.

My email is gemma@headoverheelsgymnastics.co.uk

Thank you for taking the time to participate in this course, I hope you have found it helpful and it has extended your gymnastics knowledge.

The children in this course, were not pupils that I had met before the day of filming. The pupils were a pleasure to teach, so huge thanks to St James C of E Primary School.

I hope you found the live lessons insightful, In my experience the courses involving pupils enable many more learning opportunities. It also gives you a realistic idea of how to plan your own lessons with large numbers.

The format of these lessons are not set in stone, each of you will have your own learning style, your pupils will all be different and your equipment may vary from this course. To plan your lessons I would consider each of these things and remember that you do not need to include everything I included. The content of each lesson can be broken down into more than one lesson. During the filming of this course I have tried to give you as much gymnastics content as possible, I would not always fit this much into each of my lessons.

Please remember that their are a number of resources included in this course, including many fundamental skills that I didn't have time to cover during the filming. Each of these resources have full teaching points and key tips for adapting for different abilities.

Please keep in contact after this course, I would love to know how it is impacting your lessons.

Kind regards, Gemma Coles
gemma@headoverheelsgymnstics.co.uk