A cool down is used for people of all ages. It is carried out to help lower the heart rate, slow breathing down and also to remove waste products that have built up within the muscles during exercise. When working with children a cool down is also a great tool to help to calm children down after a frenetic session.
This pack has been produced to help current and potential volunteers design planned sessions by giving them the tools, in a simple format, which will enable them to put together effective and more importantly fun, safe and adaptable sessions.
Below is a short list of cool down ideas.
Getting Ready for Bed – This is the pairing for the warm up ‘late for school’.This involves a lot of stretching as we mime removing clothes, hugging teddy bears, etc. It ends with children lying on the floor pretending to be asleep. Every movement is carried out slowly. Use slow calming type music.
Dancing down – Encourage the children to move slowly around the room making long, gentle movements to calming style music.
Quiet Time - Tell the children to get into their space bubbles e.g. find a space away from other children. Tell them to lie down in their space bubble. Tell them to close their eyes and think of a happy time that they have had or think of a dream they have. The children do not move until you tap them on the shoulder. Once they have been tapped on the shoulder they can quietly get up and sit at the side.
Wink Murder – The children all sit in a circle. One child is the detective. They have to go away and wait on the children in the circle deciding who will be the wink murderer. Once they have decided they shout “Detective, detective there’s been a murder in the house!!” The detective then comes back and tries to find out who the murderer is by guessing or looking at the eyes of the other children to see who is winking. The wink murderer will wink at the other children and in doing so is putting them out of the game so they lie back and pretend to be dead. The detective tries to guess before all the children are out.
Red Letter - All players stand in a line side by side.
Choose someone to be ‘It.’ ‘It’ stands on a line facing the players and tells the players and tells the players what the RED LETTER will be for this game. Players must remember the letter ‘It’ calls out – if it is in a player’s first name they take 1 step forward, EXCEPT if it is the RED LETTER – no one should move on the RED LETTER. If they do they go BACK TO THE START. The first to get to ‘It’s line is the NEW ‘It’
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