(cheerful music) (children playing) - Hi, everybody, and welcome back to Room 9, our region's largest classroom.

My name is Mrs. St. Louis and I'm a teacher at Rogers Elementary School in the Mehlville School District, and we are located in South St. Louis County.

Today, I'm here to teach a movement lesson that's geared towards students of all ages.

So let's get ready to get moving.

Today, we're gonna start by warming up our body from our head to our toes, so let's start at the top.

We're gonna begin by shaking our head yes, going nice and slow to be sure you don't injure your neck.

When we move our head too fast, we can pull some of those muscles in our neck, so we wanna make sure we're very gentle.

Now let's shake our head no, going from side to side.

Now I want you to stop.

We're gonna take our head all the way to one side and hold it for five, four, three, two, one, and switch.

Take your head to the other side and hold it for five, four, three, two, one.

Let's shake our head maybe so.

So now we're bringing our ears side to side, side to side.

This is our maybe so.

And now I'm gonna bring my ears close as I can to my shoulder and hold it for five, four, three, two, one, and switch for five, four, three, two, one.

Now let's roll our head in a circle.

So I'm gonna bring my chin to my chest, ear to my shoulder.

Bring that chin up.

Other ear to my shoulder, going in a big circle.

And let's go the other way.

Big circle.

Good.

Let's move on to our shoulders.

Can you shrug your shoulders up?

Lifting my shoulders up and down, up and down, up and down.

Very good.

I'm gonna bring my arms out to the side and make tiny little circles with my arms.

I'm gonna get a little bit bigger and bigger and get as big as you can with your circles going forwards.

Very good.

All right, putting them back out, now we're gonna bring our hands backwards.

This one's a little tougher, so stay slow if you need to.

Go a little bigger.

Can you go a little bigger?

How about as big as you can get?

Very good.

All right, let's cross those arms in front like a big pair of scissors.

Very good, boys and girls.

Excellent.

We're gonna move on to our core, that center of our body.

I'm gonna lean side to side, side to side, forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards.

I'm gonna twist, keeping my feet firmly on the ground.

I'm just gonna twist my core and my upper body.

Very good.

All right, put those feet together, stretch up nice and tall, and reach down for your toes, reaching as far as you can.

It's okay if you can't reach all the way to your toes.

Stretch as far as your body will let you.

The more we practice this stretch, the farther our fingers will go.

And slowly stand back up.

We're gonna bring our feet into a straddle, which means I'm going to bring them out side to side.

I'm going to stretch nice and tall and reach down to one side, reaching for my toes.

Very good.

And I'm gonna hold it, reaching as far as I can, breathing as I stretch.

Always remember to breathe when you stretch.

And slowly come up, stretch up nice and tall, and reach down to the other side, stretching as far as you can and holding that stretch.

Hold it, hold it.

Keep holding, you've got this.

And slowly come up.

Last one, stretch up nice and tall and reach down to the floor, stretching as far down as you can go, reaching, reaching, reaching.

And slowly come back up.

Very good, boys and girls.

How do you feel?

Does your body feel nice and warmed up?

Very good.

So today, boys and girls, for our movement lesson today, we're gonna focus on the core of our body, the center.

So what we're gonna need to do is we're gonna need to find a spot on the floor where we can sit where we have space to lay down and stretch up.

So let's move to the floor.

All right, so today we're gonna talk about the core of our body.

That's the center of our body right here.

It's a very important part of our body because it's what lets us sit up nice and tall.

So I want you to sit on the ground like you were going to sit for story time.

What would your body look like if you were gonna sit for a story time?

Would you be laying on the floor, taking up lots of space?

Would you be all stretched out?

Probably not, right?

When we sit for story time, we like to sit in our own space.

So I'm going to sit crisscross apple sauce, so my legs are crossed and I'm gonna keep my hands to myself.

That way I'm not bothering the people around me.

Is there another way you could sit on the carpet?

That's right, you can sit on your legs and sit with your feet underneath your body.

That's another way that you could sit.

That's right, we could also put our legs to the side of us and sit with our legs off to one side.

All of those are really great ways to sit on the carpet, making sure that we keep our body to ourself so there's lots of space for those around us.

Now, how does your core or your center affect your sitting?

This is the part that lets you hold up your body nice and tall.

If my core is not strong, I might be hunched over.

It might cause some pain in my back, maybe in my shoulders and neck.

I wanna sit up nice and tall.

This is the same way you would sit at your seat.

So today, we're gonna work on the muscles inside here that are gonna help with us sitting on the carpet.

So are you ready to start?

Okay, the first thing we're going to start is we're going to begin by doing some of our crunches.

These might be an exercise that you've seen before.

I'm gonna put my feet out in front and using my legs make a triangle with the floor.

Do you see the triangle?

Very good.

I'm gonna lay on my back, keeping my feet on the floor, and I'm gonna put my hands on my chest.

Now, using my stomach muscles, I'm going to try and sit up as best as I can.

This one takes a little bit of practice so if you need to, take your time as you come up.

It's one that's going to take a little bit of practice using those muscles to sit up.

I want you to try five of them with me.

Are you ready?

All right, let's lay down.

We're going to sit up.

That's one.

Come back down.

Two.

Three, we're more than half way, two more.

Four, last one.

Five, and come back down.

Very good.

Are you starting to feel those muscles activating?

Me too.

Let's try a different one.

We're gonna keep our feet in the same position, feet flat on the floor with our legs making a triangle.

I'm going to lay on my back.

This time, I want you to pretend that there's a rope hanging down from the ceiling and it goes all the way to your belly button.

Can you put your hands on your belly button?

Very good.

Now someone on the other end of that rope is going to pull it up, so you are going to raise your belly button up to the ceiling and we're going to hold it.

Can you practice this position with me?

My hands are on the floor next to me and I'm lifting my belly up.

All right, come down.

Let's see if we can hold that for five seconds.

Are you ready?

And we're going pull on that rope, lifting our belly and our hips.

One, two, three, four, five, come down, very good.

I think we can do that one more time, are you ready?

Let's challenge ourselves.

Do you think we can do it for six seconds?

All right, let's go.

Pull on that rope, pull.

And one, two, three, four, five, six, and slowly come down.

Very good, boys and girls.

You guys have a very strong core.

All right, so we've been working on a couple different ways to strengthen that core.

Let's do something else.

What we're going to do now, put those feet back in that triangle with your legs.

This time we're gonna stay sitting up.

We're not gonna lay down.

We're really gonna focus on our balance.

It's really important in this one that you squeeze all those muscles in your core to help you.

What we're gonna do is we're gonna lean back just a little and lift our feet up off the ground.

With my hands, I can hold them out in front or out to the side, but I don't want to hold onto my legs.

If I'm holding onto my legs, I'm using my arms to help hold me up.

That's not what we're working on today.

Today, we're working on our tummy muscles, so we want to keep our arms out away from our legs and we want to hold them up using our balancing skills, balancing up.

Are you ready?

Do you think we can hold this one for five seconds?

All right, let's try it.

And if you need to, put your feet down and come back up when you're ready to join us.

It's okay to pause for a minute.

Ready?

All right, feet come up, arms go out.

One, two, three, four, five, come on down.

Take a deep breath.

Good job, boys and girls.

How did that feel?

Pretty good?

Do you think we can do it one more time?

Do you think we can challenge ourselves this time?

All right, let's try and do it for six seconds this time.

So I'm gonna lean back a little, lift up both feet holding my arms out, not touching my legs.

One, two, three, four, five, six, and come down.

Hoo, feels pretty good to work on those core muscles.

I know there's a lot of them inside there and they're super important.

Here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna take a quick break, give our core a little bit of a break.

Make sure that during this break you get lots of water, hydrate your body, and we'll be back in just a second to keep working on that core.

See you soon.

All right, we're back and we're going to continue to work on our core muscles.

So what we're going to do today now is the Superman pose.

Here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna lie down on our stomachs and we're going to put our feet straight out behind us and our arms straight out in front.

Now what we're going to do is we're going to lift our feet above the ground and our arms up in front, almost as if we were flying through the air.

And we're gonna hold that position.

So feet both come up off the ground and arms come up out in front like we're flying.

Can you show me what that position would look like?

Very good.

Now, if it's too difficult to have your arms straight out, put them out to the side.

The more you practice and you get stronger with those core muscles, the farther out we can reach our arms.

Sound like a plan?

All right, you ready to go for five seconds?

All right, go ahead and push up to that pose, lifting those feet, pushing out those arms.

One, two, three, four, five, and come down.

Whew, that's a tough one, but I think we can do it again.

What do you you think?

I think so too.

Let's do it one more time, challenging ourselves to that six seconds this time.

Are you ready?

Go ahead and push up to that pose.

One, two, three, four, five, come down.

Whew, go ahead and sit up as we take some more deep breaths.

Very good, boys and girls.

All right, our next position, we're gonna stay with our face down, but we're gonna do a plank next.

So in this position, we're holding our body up off the ground.

So I'm going to come up.

I'm going to put my arms straight below my shoulders so they're going straight down.

I'm going to be putting my feet straight back out behind me, holding this position.

Now, when I do this I want to make sure that I'm not dropping my hips down super low and I'm not pushing my hips up super high.

I want to create this straight line all the way from my shoulders down to my ankles, creating a straight line with my body.

All right, are you ready to do this with me?

We will hold for five seconds.

Go ahead and put your arms up.

You can put one leg out ready to push up.

And let's hold that plank.

One, two, three, four, five, come down.

Very good.

Let's stretch it out.

Keep your hands in the same position, feet down, and I want you to just reach your hips back, stretch for a second, and come back up.

Let's do it one more time, challenging ourselves to six seconds.

Bringing those feet back out and up.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Oop.

We went an extra second.

Give yourself a pat on the back.

Way to challenge yourselves, boys and girls.

All right, you ready for the next step?

Okay, we're gonna take that same position, a plank, and we're gonna do something called a mountain climber.

So from that same position, instead of holding our body in one spot, we're going to move our legs.

So I'm going to have my arms straight below my shoulders, bringing those feet back out, and I'm going to bring my knee up and back, switching legs, bring my knee up and back, going slow as I practice moving my knees towards my chest.

It's called a mountain climber.

Are you ready?

We're going to start off with six.

That's three on each side.

Go slow and take your time.

Are you ready?

All right, hands down, shoulders with our wrists straight below, legs back out, we're up in that plank, and we're gonna move our feet.

One, two, three, four, five, six.

Come down, let's stretch it out, reaching our hips back towards our ankles, taking deep breaths as we stretch.

Very good.

All right, let's do it again.

Six more, you've got this.

Back up to that plank.

One, two, three, four, five, six.

Bringing my knees down, this time I'm going to push my belly towards the floor and stretch back up.

Almost like a seal stretching.

Feels good, doesn't it?

Excellent job, boys and girls.

All right, and reaching back towards my hips, stretching out.

Very good.

Go ahead and bring yourself back to that sitting position we started with, that position you would use if you were to sit on the carpet during story time.

Very good.

I want you to put your hands on your knees and I want you to take a moment.

We're gonna do our mindful moment for the day.

We're gonna be aware of our body.

So I want you to close your eyes, and I want you to breathe.

And we're gonna do a body scan today.

When we do a body scan, we think about how our body is feeling.

So I want you to think about your head.

How does your head feel?

Does it feel heavy?

Does it feel light?

Moving down towards your ears, your chin, your neck.

How does your neck feel?

Think about your neck.

Sometimes I like to move mine just as I'm thinking about that part of my body.

Move towards your shoulders.

How do your shoulders feel?

Where are they?

Are they hunched over?

Are they back up nice and tall?

Now scan down your back.

How does your back feel?

Move down to your core.

We worked really hard on our cores today, so they might feel a little sore.

We were working very hard on those muscles, and we're using those muscles a lot as we sit up nice and tall.

Move down towards your hips and your bottom.

Notice how it feels sitting on the ground.

Move towards your legs and your knees, down towards your feet and your toes.

Giving yourself a good body scan lets you be aware of the different points in your body and gives you a moment to focus on each point, thinking about how each part of your body feels.

So after doing exercises like this, you can really think about what was working.

So today you might notice a little bit more soreness in your middle section and that core, because that's what we worked a lot on today.

We also did some work with our shoulders, so you might feel some in there.

Really pay attention.

What in your body are you noticing today?

The next time you do some activity, at the end take a moment to do a body scan.

Think about what part of your body are you feeling?

What were you working today?

Because you might notice in your body scan there are some parts of your body that you need to pay a little bit more attention to when you're doing your stretches, right?

I'm starting to notice that I got a little bit of some soreness in my back.

So I may need to pay attention to that the next time I do some work, paying attention to how my body is feeling, right?

We use our core a lot when we sit up, but if I'm not sitting up appropriately and I'm kind of hunched over, that can cause some pain in my back.

So that might be my body's way of telling me, "Hey, you have to use a little bit better posture, sitting up nice and tall."

So doing a quick body scan can really help you to see how is my a body feeling right now?

And where are some places I might be having some issues with?

Have you ever done a body scan?

If you haven't, that might be something that you could add to your daily routine after you do some exercises.

Maybe when you wake up in the morning, you do a quick body scan as you're waking up to see how are you feeling this day?

Or maybe you do it at night before you go to bed to see how do I feel after a hard day's work?

Sound like something you could add?

I think so.

All right, so boys and girls, you guys worked so hard today working on that core.

Throughout the next week, I want you to pay attention to your posture, particularly when you're sitting.

Make sure that you're working that core, sitting up nice and tall.

You have your shoulders back and your head up.

If we're starting to slouch, that could cause some pain, so let's make sure that we're sitting up nice and tall, ready to listen to stories, we're ready to be an active participant in class, and ready to have some fun.

All right, boys and girls, I hope that you have fun with the rest of your week and we'll see you back here next time in Room 9.

Bye, everybody.

(cheerful music) - [Announcer] "Teaching in Room 9" is made possible with support of Bank of America, Dana Brown Charitable Trust, Emerson, and viewers like you.

(cheerful music continues)