Couch+Potato


 * **Name of Activity:** **Couch Potato** ||

**Purpose of Activity:** For students to learn the concept of being heathy and active. Don't be a "couch potato!" **Prerequisites:** Basic knowledge of tag games (chasing, fleeing, dodging), locomotor skills, moving safely in general and safe space, and use of boundaries. **Suggested Grade Level:** K-2 **Materials Needed:** plastic fruits and veggies, cones to create a "fridge," cones or mat to create an area for the couch, foam balls or other identifiers for taggers **__Description of Idea__** Anticipatory Set: Discuss with your students: “What is a couch potato?” “Do you think a couch potato is healthy?” Most likely you will receive answers like: “A couch potato is lazy, does not exercise and eats junk food like potato chips.” Introduce the concept of being healthy and how we don’t want to be a couch potato. “How can we keep from being a couch potato?” Answers: get exercise, keep moving, eat healthy stuff. Set-Up: Choose five or six people to be "it" (remote controls freezing others into couch potatoes). Identify them using a pretend remote or other identifying pieces of equipment (pinnie, beanbag, rubber critter). Number of "its" will vary depending upon your class size.

Designate an area using cones or a mat as the couch where couch potatoes go, and another area where the refrigerator is, in which pretend fruits and vegetables have been placed. Fruits and vegetables can include laminated pictures of fruits and vegetables or plastic ones you can buy. Be creative!

Designate playing boundaries: usually the black line around the gym and remind students to move safely in the open space, staying inside the boundaries and using soft tags.

Play: Using various locomotor movements, students travel around the playing area. If a student is tagged by the “remote control,” (s)he moves to the couch where (s)he sits down, stretches out with legs crossed pretending to be lazy and watches TV. To re-enter the game another student retrieves a fruit or vegetable from the “fridge,” brings it to a couch potato and tells her/him to “get off the couch!” The couch potato needs to prove that (s)he is not a couch potato by performing a designated body reward while the helper counts (for example: five good push-ups or 10 crunches).

The helper sees that (s)he deserves the fruit or vegetable and hands it to her/him. The couch potato pretends to eat the healthy snack, returns it to the refrigerator and then re-enters the game. Change taggers periodically.

**Assessment Ideas:** Debrief at the end of class: "What foods are healthy foods?""What foods should you eat only once in awhile?""How do you keep from being a couch potato?"

Have students identify pictures of healthy and non-healthy activities and foods. Extension: Have students bring pictures from home of healthy and non-healthy activities and use them on a bulletin board to stomp out couch potatoes.