This comes from the Take Time book by Mary Nash-Wortham and Jean Hunt. According to the authors, “these exercises stimulate awareness of space around the body and encourage understanding of orientation in space… Once an exercise has been mastered to some degree, the difficulty of maintaining a steady rhythm may remain. The teacher could use a tambourine, triangle, or drum, with or without a poem. In the case of younger children, under 6 years, a very familiar nursery rhyme should be said in unison with the teacher.”

For older children, you can add counting, times tables, and/or spelling words with these movements too.

“All exercises unless specified to the contrary with children standing upright, feet together, arms at side.”