For arms, back, chest, shoulders:

Sitting or standing, participants hold ElastaBlast above heads moving straight arms forward and backwards, side to side, and circling over the head with as much range of motion as possible. Hold ElastaBlastwith two hands, arms outstretched to the front. Stretch arms to either side without moving torso.

For sides:

Holding ElastaBlast in right hand everyone step back to expand the circle, producing as much tension as possible. Do not let go!  With feet parallel to the circle, lean sideways away from the center while stretching left arm over head towards the center. Change sides. While sitting on the floor, hold CoOper Band with right hand. Move back to produce the right amount of tension. Slowly lean forward, twisting torso towards arm holding band. Change sides. Participants stand or sit facing center, with CoOper Band held in both hands. Each participant pulls away from the center with bent knees, producing an undercurve of back and pelvis. Instruct use of oppositional pull to change body position and find different places in the back to stretch.

For legs:

Participants sit holding ElastaBlast in front of them, with legs either straight or slightly bent. Lean forward from hips and perform a rowing action with the arms. The body returns to the vertical as arms circle up towards the ceiling. All lie on back with head towards center. Hold band with two hands, raise one leg, placing band under arch of foot. Use CoOper Band to stretch your hamstrings by gently pulling your leg towards your head. While on back bring both legs open to a V shape on band, overlapping ankles with your neighbor if necessary. Allow weight of legs to hang into the support of the band while maintaining lower back on floor. Enjoy the stretch!   Standing, and far enough apart to create adequate tension, participants hang forward while holding on to ElastaBlast. Encourage use of breathing and sensing body weight in order to increase stretch and relaxation.

Special Needs:

ElastaBlast has natural resistance properties and ideal for working with sensory integration. With a group, the ElastaBlast provides gentle proprioceptive input into various muscle groups, thus stimulating sensory input. ElastaBlast is wonderful for improving range of motion, motor planning and social skills. ElastaBlast also requires coordination and encourages cause and effect responses.

For thighs:

Sitting, hook ElastaBlast around instep of foot while holding on with right and left hands. Press with foot and pull with hands to lift leg away from floor. Lower slowly and repeat until leg tires. Use texture of ElastaBlast to massage feet, achilles tendons, and calves.

Abdomen:

Participants sit facing ElastaBlast and holding it in two hands, execute a backwards buttock walk until band provides a moderate resistance. Lie down on three counts, lift ElastaBlast to the ceiling and resume sitting position, again in three counts. As a variation, instruct one half of the circle to pull back to the floor while the other half does its sit- up. Add a twist on the way down while holding with one hand, lie on back, heads toward center, place arches of feet on band, press legs toward floor while holding band.

Arms:

Still on back, knees bent, feet on floor, hold CoOper Band with hands shoulder width apart. Arc band up towards thighs and back to floor over head. Repeat with one arm. Repeat moving right arm diagonally towards left thigh.

The Basic Amoeba:

Form a circle with 3-8 people inside the CoOper Band, which is stretched comfortably against the lower back. Arms rest lightly on the ElastaBlast while hands grasp it on either side. Take a few steps to the rear, then lean slightly backwards until a counter-tension results between weight and support.

PinBall Blast:

This exercise promotes a physical experience of rebound, while encouraging interpersonal spontaneity. Four or eight participants stand inside ElastaBlast. Stretch ElastaBlast outward to light tension. Children count off and run sequentially across the circle without delay creating a pinball effect.

Loop-The-Loop:

Start inside CoOper Band and move out to the Amoeba position. Participants take 3 rotating steps to right, then two to left. Complete one revolution around the ElastaBlast in this way. Try turning on your favorite music, adding eight counts of free form between each of your double rotating turns, and imagine dancing with your favorite partner!

Break Dancing:

Group stands either outside or inside CoOper Band holding with two hands. One or two “break dancers” hold two-handed while on floor. Group creates momentum for “break dancers” to spin, propel, or whip around on back, belly, or sides. A nice, smooth wood floor is necessary.

Shape Making:

Encourage groups of 4-8 children to work together to make familiar shapes to begin with. Introduce three dimensional shape making by adding extensions into different planes. Have them make up their own shapes. Divide group into shape makers and observers. As shape makers complete their shape, observers can either draw shapes they see or choose one they would like to “move” as a group. Different options for moving their shapes are expansion/ contraction, twisting, rotating, changing positions while maintaining original shape, etc.

Who is in Control?

Alternately stand inside or outside of CoOper Band, holding two- handed, facing toward center. Decide who are the leaders and who are the riders. Object is to either lead or follow while staying in balance.

Tree Rooting:

All stand with feet spread wide inside CoOper Band, leaning slightly back. Without moving feet, participants attempt to uproot their counterparts by using hands and arms on the CoOper Band and performing quick shifts that throw the other off balance.

Mountain Climb:

Participants hold ElastaBlast over their heads. One Participant at a time hangs from the ElastaBlast. Encourage both hangers and supporters to verbalize imagery or feelings, e. g., surrender, dependency, hanging by one’s fingernails, etc.

Traffic:

Participants take the Amoeba position. Count off in threes. The leader calls out “one, two, three, all ones change.” All number one participants must change their ElastaBlast positions with another number one. Last one to find a new place is out. Leader repeats commands changing the number each time until there are three participants left. The last one left goes in the center and gets one minute to direct others.

NoiseBreaker:

Facing towards center, expand circle as large as it will go. On leader’s signal all children run towards center while making a sound. Gradually increase or decrease sound level. Agree on specific kind of sound. It could range from a hearty scream to a robust musical phrase.

Potpourri:

Give the oldies-but-goodies a new twist. CoOper Band can greatly increase the fun of such tried and true activities as mirror games, Simon Says, The Hokey Pokey, Follow the Leader, Red Rover, etc.

Dragon Tag:

Start with 1- 3 bands with two children in each band. Set a large circle or square boundary. The children in the bands try to touch the children outside the bands. When a child is tagged he/ she must join the circle inside the band. Play until all children are tagged and inside the band. Variation: Child tagged is replaced by tagger. Suggestion: Group says name of child to be tagged so group works together. Identify group leader to make sure the group works together.

DodgeBall:

Stand inside band in Amoeba starting position. Pick two players to be in the center. Players on the circle must continuously move around circle and maintain pressured contact with band while trying to hit person in the middle with a soft foam or SloMo Ball. If person opposite circle or player in the middle catches the ball, the thrower must replace middle player. Larger size bands work best. Variation: Players in the middle are the throwers.

Balloon Toss:

Use several small bands with 5- 6 children inside. Each team must keep a balloon in the air longer than the other teams. Variation: Switch places while keeping balloons in the air. Two teams volley the balloons back and forth while maintaining pressured waist contact with the band.

Cat and Mouse:

Mice run in and out while being chased by the cat. Cat( s) must always be in contact with the band. Children try to prevent cat from getting mice by lifting side up and down, ricocheting cat off path, or pulling circle away from mice.

Numbered Ducks:

Count off in 4’s. All hold outside band with left hand, pull out to firm tension, and continue to circle around to left maintaining tension. As child’s number is called they turn and run two times clockwise around to their original position. Call can instruct runners to skip, hop, leap, slither, etc. as variations. Twister Lead the group in floor patterns that begin to overlap each other by climbing under, over, or around each other until they reach a twisted spatial design. Now get untwisted without letting go of the band.

Classroom Activities

Shape Making
The ElastaBlast is great for creating shapes because children can plainly see the shapes they've made. Challenge groups of 6 to 8 children to make letter, number, and/or geometric shapes. Can they make three dimensional shaped objects like a teapot, a house, or a cube. Encourage them to show you both symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes.

Divide the group into shape makers and observers. For an additional challenge, ask the observers to draw and measure the shapes they see. They can use rulers, yardsticks, metric sticks, or even an arm or a foot step. Not only is shape an element of movement education, but it's an important concept in art. Letter recognition and reproduction are part of language arts, while number and geometric shapes fall under the content area of math, as does measurement. And, of course, all cooperative activities can be related to social studies.

Trace It
Take ElastaBlast outside to a playground, and bring a box of chalk with you to make this both an art and a math activity. Divide the group into smaller groups, depending on the number of bands you have available. Within each small group, some of the children are assigned to create a shape with the band, while the others trace it with chalk! They can then travel the tracing of the shape using a variety of locomotor skills and directions.

What a Tangled Web
If you're studying spiders during a unit on insects (science), challenge children to create spider webs with ElastaBlast. How many different web designs can they make?

Solid, Liquid, Gas
Use ElastaBlast as a science lesson to teach the dynamic movement qualities of liquids, solids, and gases. Challenge your students in movement to become the fluidity of water by holding on to ElastaBlast and moving in fluid movement patterns. Pack a bunch of children into the circle to demonstrate the density of a rock, or the airiness of a cloud. Then have them change the qualities from water to ice, or gas to water, etc. Children will not only learn science concepts but will gain a sense of accomplishment and an ability to regulate their bodily tension levels.

How Many Bodies?
For this mathematics activity, assign some children to stretch the ElastaBlast into the largest circle possible. The remaining children then determine how many can fit inside the circle while standing. As each additional child joins the group inside, the entire group should enthusiastically count out loud! Try it also with children kneeling and sitting, in an effort to determine if the positions and levels make a difference, giving all children a chance to be both inside and outside the band.

Circle Design
Ask the children to form a circle inside the ElastaBlast and lightly hold the ElastaBlast. They then place one foot inside the circle and one to the back in order to plant themselves firmly in place. Without moving their feet they can experiment with changing the design of the circle (art) by using the elasticity of the band and creating shapes (math) with their bodies. For example, the circle might go from the middle level with twisting, to a low level with reaching. Or every other child could move to a low level. (Note: Stress that the point of the activity is to see how many designs are possible given the restrictions imposed- not to attempt to throw one another off balance.)

Once the children have experimented successfully with this, challenge each of them to free one foot and to see how that changes the possible designs.

NoiseBreaker
When all else fails and your group just needs to let off some steam, this tension reliever will do the trick! Facing towards the center all children move towards the center while making a sound. Gradually increase or decrease the sound level. Agree on a specific kind of sound. It could range from a hearty scream to a robust musical phrase. Then make the sound while moving away from the center. Contrast the coming forward with a silent, quiet stepping.

Group Balance
This exercise follows well after NoiseBreaker. Ask the children to form a circle inside the ElastaBlast and to place their hands on the shoulder of the children beside them. Explain that the object of this exercise is to maintain a steady balance while leaning into the support of the band. Then issue the following challenges:

Balance is a concept of science. Stress how dynamic balance is achieved when all the parts are in balance with the whole. And, if one part shifts, all the other parts are affected. (social studies)

The Solar System
Place one child in the center of ElastaBlast taking the place of the sun. Using the ElastaBlast have 4 or 5 children demonstrate the orbital pattern and distance of each planet in relation to the sun. You can do the same with each planet’s moons. To get really tricky, you can use a large ElastaBlast as the earth’s orbit around the sun and a small ElastaBlast for the moon’s orbit around the earth. Children learn about space and distance (math), and how the solar system moves. (science)

Small Elastablast Activity Guide for one and two people

Two-Way Balance
(balance, grounding, trust, adaptation, strength)

Two people hold the band pulling apart enough to where there is an equal counter tensional pull. Slowly twist the torso away from the other while pulling back on the band, feet spread wide. Variation: Once an equality is established you can begin to challenge each other by making quick, strong, weight changes without moving the feet in order to knock the other off balance.

Assisted Sit-up (body center strength, proper mechanics, trust building) Therapist stands inside band with it around the waist. Client can either sit opposite holding the band or with the band around upper back, under arms, holding it with hands. Therapist provides resistance so client can slowly sit back to floor and back up again.

Arm Curl (upper body tonicity, arm strength) Individual stands on doubled band and holds opposite ends. Bend elbows and pull up band to create arm resistance.

Leg Press (lower body strength, coordination, tonicity, flexibility) Two people lay down head to head, legs in air. Hook the band over the arches of the feet and press it away from each other to create an equalized tension. Alternate pressure, one presses down while the other holds still. Or both press down at the same time. Or just hang out opening the legs more into a straddle stretch.

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