Now let's cover the spider ball run, an exercise which will give any child a real work out. Set up five hoops in a circle and one tennis ball in each of the five hoops. The circle will look a little like the five legs of a spider with a radius of about 15 feet, then place a sixth hoop in the middle. Start the runner standing in the center hoop and on command the child runs to pick up one ball at a time from each of the outer hoops and have him or her place it in that center hoop.
When all five balls are in the center hoop the exercise is over. A challenge can be established by timing each child using a stopwatch. So they can try to improve their own time with repeated efforts. And another competitive variation is to have them compete against other children simultaneously by setting up two or more spider runs at the same time.
