Are you a group fitness instructor or a gym rat that wants to enjoy the Halloween season but not sure where to add in some extra spooky fun? Then you’ll enjoy this blog because it’s exactly how I added crafts and games to my fitness classes as something fun and different to my daily workouts.
This is a bit more of a throwback to what I did when teaching classes at a small rec center. Did I bring it with me to other facilities?
Yes. Yes I did.
It all started when the kids program coordinator was getting craft ideas for her kids to do. And they looked like so much fun, I wanted to join! But being in the fitness department, there’s no reason to incorporate crafts, right?
Wrong!
If there’s a will, there’s a way! And I found a way.
Here are some of my favorite Halloween themed fitness classes. Some crafts, and some not.
If you like these, be sure to check out my other Fitness Craft and Game Ideas for more year round fun!
Let’s dive in!
Halloween Pumpkin Craft
This one is my favorite for sure! I’ve used it as the main workout, and also the burner if you’re short on time or need to follow a specific schedule.
But it’s just taping strips of paper together to create the pumpkin. But to make it work for class, each strip of paper has an exercise they must complete before moving onto the next piece of paper, or before putting the pumpkin together.
I’ve added an option where you can get the Fitness Craft Printable Exercises I created, save them, print them out and cut them for class to save you time. If you have a big paper cutter, this will help a lot.
Or you can create your own. It’s just coming up with a list of exercises, spacing them out correctly, and having the supplies for the day.
You’ll need orange paper, tape, green pipe cleaners and markers if you want to draw faces on them at the end for the class.
I dive more into the specifics of paper crafts in Fitness Games and Crafts
Then for the workout portion, you can either have them pick 8 pieces of paper without looking, or you can space them out along a wall and then have them do lunges down and back to pick each piece of paper before doing the exercise on it. Totally up to you how to do it, but I’ve done both and it’s worked out great!
To make the workout longer, you can have them pick exercises until class is done, and then just use however many they can or want to in order to create the pumpkin.
The hardest part is going to be explaining to the class how to put them together honestly. So if you can do a quick explanation or just show what you’ll be making before class so they have an idea, that will save you a lot of explaining.
And then putting together is once they’re done with their exercises. Then you’ll have time to walk through the exact ‘how’ together.
Workout with Pumpkins
This was a happy accident idea for me! We had a bunch of pumpkins at our rec center and I took them.
I used the dice I had made before (also an example in my Fitness Crafts and Games), and everyone took a pumpkin to use as their weight. It was such a fun twist! Until one person shared they might be allergic to pumpkins, AFTER the class, so be aware and ask your people!
Because they may not say anything.
The dice are great because you can bring them out whenever for class throughout the year to switch things up or if you’re short on time to prep for class.
Just be sure that you use exercises that can work with a pumpkin in replacement for weights.
But for the exercises, you could also use a whiteboard and come up with your own workout plan, or follow your gyms for the day if they create their own. The pumpkins just add that extra bit of fall to it.
You could also turn this into a weekend class, have everyone bring their own pumpkin, and paint them after! That’s honestly a great community building activity, and I know all the gyms I’ve worked at, the class goers would love it.
Fall Paper Tree Craft
Ok, this could be done in multiple ways. Like I said, I was in a rec center and had access to my coworkers crafting stash, so one day I just took it all and scattered it in the gym (yes they had 2 basketball courts and it was fun to have classes in there at times!). I had seen pictures like the one I’m sharing, but wasn’t sure how I could make it work for a class. I also pinned some other paper tree craft ideas on my Pinterest that you can check out for more ideas too!
Just to get your creative juices flowing, I made each craft supply worth an exercise to use it. Let me explain because I’m not sure how to better word that!
I took scissors, glue, stapler, colored pencils, extra paper and made them each worth an exercise. They had to lunge to each craft piece they needed/wanted (hence having it in the gym to make it harder), they had to perform the exercise (say scissors was worth 10 burpees) then they would lunge back to the table I had set up for everyone to put the craft together.
The picture I’m showing here is also another example using the Fitness Craft Printable Exercises I made. So each “leaf” is an exercise that they need to do before moving onto the next one.
You can still make the colored pencils, glue or stapler you decide to use worth an exercise too. Or the assembly process can just be good community building again.
Whichever one you decide to do, both were honestly was so fun!
I found a Halloween playlist and had that going, and depending on how you want the final craft to look, it could take the full hour you have for class.
Then at the end!? They have a cute picture to take home, OR you could hang them up at the gym for festive decorations.
I loved putting up everyone’s pictures, and then people would come in asking whose kids did that, and I would get to say it was my adult classes. It was the best!
In the studios when I would do it, everyone would love pointing out and seeing each other’s creations. Bringing crafts into the gym was my favorite way of building community, if you couldn’t tell.
Other Craft Workout Options
You could use the above example for most anything, but one idea is to do coloring pages instead. Find one or a couple printable Halloween coloring pages and put them out for people to choose from. Then making markers, crayons and colored pencils each an exercise.
Things like this or what I shared above have been the simplest way for me to make crafts in a fitness class without needing to create a lot more outside of it.
I’ll link my craft board that I made on Pinterest. It has some of my ideas, but a lot of other people’s examples too.
The big thing is just getting creative, but also looking at what your community would like to do.
Simple things like, can they be trusted with scissors?
Do you have a crossfit gym where the exercises can be more extreme, so how would you set up that class?
Or simply, what would you enjoy creating as an example for your class to follow?
This is different from what you do on the day-to-day, so the goal is to make it fun!
I hope this was helpful in giving you some fun ideas. I know I always enjoyed the days I set up for crafts in my classes, and it always was a fun change of pace. If you’re looking for something different than what I shared, just look up Halloween crafts on Pinterest. That’s literally what I did and figured out how I could make it happen.
If you end up using any of them, be sure to let me know! I would love to hear how craft and theme day went for you. Adults deserve to have fun making things too, but we usually forget unless we’re working with kids.
And if you’re already thinking of Christmas now, check out that blog post to keep the fun going through the end of the year.
Enjoy and happy Halloween!
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