Let’s ‘Play to Learn’
Encourage the children to explore:
- Working as an individual, as a pair or a small team. Begin with a range of objects that fall into one of two categories, e.g. teddies and dolls, bean bags and quoits, vegetables and fruit, etc. Children pick up one object at a time, carry it and place it in a designated area/hoop and return to the start to go again / for the next child to go. Help children to create a points system based on time to complete, accuracy of sorting, etc.
- The activity above – placing objects in a pram/trolley or cart and then pushing the pram to a designated area, unloading the object, returning the pram and then returning to the start.
- As above – only undertake a fine motor skill e.g. tower building.
- Rolling or underarm throwing different balls into a space, chasing after them to pick up / retrieve them and then carrying and placing them in a designated area, then returning to the start.
Safety & Organisation
Ensure:
- the surface is clean and free from obstructions
- children work in ‘gardens’
Opportunities to
- develop increasing control over large body movements
- recognise and use different pieces of equipment
- follow simple rules of a game
Questions
- Where would you take this object?
- Is it easy or difficult to pick up a ball that is rolling away from you / towards you?
- How were you feeling at the end of the activity?
Can you see the child?
- Developing increasing control over large body movements
- Recognising and using different pieces of equipment
- Following simple rules of a game
-
Most of the time
Encourage the child to:
- explore a more complicated route to the designated areas, e.g. obstacle course or slalom run
- place more than two types of objects in the start area
- make up rules about how and where the ball most be rolled/thrown before it can be picked up
- race against the clock, how many objects can be placed in the designated area in any given amount of time, 30 seconds, a minute, etc.
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Sometimes
Encourage the child to:
- practise each aspect before playing a game
- take similar objects from one place to another
- discuss where the object should be placed before they start to run
- run and pick up / collect a stationary object before attempting to collect a moving ball
- work with another child to help one another