Let’s ‘Play to Learn’
Encourage the children to explore:
- Working as a pair to send and receive a ball over the gap/net with each child remaining in their ‘side/half’ of the ‘garden’
- Working as a pair – ‘A’ sends a ball against a wall for ‘B’ to receive, ‘B’ sends it to the wall again and ‘A’ receives it
- Co-operating initially and then competing against one another to score points – children decide how points are won, who starts, how the object must be sent and received, how many bounces are allowed (if any), how many points they need to win or against the clock or a certain number of rallies, etc.
Safety & Organisation
Ensure:
- the surface is clean and free from obstructions
- children work in ‘gardens’ with large run of areas between each ‘garden’
Opportunities to
- develop skills with improving co-ordination and control
- work safely with others when using equipment
- talk about what they have done
- make simple suggestions about how to improve performance
Questions
- How easy is it to play using a balloon?
- What rules did you make up about who starts with the ball?
- How did you decide how big to make your gap/net or ‘garden’?
- What do you need to do to outwit your partner?
Can you see the child?
- Developing skills with improving co-ordination and control
- Working safely with others when using equipment
- Talking about what they have done
- Making simple suggestions about how to improve performance
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Most of the time
Encourage the child to:
- play in the same area when using a wall, i.e. the game of squash
- use bats with a smaller surface area
- play with large gap or high net
- defend a large area
- watch each other’s performances and say what is good about it and what could be better, and begin to use key words – use this understanding to plan how to improve their skills
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Sometimes
Encourage the child to:
- practise each aspect before playing a game
- co-operate with a partner until they gain more confidence
- play with a small gap or low net
- defend a small ‘garden’
- refer to ‘word walls’ / key words and discuss with a more able child or a practitioner first before providing feedback