Bean bag races and numeracy, a workout for our bodies and our brains.

Races are my all time favourite way to get kids moving! I would hold races in my classroom daily to get students working key areas such as their vestibular and proprioceptive systems as well as their core muscles, all of which are vital to have developed before academic work and success could be achieved.

In a special educational needs classroom, races also were a great way to incorporate choice making and social connections between students. Before a race, a student would be chosen by the teacher and they would then choose who they wanted to race against and what type of race they were going to compete in. The other students who were not participating in the race would sit on the side lines shouting or signing out 'ready, set, go'. To add an element of numeracy we would tally the number of races won by each child, using our counting skills to work out who had won the most races.

While I may not have a class to teach at the moment, I do have a daughter and her cousins to take care of on occasions. The last time they came around I decided we needed to have a go at some of the races I used to set up for my students.

For these races, which are not all the types of races I used to conduct, we used

• small buckets
•  bean bags with a clear pocket. Find instructions on how to make some here.
• 
  

Running Race

Our first race was a simple running race to see who could collect the most amount of bean bags which had been scattered around the lawn. In one version of the race the children had to run and collect a bean bag and bring it back to their bucket which was at the finish line. In another version the children were allowed to take their buckets with them as they scrambled to get their bean bags. 

Rolling Race 

For this race the children had to roll along the lawn to get to the bean bags. In order to roll properly it would have been better for them to leave their buckets behind. Proper rolling, that really activates the core muscles, occurs when children lie straight with hands above their heads and their feet together. This way they need to use their stomach muscles to turn themselves over and not their hands or legs. Unfortunately this time the kids insisted that they take their buckets with them which meant they were not rolling by using their core muscles but rather their legs and elbows.

Crawling Races

For this race the children had to collect their bean bags by crawling around the lawn. Unfortunately this photos isn't the best for showing the kids crawling as they have both stopped to pick up a bean bag. Crawling is a fantastic activity to help children who may be restless as the pressure on the limbs from carrying the child's body weight can have a calming effect. It is also a form of cross crawling which gets kids right and left side of the brain working together.

Unfortunately these are the only photos I have of the races we ran that day. There were a few more sorts of races we did before the children had a snack break. Those races were...

Bunny Hop Races
Children hopped around on all fours like bunnies in order to collect their bean bags.

Seal or Commando Races
Lying on their stomachs, the children moved around by wiggling their bottoms and torsoes, using only their hands and elbows to pull them forward. The legs and feet stay together without helping. This is an awesome workout for the core muscles.

Races and Numeracy Skills

As I mentioned before, races where students are collecting something like bean bags are also a great opportunity for introducing or further developing numeracy skills. The winner of these races was not who got back to the finish line first but who collected the most bean bags. Therefore in order to know who won, every one's bean bags had to be counted and tallied.

For my niece who is older than the others and also more advanced with her numeracy skills, I increased the level of difficulty by placing 2 digit numbers in the clear pockets. Instead of counting out how many bean bags every one got, she had to add the numbers together to see who had the greatest total.

 
I hope that in the near future I can organise more races for these guys and do a better job of photographing them so I can show you more of my race ideas. If you are an educator, I hope this post has given you some ideas for incorporating physical activities with numeracy skills. I can assure you the children find it more appealing than sitting over counters and counting worksheets! Again if you are not familiar with the benefits of physical activities and academic achievement please have a look at my interview with Occupational Therapist Cara Sheekey who explains it very well. Here.

Until next time happy playing!

DIY Backyard obstacle races without spending money on equipment!

Continuing the theme for Moving it in May we decided to get really inventive and make our very own backyard obstacle course, out of nothing but what we had lying around. Sometimes you find yourself thinking you need to fork out money on expensive equipment for your kids to get a real physical workout. I know I get caught up in that trap from time to time. In Australia we bought everything from trampolines, swings, slides and a climbing set. Now that we are on an extremely tight budget, there is no option but to make do with that we have.

As you can see in the photo above, our obstacle course has 7 elements.  The course was designed to include elements that required balancing, crawling and jumping so that the children were forced to work on their   vestibular system, their core muscles and proprioceptive sense. Jumping, crawling and tumbling also provide fantastic opportunities for children to further develop their body awareness and gross motor skills. 

Note: If you feel your children are not that great on their feet, maybe they have extra physical needs, a good idea to keep them safe is to get them to wear bike helmets. I tried this with my child before I knew that she could manage the course easily.

Following are a few photos to help you see the components of our course, how we made them and how we used them.

The course begins with sliding down this slide, which my in-laws have permanently in the garden. It's just a plastic kids' slide that you could easily pick up second hand if you don't have one. 

Next we found two long wooden poles on the side of the house. Not sure where they came from but we tied them up with some tape and they became the 'balancing beam' to walk across. 

Two more sticks, a few old bricks and tada! you have some mini hurdles. 

We were super lucky to find some old tires in the shed. This made a great balancing element for our course. Initially I thought the kids could jump in them but they decided to walk on them, balancing their way across.

A few old pots spaced like this acted as a running section with the kids having to run, weaving through and around the pots. Though at one point the kids decided to just jump over them. 

This here is a pool noodle cut in half length ways and pinned into the ground in an arch shape using tent pegs. For this element the kids had to crawl under the arch.

The last part required an adult's help to hold the hoola hoop up. For this part of the race, the kids had to do a somersault through the hoop and then run back to the slide, finishing the race.

To make it more of an official race, we wrote out names down on pieces of paper on which I then wrote the times they kids had completed the race in. I used my phone as a stopwatch which made it easy to time each child's attempt. The kids loved finding out if they'd beat their personal best time. I think timing the kids was what motivated them the most to play this game for over an hour. I am sure at the end of it they went through the course at least 30 times. (I ran out of space on the paper for writing all the times down)

Here are some shots of the kiddies going through the obstacle course.

 Anyhow I hope this post has shown you how easy it is to set up a fun physical activity for your children without breaking the bank. Of course the beauty of it is that you can redesign and arrange the course every time you set it up again, keeping the kids interested and challenged!


Until next time, happy playing!

Bowling without a ball or pins, how do we do that?

We have had the most shocking weather this afternoon, gloomy and rainy, not that cold but still not the kind of weather you go out in. My daughter thought this was a great opportunity to beg her mother for a Disney film but we'd already watched one the day before, ok and the day before that. So not today kiddo!

So while she continued to nag and play the 'I'm tired, I need a quiet film' game I searched the house for stuff we could use to play a fun and inspiring game and specifically one that did not require us to sit on our bums.

So with a hoola hoop, some bean bags and a bunch of balloons we invented our own version of ten pin bowling, minus the ball and pins.

Just to let you know this kept the whole family entertained for around an hour and we only stopped because we had to sit down for dinner. Best thing about it, the nagging for a film instantly stopped!

So if you are wondering how balloons, a hoola hoop and bean bags become a game of bowling continue reading!

What you will need

• 5 bean bags
• 10 balloons 
• 1 hoola hoop
• Something to mark a line to throw from. 
• All breakables removed from the area. 

Just like bowling, the aim of the game is to throw something that will move ten items. This time you throw the bean bags to knock the balloons out of the hoop. Like in bowling you get a limited amount of shots to knock out the ten balloons. In the our version that we played ,we let each player have 5 shots.

Once you've had your shots you need to count how many you've knocked out and mark that down on a tally sheet

Note: If you have a preschooler or first grader you can easily use this game to introduce subtraction. Just count the balloons left in the hoop and subtract that number from ten!

Just like in regular bowling, you can play a round of 10 turns and at the end tally how many balloons you knocked out of the hoop to get your total score. Person with the highest score wins!

For anyone trying this with a non-verbal child, below are two aided language displays you can use with this game. One is specifically for this game and other other is a general numbers 0-10 that you can use with the game or for other games with numbers. Feel free to use for personal use only.

Note: If you don't know how to use aided language displays please see my post here for more details. 

I hope you get to try our version of bowling. If only I had video of my daughter playing. How she laughed every time she hit the balloons making them fly into the air! This is seriously some great family fun!

Happy bowling and happy playing! 

How we play with the world's largest scrunchie

Yesterday we had the honour of hosting my beautiful nieces' birthday party. Just a casual affair in the backyard with barbaque and cake. The weather was great and the grass was soft and green, begging to be played on. So with that in mind I thought I'll bring out the 'giant scrunchie' and let the kids explore playing with it. I didn't tell them that it was for playing Elastics I just handed it over to see what they would do. The results were awesome and creative.

At first the kids decided to play reindeers and Santa. My niece took the lead as Rudolf and instructed the others to be reindeers and Santa at the end. This occupied them for around 15 minutes, running around the garden shouting out "faster, faster!" At one point they decided to be horses, galloping rather than trotting around while making horse noises.

 

It seems the scrunchie also lends itself quite nicely to a game of tug-o-war, which the kids found amusing. At first I thought they were fighting over it but then I noticing them laughing and smiling so I figured it was a game instead.

 

The last of the games that the kids played this day was a simple game of tumbling and jumping over the rope. My daughter loved challenging herself by doing sommersaults over the elastic. The others enjoyed jumping over it or jumping into it. There was also some crawling under it which was fun too. 


It's amazing to watch children be so inventive with just a simple piece of elastic. Maybe sometimes more is less even with kids' toys and equipment. Either way I know that there must be more ways to play with this giant scrunchie and that we will have many more days of fun with it. We might even use it for what it was originally made for and that being Elastics.

Have you made one yet? See my DIY sewing tutorial here and join in the fun!

Happy playing.

DIY gigantic scrunchie for Elastics game!

A while ago I introduced my daughter to the classic schoolyard game of Elastics. While I taught her some basic moves like jumping in and out of the loop, we haven't played the official version of the game yet as she is only 3 years old and not ready for more complicated moves. She also found it more interesting to make her own moves, doing somersaults over the elastic or crawling under it, so I thought I'd just let her go with that and see how creative she could get.

 If you are not familiar with the game Elastics and are wondering what it is, Elastics a classic schoolyard game that is often played by girls. It is played using a long elastic band that has the ends tied together forming a big loop. Two players stand in the middle of the elastic loop and hold it around their ankles, standing opposite each other wide enough that the elastic hold straight but still able to further stretch. A third player then jumps in a particular pattern in and out of the loop, sometimes over it, sometimes crossing it over and other times deliberately stepping on it.  Once the player jumping makes a mistake, for example, either getting tangled in the elastic or not jumping over it correctly, then that player takes an end and the next has a turn to jump. Often the jumping actions are accompanied by rhymes or songs. As you complete the pattern at the  first level, which is ankles, the elastic is then hitched up to knees, then under bums, hips, waist, underarms, neck and sky. As a kid I was only ever good enough to jump as high as waist.

When I first introduced my little one to the game I just simply got a long piece of elastic and tied it at the ends.  It was a thin piece of elastic, around a quarter of an inch or 0.5cm and I found it hurt their skin a little when they would run into it stretching it to full capacity. It was also a little difficult to see when jumping on concrete surfaces as the white of the elastic blended a little with the colour of the concrete. So with this in mind I thought about how I could make the elastic more colourful and 'softer' for the children to play with After some thought I came up with the idea of turning the elastic into a giant scrunchie, an easy way to make the elastic more colourful, thicker and a bit softer for the kids. Below are instructions so you too can make your own Elastics scrunchie

What you will need

• Fabric/s non-stretch
• Scissors
• Sewing machine
• Rotary cutter
• Quilters ruler 
• Cutting board
• Sewing thread
•  Quarter inch thick elastic 
• Safety pins x2 

First cut a long piece of elastic measuring around 14.8 feet. Doesn't matter if it is larger but I wouldn't recommend smaller. Once you have cut your piece then get someone to help you stretch it as far as it goes and then remeasure it. You need your fabric to be just a bit longer than the elastic at full stretch.

Once you have those figures, cut out your fabric at 3 inches wide and in pieces that add to your required length plus seam allowances. So if you are using various fabrics and have pieces say 3inch wide and 10 inches long,  then cut your length at 10.5 inches long as you need to add  half an inch to every piece to accommodate for an 1/4 inch seam on either side. 

Once you have done that simply sew the ends together, right sides facing. If you are using different coloured fabrics don't forget to have the two end pieces different colours so that you don't have two of the same when you join them at the end.

After you have sewn the pieces all together, fold over the 3 inch width and sew an 1/8 of an inch from the edge. See photo below.

Once you have done that you should have a long 1.5 inch wide and 17.8 feet long snake of a thing. Unfortunately that was the end of the easy part of this project, now comes the part where you have to turn it all inside out! In order to do that get hold of a safety pin that is not going to open as you thread it through. I used one that is for baby cloth nappies to make sure it wouldn't open. See photo below.

 

With a bit of fiddling, get the pin to go through the tube by scrunching the fabric over it with your thumbs. Here is a quick YouTube video I found that shows you how to do it. This is not my video so I can't take credit for it, but I still don't know how to load videos on my blog so sorry.

Once you have conquered the turning of the giant scrunchie, you then need to thread the elastic through. Take two safety pins now. Using one of the safety pins, attach one end of the elastic to one end of the tube, securing it so that it doesn't go into the tube while you push the other end through. With the other end, hook the other safety pin onto the end of it and push it through the tube like you did before. Don't worry this time it is easier!

After that is finished, take both end of the elastic, and using the sewing machine and a zig zag stitch, sew the pieces together. Push one fabric end into the other and the raw edge of that side under and simply sew the opening shut using a straight stitch. See photo below.

And there you have it, your very own soft and scrunchie elastic to play with! Or perhaps you've just made the world's biggest scrunchie ready for the Guinness Book of World Records?

Next time I'll have to post about playing Elastics and other games that your kids can play with their giant scrunchie!

Until then happy sewing and happy playing.

Books, Story, Action!

As you might know this month is Moving it in May here at We are Happy Playing and I've been doing a lot of thinking about how to incorporate more movement into our daily lives and schedule. Since the post about children and yoga, we have made yoga a regular activity that we do after kindergarten using the Cosmic Kids' videos on YouTube and the I am Love yoga app on the tablet as part of our bedtime routine.

A daily activity we participate in as a family is story time, so I've been looking for ideas that would make story time not just a time to sit and listen, but a time where we can get active while enjoying a story. Immediately I thought about acting out what is written in the story, but what books would lend themselves to this type of activity? Luckily we had two such books sitting on our shelf!

The first one is  We are Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen.

 

The story is of a brave family that go out to hunt a bear. In order to get to the bear's hideout they find they need to go through a series of environmental conditions such as long swishy grass, squishy mud and a snow storm. As the family go through these different places there is great opportunity for children to use their bodies to act out the actions. Hands waving like swishy grass, stomping through gooey mud etc. 

Here are some photos of my little one, her cousin and their  interpretation of the book.

 Swishing through long grass.. Swishy Swashy

 

Stomping through thick oozy mud!

Apparently this is how these two monkeys feel one moves through the river, splash splosh. Not by waddling through it but swimming across it.

And we must not forget to hide under the covers when the bear chases us home.

 Just a little note, in looking for images of the book for this post, I came across this video which actually shows the author performing the story. How crazy random is that!? So I decided to share. While this is kinds cute and quaint, I do love the more energetic version my daughter came up with!

The second book we had on the shelf was Panda Bear Panda Bear What do You See? by Bill Martin Jr and illustrated by the wonderful Eric Carle.

In this book a series of animals are asked what they can see, with each responding with the name of another animal and the action they are performing. See pictures below.

"Water buffalo, water buffalo what do you see? I see a spider monkey swinging by me." 

"Blue herring, blue herring what do you see? I see a prairie dog digging by me. "

It's pretty obvious to see why this book makes a great story for children to move to. Simply ask the children to act out the different things the animals are doing as you go through the book.

As you may or may not know there are other books in this series with the first being Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? and Polar Bear, Polar Bear what do You Hear? While these two books focus on colours and sounds, there is no reason why children couldn't be encouraged to act like the various animals in the story, especially with the second one slithering like a snake while you hiss like one would be a wonderful physical experience for any child.

If you are looking for other books with animals that children can pretend to be try Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell and Animal Moves by Dawn Apperley. Both books are simple and children can act out the animals featured in both books.

Where the Wild Things Are  by Maurice Sendak are also lends itself beautifully to being acted out by children.Pretending to sail across the sea, stomping and growling like a wild thing all part of the fun you can have with is story.

Whilst this is just a handful of books that lend themselves well to being acted out through movement I am sure there are many more and we plan on finding those over the next month or more. Maybe you yourself have some that you know of? If you do we would love to hear from you in the comments section.

Until next time happy story time and happy playing.