Materials Required
- Large spoons or serving spoons
- Golf balls, tennis balls, handballs
- Medium sized bucket (Optional)
Preparation
Find a clear space outdoors with no obstacles or trip hazards.
Method (or Ideas)
- Place ball on spoon and walk around the yard with your child while they practise balancing the ball.
- Talk about the different sized balls and if they will fit on the spoon.
- When children are confident, encourage them to have small races with you.
- Have fun and maybe when you get to the other end of the yard, you can drop your ball in a bucket.
Facilitation Tips – What To Say
- Use positional language – ball on top of spoon, in the bucket, spoon under spoon
- Balance, balancing
- Walking/running
- Fast and slow
Extend the Experience
- Encourage children to dig using the spoons to encourage hand/eye coordination.
- Throwing the balls into different sized buckets or bowls.
- Try balancing balls on different utensils
WHO Guidelines for Physical Activity & Sedentary Behaviour
This activity encourages your child to be physically active by moving around outside.
Early Years Learning Framework
Outcomes
- Children feel safe, secure, and supported
- Children become strong in their social and emotional wellbeing
- Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another.
Principle
Principle 3: High expectations and equity. Children progress well when they, their parents and educators hold high expectations for their achievement in learning.
Practice
Practice: Learning through play. Play can expand children’s thinking and enhance their desire to know and to learn. In these ways play can promote positive dispositions towards learning. Children’s immersion in their play illustrates how play enables them to simply enjoy being.
