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Equipment: Magazines (including comic books or graphic novels), poster paper, marker
Time: 15 to 20 minutes
Activity Category: Individual pursuits
Safety: Ensure that the activity space is a safe distance from walls and free of hazards (e.g., benches, equipment, basketball nets, holes, loose gravel, wet grass); remove or mark any hazards. Provide safe distances between games occurring in the same space. Remind participants to keep their heads up and to be aware of others when moving through the space.
Activity Instructions:Prior to the activity, participants look through comic books, graphic novels, and magazines noting action words such as pow, crash, zip, bam, wow, and splat that suggest a sound and a corresponding action. Record their words on poster paper.
Display the poster paper for reference throughout the activity. Participants scatter throughout the activity space. When you call out an action word from the poster, everyone travels through the space in a way that reflects the action word. Draw attention to those who are moving in creative and unique ways.
Call out two action words together so that participants have to demonstrate two movements in a sequence. Next, call out a series of four to six action words that participants must demonstrate in a sequence while moving throughout the space (each word should have its own movement).
After an appropriate amount of time, participants form groups of four or five and create a movement sequence from four to six action words. Encourage them to call out their words while performing them.
Adaptations:
To decrease the challenge:
- Decrease the intensity of the movements.
- Focus on only a couple of spatial concepts (e.g., direction, pathway).
- Allow participants to respond to their own action words.
To increase the challenge:
- Require faster movements.
- Have participants change movements often.
- Place participants in pairs to perform the action words.
- Add equipment (e.g., scarves, wooden dowel, ribbons).
