Let’s get active as we explore winter sports

Let’s get active as we explore winter sports

Take advantage of this time of the year when snow and ice are readily present to encourage children to be active as they discover a wide range of winter sports.

I suggest printing the Winter Olympics association game available in the Educatall Club. Laminate and cut out the cards. Attach a piece of Velcro behind each one and set them in a winter hat. Display the posters on a wall, at children’s level, and press a piece of Velcro in each square, at the bottom of the posters.

Children take turns picking a card out of the hat and associating it with the correct winter sport. Once they succeed, execute an action pertaining to the sport together as a group.

Here are a few suggestions:

Alpine skiing

Invite children to press their legs together and jump from left to right, keeping their feet pressed together and pretending to push with ski poles, holding their arms at a 45-degree angle on either side of their body.

Bobsled

Divide your group into pairs. Give each team a large cardboard box. One child from each team sits in their box and his partner pushes him forward a short distance before jumping in the box behind him. Children lean towards the right and to the left, as if they were speeding down an icy track.

Outdoor variation: Simply use sleds instead of cardboard boxes.

Cross-country skiing

Call upon children’s imagination by describing a course. Show them how to make large movements, alternating their arms and legs when they are skiing in a straight line. Next, encourage them to climb a hill, turning their feet outwards like a penguin and poking their imaginary ski poles in the ground, alternating left and right, all before going down the other side of the hill with their knees and toes touching so they don’t gain too much speed. Remember that sometimes, we fall down when cross-country skiing! Children can fall down and get back up several times…all without crossing their skis!

Figure skating

Children dance gracefully, spin around, and perform arabesques alone or hand in hand with a partner.

Outdoor version: Use a shovel to flatten the surface in one area of your yard to represent an ice-skating rink. Play soft music and encourage children to jump, spin, and execute various figures per their imagination.

Curling

Give children small brooms and invite them to sweep the floor as quickly as possible.

Outdoor version: Have children push plastic containers filled with snow on an icy surface. Show them how they can crouch down and release them to see them glide over the surface.

Ski jumping

Invite children to perform a series of long jumps.

Outdoor version: Children start at the top of a hill, run halfway down, and jump as far as they can.

Ice hockey

Children have fun hitting a hockey puck towards a goal with an imaginary hockey stick.

Outdoor version: If you have small plastic hockey sticks, children can use them to hit snowballs towards a goal in your yard.

Skeleton

Invite children to lie on their stomach on the floor, with their arms by their sides. Show them how they can twist their upper body to represent skeleton maneuvers.

Outdoor version: Children can lie on sleds on a slight slope.

Snowboarding

Children stand sideways and bend their knees. Encourage them to alternate pressing their weight into their toes and then into their heels. Have them raise their toes when they lean backwards and raise their heels when they lean forward.

Outdoor version: Have children stand on sleds (on a flat surface). Make sure that there is enough distance between children and that the snow is deep enough to absorb the impact if they fall.

Patricia-Ann Morrison