Grade 2 - Adventure Challenge

Central Idea:

• Positive team members collaborate, take responsibility and face challenges with optimism

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Learner Outcomes:

• Interactions:

  • Discuss and set goals for group interactions​

  • Cooperate with others

  • Assume responsibility for a role in a group

• Identity:

  • Solve problems and overcome difficulties with a sense of optimism​

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Acknowledgement:

Andy Vasily

The Physical Educator

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Lesson 1: Pre-Assessment:

• This unit is all about teamwork. Putting the students into challenges where “inspirational” discussions may occur (inspirational as in heated) and leadership may flourish – positively or negatively. Throughout this unit, the challenges gradually became more difficult requiring greater use of the skills being addressed – refer to the Core Planning Document for more details. Key words that were addressed in this unit repeatedly were: collaborate, responsibility, optimism.

• I started this unit off with the challenge, Crossing the River:

  • Break the class into 4 teams

  • Give each group 4-5 hula-hoops

  • They need use the hula-hoops as stepping stones to reach the other side of the playing area

  • If they step out of the hula-hoops, that group loses one hula-hoop

• The second challenge I put the kids through was Capture the Gold:

  • Similar format to Crossing the River, however the teams are positioned in 4 corners of a playing area with a Hula-Hoop full of respective colored beanbags in the middle of the area

  • The 4 teams have to use their hula-hoops to reach the gold.

  • They pick up 1 beanbag/gold and go back to their base, deposit it and go back to get another one

• I then closed the lesson reviewing the key points of the Central Idea and how they played a role in the 2 challenges.

 

Lesson 2:

• We broke down the Central Idea a bit more today. We looked at what it means to collaborate and the effective ways of doing it. Referring to the Core Planning Document, you can see that “Group Decision Making” is a transdisciplinary skill we need to address (Refer to the Transdisciplinary skills in PSPE document for more information). I asked them questions such as, “What is a good way to discuss ideas? Do we get angry? Do we become shy? What is a good way to listen to ideas? What is a bad way to listen to ideas? What is a nice way to share your ideas? What is a bad way to share ideas? Since my kids are majority learning English as a second language I need to use language they are familiar with.

• We put this into practice by redoing the two challenges prior since there were some teamwork issues that needed readdressing.

• After they got a bit more capable with that challenge we went onto the next challenge: Caterpillar.

  • Similar format to the above challenges however, I dispersed 4 beanbags of 4 different colors around a playing area.

  • The teams are positioned in 4 corners of the playing area

  • Using their hula-hoops they navigate around the playing area picking up their respective colored beanbags

  • If a team member touches the area outside of the hula-hoop, their ‘caterpillar’ shortens by 1 hula-hoop

 

Lesson 3:

• We started the class by reviewing the Central Idea and we delved deeper into what it means to be “responsible”. I asked questions such as, “what does being responsible mean? What is your responsibility in the classroom, at home, in PE? We then did a quick round of caterpillar.

• After Caterpillar, I went over responsibility again and how it connects with the challenge. I then upped the ante and made the challenge harder – Blind Caterpillar.

  • Exactly the same as Caterpillar, however, this time, the 4 teams have to sort themselves into body parts of the Caterpillar. One head, a throat, a stomach, a tail, etc.

  • They cannot change position until after the round is complete.

  • To make it more difficult, I made the ‘head’ blind. Give the head of the caterpillar a blindfold.

  • The other team members cannot touch the head, go in front of the head but can only communicate with the blindfolded person verbally.

• This is a great and enjoyable activity whilst learning about the importance of effective communication and teamwork.

• We went over the different roles of this challenge and their responsibilities to the team.

 

Lesson 4:

• This next lesson was dedicated to the key term “collaborate”. After reviewing the previous lesson and having a quick round of blind caterpillar we went to the next challenge – “Move the Ball”.

  • Students are broken up into teams of 4

  • The purpose of this activity is to move a ball around a playing area without using their hands but every team member needs to be touching it somehow.

  • The students need to come up with 3 different ways to move the ball.

  • Once they complete the initial 3 ways, they progress to the next level:

    • Level 1: A dodge ball

    • Level 2: A volleyball/soccer ball

    • Level 3: A Swiss ball

• This challenge is great for collaboration because it is an accessible challenge and leaves a lot to the imagination. Discussions were plentiful and positive collaboration was occurring with many groups attempting a variety of ways to move the ball.

 

Lesson 5:

• After reviewing the previous lesson, central idea and the key terms covered (collaboration and responsibility) we went onto the next key word – “optimism”. This is quite an advanced word for the students as they are mostly non-native English speakers. However after much gesticulation and using words such as leading words such as positive and happy, I think they got the idea.

• After a warm-up challenge of Move the Ball we went onto the next challenge – Poison Ball.

  • Students break into teams of 4-5, depending upon numbers.

  • Without touching the ball, the students need to transport the ball around a set course.

  • They can only use a ring that the ball is resting on and 4-5 pieces of rope that students stretch out to transport the ball.

  • If the ball does fall, the students go back to their nearest checkpoint.

• Modification:

  • Once the students have done a few rounds of Poison Ball and are demonstrating the two key words, you can modify this challenge by blindfolding one member of the team.

• This challenge can be quite disheartening due to it’s difficulty but after 5-10 minutes of trial and error and some disgruntled students we gathered around to touch base and to see how optimism can work in this challenge.

 

Lesson 6:

• We got to the halfway mark and judging from our many discussions at the start, middle and end of the lesson, the students seemed to have a good grasp of the ideas being brought forward.

• We did 1 round of Cross the River, then Caterpillar, and lastly Move the Ball with a volleyball.

• With 15 minutes left of the class, we then conducted the standard formative assessment to see how I could move forward with the unit:

  • Tell me everything you have learned so far in the unit:

  • The students could draw or write their response.

  • Since we are a 1:1 iPad school, students could use iBooks, iMovie, etc. to demonstrate their learning.

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Lesson 7:

• The students seem to have a good grasp of what it means to be respectful and to be part of a team, however there is still the occasional conflict that occurs. Looking at the Core Planning Document, the homeroom unit is difficult to integrate with but as mentioned previously, we can integrate by focusing on the concepts, learner profile and attitudes.

• We looked at how our three key terms are connected to the unit. I asked questions such as:

  • “How does responsibility play a role in our challenges?”

  • “What do we talk about when we collaborate for our challenges?”

  • “Why does optimism help us in our challenges?”

• Some of these questions did need further clarification with some students but they were starting to understand the unit a bit more.

• We moved onto a step up from Poison Ball to a creatively named, Noodle Ball.

  • Similar to Poison Ball but we replaced the rings and ropes with swimming noodles, about half a meter each.

  • The students need to transport the respective object around a set course using the noodles, not their hands.

  • They transport the same object three different times using three different ways of using the noodles.

  • There were different levels of difficulty:

    • Transport a beanbag

    • A dodge ball

    • A volleyball

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Lesson 8:

• After last lesson, the students were starting to really grasp the big ideas being addressed in the unit.

• We looked at the concept of ‘causation’ a little bit more today. We broke down what it means to be a great team:

  • Being open to new ideas

  • Staying positive

  • Communicating nicely, etc.

• I asked them, “What happens to the team when we don’t do these things?” They kids replied:

  • “The team is not good anymore.”

  • “We lose the challenge.”

  • “We start fighting.”

• With these great responses in mind, I gave them a difficult challenge, the Blind Beanbag Challenge:

  • The class is broken down into 4 teams and move into one of the four sides of the playing area.

  • 4 beanbags of 4 different colors are dispersed around the playing area.

  • 1 team member is blindfolded and has to navigate the playing area to reach 1 bean bag of their color and return it back to the respective team’s base.

  • Meanwhile, the rest of the team can skirt around the outside of the playing area communicating directions to the blindfolded team member.

  • There usually is a great deal of rule infringement in this activity – intentional or unintentional – so it is important to stay on top of the students, otherwise the point of the challenge is lost.

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Lesson 9:

• After reviewing the great discussion we had yesterday, I really wanted to get the kids more active and put their new skills into a more dynamic challenge – Team Pac Man.

  • In Team Pac Man, all students can only run on the lines of the field.

  • One team are the catchers, they have 1-2 minutes to determine a strategy to catch all the others.

  • The other students have to spread themselves out across the field and avoid being caught – but they can only run on the lines.

  • When a person is touched by the catcher, they sit down on the line exactly where they got tagged – they are now blocking that line.

  • Only the catchers can pass the blocked path, the others cannot pass.

  • The catchers are timed.

  • Fastest team to catch everybody wins the challenge.

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Lesson 10:

• Continuing on with the dynamic challenges, I introduced Team Shark to the kids today.

  • The field has 4 safe areas (islands) for the ‘people’.

  • The catchers in the rest of the field (water) are ‘sharks’.

  • The people need to run from one island to another avoiding the sharks.

  • The class is broken up into 4 teams.

  • 1 group being the sharks.

  • The other 3 being the people.

  • There is one person in the shark team that is God.

  • God cannot catch people but can make the islands disappear by saying “3-2-1-NO ISLAND”.

  • The people then need to scatter to the other islands for safety.

  • There needs to be communication and teamwork between the God and Sharks to make this work to their advantage.

  • Once a person is caught by a shark, they are out.

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Lesson 11:

• This lesson was dedicated to reviewing the challenges we worked on since the formative assessment:

  • Noodle Ball

  • Team Pac Man

  • Team Shark

• Between the challenges, we touched on the key terms of the unit and how they played a role in our activities:

  • Responsibility

  • Optimism

  • Collaboration

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Lesson 12:

• We ended the unit with their final challenge of the unit - The Rope Challenge:

  • Students broke into 4-5 groups

  • They were each given 5 pieces of rope, roughly about 1 meter long each

  • Using only 1 hand each, students needed to tie the ropes together to make 1 long rope

  • Afterwards, I told the students to form 5 different shapes, can be anything that’s relatively simple to make – square, circle, rocket ship, house etc.

  • Once all the groups completed the shapes they all came together to make one long rope and made 3 different shapes – again, using only 1 hand each.

• Once the challenge was complete, students completed this assessment:

  • 21PE – PYP – PSPE – Grade 2 – Adventure Challenge – Summative Assessment

• To help with the last question, I had the Central Idea on the board with all the keywords we discussed. ​

 

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