How Many Steps Mr. Animal?

On Friday February 27th, I observed two children in the building and construction area during free play. They were busy setting up animals and helping them walk across the 'land' to climb up the tree to find food to eat. From this observation I had a new idea of a game that we could play in the gym on the following Monday! 

The new game was a spin off of 'What Time is it Mr. Wolf," and it followed some of the same rules. One child stood on one end of the gym facing the wall with their eyes closed, and that child was also the tagger. The other children were on the line at the opposite end of the gym. The children on the line were to call "HOW MANY STEPS MR. ANIMAL?" and the tagger would call out a number followed by an animal, for example "3 lion steps" or "2 elephant steps" and the children on the line were to act out this animal taking the correct number of steps. 

The game continued until the group of children took their animal steps all the way to the tagger. When the tagger called "IT'S TIME FOR LUNCH!" the tagger would run after them as they ran back towards the line. Whoever the tagger caught before reaching the line became the new tagger and the game restarted. 

During this game, the children were given the opportunity to develop their cognitive skills and their language skills as they thought about how to act like each animal. They also were developing their social and physical skills when they ran, jumped, hopped, skipped, etc. and they did this together as a group! 

I observed that some children didn't know how to imitate these animals so I came up with a plan for next time! As a group we can watch Youtube videos to see how different animals walk and what sounds they make. We will use this tool to learn more about animals while participating in a game full of physical activity! 

-Chantal