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Soccer

Starting from Physical Education

These activities help students develop healthy relationships with those around them as well as the environment. They will gain understanding of the importance of physical activity and making positive choices in living a healthy and balanced life.

Map

1

Predator and Prey

In this active game, students will learn about the food chain and how environmental factors affect the ecosystem. 

2

Sneaky Thief

This active game will introduce students to kleptoparasites, the behaviour of stealing food or resources from another animal.

3

Bird, Seal, and Deer

In this cooperative game, students build locomotor and spacial awareness skills in a fast-paced game.

Predator and Prey

Curricular Competencies

Physical Education

  • Develop and apply a variety of fundamental movement skills in a variety of physical activities and environments

  • Apply a variety of movement concepts and strategies in different physical activities

  • Apply methods of monitoring exertion levels in physical activity

  • Develop and demonstrate safety, fair play, and leadership in physical activities

Science

  • Demonstrate curiosity about the natural world

  • Observe objects and events in familiar contexts

  • Identify questions about familiar objects and events that can be investigated scientifically

  • Identify some simple environmental implications of their and others’ actions

  • Express and reflect on personal or shared experiences of place

  • Sort and classify data and information using drawings or provided tables

Math

  • Model mathematics in contextualized experiences

  • Develop, demonstrate, and apply mathematical understanding through play, inquiry, and problem solving

  • Visualize to explore mathematical concepts

  • Develop and use multiple strategies to engage in problem solving

  • Communicate mathematical thinking in many ways

  • Use mathematical vocabulary and language to contribute to mathematical discussions

  • Represent mathematical ideas in concrete, pictorial, and symbolic forms

  • Reflect on mathematical thinking

Materials:

  • "life" tokens (e.g. bingo chips)

​

  1. Bring students outside to a forested area. Outline play boundaries.

  2. Discuss: what is a food chain? What are predators and prey? What are herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores? Who is at the top of the food chain and why? (Carnivores because they have no natural predators). 

  3. Explain that this game simulates a food chain in the wild. Carnivores can eat omnivores and herbivores, omnivores can eat only herbivores, and herbivores can't eat anyone. All animals will start out with a certain number of life tokens. In this game, you "eat" another animal by tagging them. If tagged, the prey must give the predator one of their life token. If you run out of life tokens, the predator/prey joins the teacher in the "zoo". 

  4. Halfway through play, the teacher can ask students from the zoo to be environmental factors: human, disease, and climate change. A human carries life chips with them, when tagging a predator or prey they can choose to either give life tokens or take away life tokens (representing that humans can either help or hurt living things). Disease and climate change can only take away life tokens.

  5. Divide students into 3 groups and hand out life tokens: herbivores (10 chips), omnivores (8 chips), carnivores (5 chips). 

  6. Play for 15-20 minutes. 

  7. Come back together and debrief: How did you feel this game went? Was it easy to get life chips from your prey (for carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores)? Do you think it was fair and why/why not? How did environmental factors change the game?

 

Extensions: 

  • Play another round of the game, switching students' roles. How did this role compare to your role in the last game?

  • After returning from play, have each type of animal (carnivore, omnivore, herbivore) count the number of life chips they had at the end of the game. Calculate the difference between what they started with and what they had left. Using the data from the other groups, graph the change in life chips. Which group lost the most? Least? Which was most heavily impacted by the environmental factors? 

Sneaky Thief

Food​

Zoo

Food​

Zoo

Curricular Competencies

Physical Education

  • Develop and apply a variety of fundamental movement skills in a variety of physical activities and environments

  • Apply a variety of movement concepts and strategies in different physical activities

  • Apply methods of monitoring exertion levels in physical activity

  • Develop and demonstrate safety, fair play, and leadership in physical activities

Science

  • Demonstrate curiosity about the natural world

  • Observe objects and events in familiar contexts

  • Identify questions about familiar objects and events that can be investigated scientifically

  • Identify some simple environmental implications of their and others’ actions

  • Express and reflect on personal or shared experiences of place

Language Arts

  • Exchange ideas and perspectives to build shared understanding

  • Use writing and design processes to plan, develop, and create texts for a variety of purposes and audiences

  • Use language in creative and playful ways to develop style

  • Communicate in sentences and paragraphs, applying conventions of Canadian spelling, grammar, and punctuation

  • Transform ideas and information to create original texts

Materials:​

  • 2 hula hoops

  • cones

  • bean bags

  • pinnies

​

  1. Bring your class outside to an open field. Ask: what is a kleptoparasite? A kleptoparasite is an animal that steal resources, usually food, from another species. Explain that this game will mimic this animal behaviour. 

  2. Outline a large rectangle with cones. Mark the half line of the rectangle. Each side will have a hula hoop for food (bean bags) in one corner and another hula hoop in the opposite corner to be a "zoo" (similar to a jail). See diagram for set up.

  3. Divide students into two species teams, give one team pinnies. Each species will have a food pile on their side they are trying to protect from the other team. If a player from the other species crosses the middle line, you can tag them. If a member of the other species is tagged while trying to steal food, they go to the zoo on the side they are trying to steal from and the food is returned. If a player is already holding on to a piece of food (only one at a time) they get a free walk back to their side to add the food to their pile.

  4. Players can also save their species from the zoo by high-fiving them. Both players get a free walk back to their side.

  5. Play for 10-15 minutes. Whichever species has the largest food pile at the end wins.

  6. Discuss: how did this game represent the animals in the food chain? Why do you think animals steal from other animals? How do you think this way of survival impacts the food supply and other resources in the environment?

 

Extensions: 

  • Write a story from the perspective of a kleptoparasite. How do you find your source of food? What part of the food chain are you in? Why do you steal food from other species?

Bird, Seal, and Deer

Curricular Competencies

Physical Education

  • Develop and apply a variety of fundamental movement skills in a variety of physical activities and environments

  • Apply a variety of movement concepts and strategies in different physical activities

  • Apply methods of monitoring exertion levels in physical activity

  • Develop and demonstrate safety, fair play, and leadership in physical activities

Science

  • Demonstrate curiosity about the natural world

  • Observe objects and events in familiar contexts

  • Identify questions about familiar objects and events that can be investigated scientifically

  • Identify some simple environmental implications of their and others’ actions

  • Express and reflect on personal or shared experiences of place

Language Arts

  • Exchange ideas and perspectives to build shared understanding

  • Use writing and design processes to plan, develop, and create texts for a variety of purposes and audiences

  • Use language in creative and playful ways to develop style

  • Communicate in sentences and paragraphs, applying conventions of Canadian spelling, grammar, and punctuation

  • Transform ideas and information to create original texts

Art

  • Create artistic works collaboratively and as an individual using ideas inspired by imagination, inquiry, experimentation, and purposeful play

  • Explore identity, place, culture, and belonging through arts experiences

  • Reflect on creative processes and make connections to other experiences

  1. Bring students outside to an open area. 

  2. Explain that students will be playing in partners. The class will get into two concentric circles (one partner in the outer circle, the other in the inner circle). Students in each circle will walk in opposite directions (inside circle - clockwise, outside circle - counterclockwise).

  3. While students are walking around the circles, the teacher will randomly call out bird, seal, or deer. Partners have to do the action of the animal together. Bird: one partner stands with their arms up posing as a tree, the other partner flies/runs around the tree. Seal: both partners lie on their sides on the ground and lift their feet and head off the ground. Deer: one partner squats/kneels, the other partner stands behind them holding their hands out like antlers on their partners head. 

  4. The last pair to act out the animal is out. 

  5. Discuss: How and why do animals rely on one another? Why is the interconnectedness between animals and between animals and the environment important to the ecosystem?

 

Extensions: 

  • Journal (write and draw) about one of those animals. What is your connection to that animal? What do their habitats look like? Have you ever encountered one?

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