A European Games Guide Book

A EUROPEAN GAMES GUIDE BOOK

Learning to play and playing to learn

PREFACE

This book originates within the Erasmus+ 2017/19 Project whose main actors are six schools from different European countries: Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
The project, called "Learning to play and playing to learn" (2017-1-IT02-KA219-036581), focuses on the importance of playing as a way of learning in kindergarten and primary school and rediscovers the value of playful activities of the past with the involvement of several generations (pupils, parents, grandparents).
The book is intended to be a guide through a collection of educational games from various countries that can span across multiple areas of learning.
The teachers involved in the implementation of the project and in the drafting of the guide book have selected five areas of action:
·        Body awareness
·        Social skills
·        Oculo-manual coordination
·        Listening skills
·        Linguistic skills.
Each area contains a game from each country together with an explanation of the rules for the performance and some illustrations.

BODY AWARENESS

Body awareness is the ability to realize where our bodies are in space and how our bodies move; it helps us to understand how to relate to objects and people in different settings and how the different parts work together or separately and how they feel. Body awareness includes body part identification activities, because good coordinated movement for kids starts with knowing where their body parts are and what these different parts are able to do. It is a skill that is generally developed in the background as a result of motor skill practice through play and repetition.
Body awareness is learnt in early childhood and is an important precursor to learning. Knowing where your body is in space, right and left discrimination, and spatial relations are all components of body awareness and necessary for learning.
The learning area seeks to develop children’s motor skills and knowledge of health and safety through participation in physical activities. As they participate in these activities, they not only develop physical skills, but also grow in confidence and self-esteem to fulfill the demands placed on them later in life. Children naturally love to move and play and love having their teachers play with them: with good modelling and instruction, they can be more skillful in controlling and coordinating their body movements such as walking, bending, throwing and catching.

BULGARIA

Name of the game:

"CAPTAIN, WHAT IS THE SEA LIKE?"

Objectives:
- upgrading of complex motor skills like jumping, running ,walking
- developing an ability to recognize distance, direction and location
- emotional delight, socialization, teamwork

Number of players: minimum 4

Materials: nothing

Environment: big room or outside

Rules:
The children choose one who will be a Captain. The Captain stands with his back to all the other children, and they without a certain order-behind him. Children start asking, "Captain, Captain, what is the sea like?". The Captain chooses which of the four seas to say: quiet, stormy, frozen, airy. In “silence”, everyone moves as quietly as possible around the Captain, and he (with closed eyes) tries to catch someone and guess who he is. If the sea is "frozen", the children ask, "How many steps and what kind are they?".The Captain answered and the children take these steps away from the Captain's back, stand and do not move more. The Captain, with closed eyes, tries to find someone and guess who he/she is. In "stormy" - all children run and the Captain with open eyes chases them, the goal is to catch someone.When the sea is "airy", then every step-leg must be in the air - who goes to the ground and is seen by the Captain, he counts as "caught". After one play, the Captain chooses another to take over his role.