Self-Direction Game Inventing

On Monday we were shown examples on how self-direction can be incorporated into playing games and activities. Our task was to invent games at six different stations. The first game my group invented was a beanbag tossing activity. The equipment available was about six cones, a bucket of beanbags, and a bucket of elastic straps. Right away my group knew exactly what to do with the beanbags and cones, but it took some extra thought into how we were going to incorporate the elastic straps. The beanbag tossing activity was a little more challenging then your normal beanbag toss. What we did was tie some of the elastic straps around 3 cones to make a triangle target, and tied some elastic straps around 2 cones. The 2 cones made a very tight and thin rectangle as a target. The rectangle was the hardest target to get a beanbag into. I would say that the appropriate age group intended for this activity would be 6 to 11 year olds. The rules were that you needed to make sure that you were throwing behind the designated line, and you were not permitted to cross the line until all of the participants have thrown all of their beanbags. This rule is very important because that way no child will get hit. You may play this game as long as you would like. There is no official stoppage of the game but it is good to remember to set a goal of maybe how many times you actually get a beanbag in a target. The rules of the game were very simple, which I feel is best when dealing with young children. Some modifications that have come to mind since would be to change the levels of where you throw. You could designate 4 different levels instead of just having one level to throw from. This adds a little bit more of a challenge to the game. You could also modify how you are supposed to throw the beanbags. Instead of throwing normally you could throw backwards or throw from under your legs. This makes the game goofier and adds more fun! Skill wise the children would be working on several types of skills. They would be working on their hand-eye coordination, throwing, aiming, adjusting force for how far they needed to throw the bean bags, and respect. My group and I worked pretty well together when it came to deciding on the type of game we were going to invent. It was awesome that we were all on the same page with the beanbag idea. 

The second game my group invented was a miniature floor hockey game. The equipment available was 6 floor hockey sticks, 1 floor hockey ball, and 6 hula-hoops. My group decided to use the hula-hoops as goal posts for the nets, and then use the sticks normally for a miniature floor hockey game. We broke up into two teams, and each team had three players. The appropriate age group intended for this game I think would be 6 to 9 year olds. The rule of the game was that you had to walk the ball through the net instead of shooting into the net. This rule was very important so that no one could get hurt and it was fair for both teams. A modification that we could do to this game is to make a rule that all the players must touch the ball before you can score. This modification would allow all the participants to be involved. The skills that this activity works on are teamwork, leadership, and respect. For this station the only thing that I disliked about our game invention was that we didn’t really think outside the box but this game was a bit more competitive then the other games we had invented on Monday, which I really liked.