Foraging for Food

Setting: Curricular

Season: Winter

Activity Goal

Participants retain and travel with objects while adapting to winter conditions when moving outdoors and reflect on how weather and snow affect their movement. Participants consider how they can play this game with friends and family to stay active in winter.

For participant safety, please review the contents of the Beyond the Walls: Safety Considerations page for information on Safety Standards, Winter Safety Considerations, and Outdoor Playing Areas and Surfaces.

Equipment

• Beanbags, various balls, rubber chickens, small cones
• Hoops

Before Play

• Review the safety rules and activity instructions with participants prior to the activity.
• Establish the boundaries for the designated playing area and share them with participants.
• In the designated playing area, place a hoop in each of the four corners.
• Divide the class into four equal groups and assign each group a hoop. Tell the group this is their “winter home” (e.g., den/nest/burrow).
• Place an additional hoop in the centre of the playing area with various objects in the center (e.g., beanbags, various balls, rubber chickens, small cones). These objects represent types of food animals would find in the forest and forage in winter.
• Explain that in the winter, animals such as rabbits, deer, and foxes hunt for food while other animals hibernate. Food is not easy to find and sometimes they take from the food store of other animals. This is called foraging.

During Play

• Invite participants to explore different locomotor skills in the playing area that represent how different animals might move in winter (e.g., running, jumping, hopping, skipping, crawling).
• Use the following prompts for groups to explore movement concepts:
  • How might our body move differently when traveling in the snow versus traveling on a clear surface?
  • What are some ways you can travel in the snow or across ice that you cannot do on a clear surface? What are the similarities and/or differences?
  • How does your winter clothing affect the way you move?
  • What do you have to do to move safely while on snow- or ice-covered surfaces and while traveling in winter?
• Explain to groups that the objective of the game is to work as a team to forage for food and bring it back to their “winter home.” They can gather food from the forest (the center hoop) and/or forage it from other groups’ winter homes.
• When groups/individuals are foraging from other groups’ den/nest/burrow, they must not block or make physical contact to prevent the foraging.
• On a signal, participants work together in their group to gather as much food as possible from the forest or other groups’ winter homes.
• Participants are only allowed to take one food item at a time to bring back to their home.
• When the teacher ends the game, groups count how many food items they have collected.

After Play

Use the following prompts for participants to reflect on how they adapted their play to winter conditions and how weather and winter clothing affected their movement and game strategy. Participants consider how they dress for winter activities, and how the activity can be adapted to play with friends and family to stay active in winter.

Question prompts:

• How did the winter conditions affect how and where you moved during this activity?
• What strategies did you and your group use to forage for food (retain your object) to build your food stores?
• How did you work together to successfully accomplish your goal?
• How did your winter clothing affect how quickly or easily you could move while foraging for food?
• What did you enjoy about playing this game outside in winter?

Adaptations

Consider these tips to maximize the challenge and the fun for participants.

• Designate a defender. The defender’s responsibility is to protect the food in their hoop by tagging other participants who attempt to take their food.
• Have participants embed the skill of sending and receiving into the game to get their food back to their winter home.
• Call out different movement skills for participants to use while foraging for food.

Modifications

Consider these tips to maximize inclusion and fun for all participants.

• For participants with mobility challenges, focus on a specific locomotor skill while moving with the equipment in the playing area.
• For participants who are working on fine motor skills, have them hold the object and move to a designated winter home within the playing area.