Setting: DPA
Season: Winter
Activity Goal
Participants engage in moderate to vigorous physical activity in a winter environment to enhance their fitness and overall health and wellness. Participants reflect on ways to be active in winter and engage others in activity to build a habit of engaging in outdoor activity throughout the year.
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
None
Before Play
- Review the safety rules and activity instructions with participants prior to activity.
- Establish the boundaries for the designated play area and share them with participants.
During Play
- Invite participants to explore different locomotion skills in the playing area that can be performed on a winter surface, considering how moving outdoors in winter is different than indoors (e.g., sliding, shuffling in a sitting position, crawling, rolling).
- Each participant individually selects one person to be their “secret snow partner” without identifying or looking at them.
- Select one participant to be the snow agent who will attempt to identify secret snow partners based on the movement skills participants use.
- On the signal to begin, all participants move around the playing area using the different locomotor skills they practiced, switching up the locomotor skill after a few moments. Participants watch their secret partner and use the same locomotor skills to mirror their secret partner’s movement.
- When the snow agent thinks they have identified a participant’s secret partner, they stop and call out both names. If the snow agent is correct, then the participant becomes the new snow agent.
After Play
Use the following prompts for participants to reflect on ways to be active in winter and engage others in activity to build a habit of participating in outdoor activity throughout the year.
Question prompts:
- Consider the outdoor environment. Describe how you are able to move your body in different ways in outdoor environments.
- What are the similarities and/or differences between travel in the snow and travel on a clear surface?
- How does your winter clothing affect the way you move?
- What impact does physical activity in the outdoors have on the way you feel, your ability to learn and participate in class?
- How can you prepare for a successful DPA activity when playing outdoors?
- Describe how this game contributes to building positive relationships with your peers?
Adaptations
Consider these tips to maximize the challenge and the fun for participants.
- Invite participants to find creative ways to add objects into the game by exploring stability, locomotion, and manipulation skills.
- Have participants use additional locomotor skills (e.g., running, skipping, hopping, lunging) and reflect on how their movement changes in winter conditions.
Modifications
Consider these tips to maximize inclusion and fun for all participants.
- For participants with a cognitive disability, having challenges with memory and processing speeds, modify the expectation of the game such that the participant would move to designated locations in the playing area that are identified with a picture card.
- For participants with sensory processing challenges, create smaller games in different/alternate playing areas, and allow participants to choose where they would like to play according to their ability and comfort levels.