Fall Hoarders

Setting: Intramurals

Season: Fall

Activity Goal

Participants engage in a fun activity in a fall environment to build healthy relationships and social connections with others and for additional opportunities to be active throughout the school day.

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

Equipment

• Several small objects representing acorns (e.g., tennis balls, bean bags, scrunched up recycled paper) or you may reuse the same small object
• 1 pinnie per participant (two colours to denote the two teams)

How to 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.
• Explain to participants that hoarding is an instinctive behaviour in which animals store food for later use. Squirrels are considered to be the quintessential/ultimate hoarders of the animal kingdom. This hoarding behaviour involves quite an elaborate process of collecting and storing a wide variety of different foods, including nuts, acorns, seeds, berries, and even human food, in underground caches to prepare for the long and arduous winter. To deal with potential animal thieves, the squirrels will sometimes pretend to bury the food in the ground but secretly keep it. When the thief is distracted, it will make a clean getaway.
• Explain to participants that they will work together to hoard as many acorns as possible before the cold weather arrives.
• Create a playing area resembling a football field, with two end zones at each end of the playing area.
• Divide participants into two teams and provide teams with a different coloured pinnie to differentiate them.
• The offensive team (the squirrels) start in their own end zone in a huddle and the defensive team, the creatures attempting to steal the squirrels' food, spreads out in the playing area.
• Within the huddle, the offensive team members pass around the acorn so that one participant has it, but the other team can’t see who it is.
• On a predetermined signal, the offensive team members try to run across to the opposite end zone without getting tagged by the defensive team members. Remind participants that a tag is a touch on the back, shoulder, or arm not a push, punch, or grab.
• If a participant is tagged, they must perform 10 Jumping Jacks (or repetitions of a pre-selected activity such as one from Ophea’s 50 Fitness Activities) before returning to their own end zone.
• If the participant who has the acorn makes it to the end zone without getting tagged, that team scores a point.
• The round is over when a point is scored or the person carrying the acorn gets tagged.
• Switch offense and defense and repeat.
• The team of squirrels who has accumulated the most acorns after several rounds of play is the winner.

Adaptations

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

• Alter the playing area by increasing or decreasing the size of the playing area and the size of the scoring area. Discuss which strategies work with large spaces compared to a smaller playing area.
• Add a second acorn transported by another participant.
• Participants move using different locomotor skills (e.g., skipping, galloping, shuffling, hopping, etc.)
• Try playing this with four teams (2 on offense and 2 on defense). The offensive teams can enter either defensive zone, but the defensive players must stay in their quadrant.

Modifications

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

• Consider inclusive approaches to increase or decrease the challenge to find a role for every participant and to encourage full participation.
• For participants with mobility challenges, adjust the game's rules and invite the whole group to think of a way to make the game more static, so everyone is playing at the same level.
• For participants with limited mobility, have them and others stand or sit in the opponent’s end zone. In order for a group to score, they have to receive the pass in the opponent’s end zone.