Physical paper trails

Explore the physical shapes and movements of sporting activities from the world of gymnastics or athletics - so forward rolls, hand stands, head stands, vaults, javelin, shot putt or discus throws , long jumps and high jumps.Set your children linguistic challenges at the stage of their learning- investigating nouns for parts of the body, adding simple conjunctions, adding a command or commands- all to describe the process of the physical movement

Give each child a strip of paper and ask them to  make the strip of paper in to the physical action that takes place when they do a forward roll (see example above) or a headstand ( see example below) or another gymnastic shape or movement.

Now ask the children to add the language to describe the physical process so that their paper trail shape describes the whole movement from start to end.  Below is a headstand built of nouns and a command. Set the other children a challenge to identify the gymnastic movement or athletic field event activity described- just by looking at the shape and the words they can read on the shape.

Add challenge and ask the children to make their sculpture in to a full sentence using conjunctions too . Here is a headstand sentence.

Add an additional challenge by giving one child's physical paper trail to another child and asking them to look at what they can see and then anticipate the rest of the sentence- without unravelling the paper trail.They can only unravel the paper trail and compare sentences once the second child has completed its own full sentence. So what comes next in this forward roll......?

And finally create a sporting sculpture gallery of your paper trails for others to puzzle out etc.