GAMES AROUND THE WORLD

Hi, folks!

Last April 28th we developed our monthly meeting at CEIP Miguel Hernández from Valencia. As you know, we had prepared games from different countries around the World. As usually, we had a great time and we learnt and played games we didn't know at all. The bad new was four of our seminar colleagues couldn't make it because they had to attend different school meetings. Another bad new is we forgot to take pictures... We were to focused on the games! We hope next meeting we'll be altogether again. Now, before I write the report -this time it was my turn!-, I'll summarize next meeting highlights.

DATE: May 26th
STARTING TIME: 17:30-18:00hrs
PLACE: CEIP Miguel Hernández
TOPIC: Traditional games

See you next meeting!

DIDAC

GAMES AROUND THE WORLD

Eastern vacation was already pretty far from our minds but we started the meeting explaining what we did during this Holliday. After this brief introduction, we started with Marian, who explained us a game from Brazil called Joao Palmada. It's a game to play the whole class together. It's played in a circle where everybody put their hands back and palms up. This is how it works. One of the players starts as Joao Palmada and walks around the circle. When ever she/he wants has to clap somebody's hands and run in the opposite direction he was walking. When they meet, they have to say: "Bom dia" and "Obrigado!". As soon as they say so, they have to try to get back to the circle free spot before the other. The one who loses will be Joao Palmada and the game will keep on going. After this funny game, Majo showed us a game from Zimbabwe called The Chicken and the Snake. It's a dancing game where you pretend you are a big Zimbabwean chicken. The floor is plenty of snakes -colored handkerchief- and everybody dances around. When the music stops, all chickens  have to try to bite a snake and take it. If you get one, you'll get one point. And so on, so forth until somebody gets 3 or 4 points. Andrea explained next game since it was a whole court game as well. Her game was called What's the time, Mr. Wolf? and it comes from UK. It's a sort of our well known game Pollito Inglés but, at the end, it becomes a chasing game! There is a wolf and the rest of the class are goats. Goats ask the wolf "What's the time, Mr. Wolf?" and the wolf -who can't turn to look where goats are- has to answer. If he says "It's five o'clock" goats make five steps forward. When goats get very close and they ask the question again, teh wolf will answer "It's lunch time!" and he will try to get a goat. The goat that gets caught, will become next wolf. 

After that, was Susana's turn. Her game was called Stealing stones and Susana knew about it because her son, who explained to her. He had played this game in his school and he told her it was from Extremadura. It's played in two teams. The court is divided by two and each team has to try to get the other team's stones, which are kept in a safe area at the end of its court. Teams must stop attacking players in their court. In that case, they have to seat down and wait until some of their teammates clap their hand. Then, they will be free again. However, when a attacking player gets inside the other team's safe area, they cannot chase them any more and, therefore, the player got one of the stones. The first team that gets all stones from the other, wins the game. It's a very exciting game for kids and there are many variants which you might add in order to adapt it to your pupils' age. After this, Aida explained her game. She called it Indians and Cowboys and she "supposed" it came from USA. This is how it works. There are two teams and they are separated. In between them, there are different types of balls and every teammate has got one ball on their hands. The basic aim of this game is to try to hit the ball with your ball until it crosses to the other's team area. The game is over when there isn't any ball left in the neutral area. Again, it was a very playful and intensive game! 

After this we took a little break. Ten minutes where enough for us to recover because we were so excited about knowing more diffrent games from around the World. José Luis game was also very peculiar. It came from India and its name was Kabaddi. As he wrote on the work sheet, Kabaddi

It’s an invasion game. Two teams will score by arriving to the opponent line without being caught. It’s played by teams (7 pers. each but only 4 defenders play at the same time and one from the other team). One member of the ofence team must go to the opponent court to touch some member from that team. But he can’t be caught. Then, one of the team will score one point and a member from the other team has to leave (only until his/her team scores a point, then it is allowed to go on playing).

It's quite difficult to understand at the beginning but, once you start playing, you can't stop! For farther information, you might check this link. If you want to watch a game, you also might take a look at look at this other link.

I explained the two last games of the meeting. first of all, I showed a game called Patentero that comes from Philippines. It's very similar to a well known game called Spider or Octopus. The difference is there isn't one "araña" or "octopus" but many located in different stages. It's played in a narrow and long court and there are 4-5 stages were patenteros are located in order to stop the offense team. Patenteros can take one foot out of the line they are set on but not both feet. Every attacking player has got one handkerchief on their side. In order to make them come back to the starting point, defenders have to take the handkerchief and throw it to the floor. If one attacking player can go through all stages he's got one point. Then, teams change their rol and the team which gets more points will be the winner. After this, I explained a terrific game called Chekaya. It comes from Thailand and it has to do with Evil and Good spirits. The class is divided by two teams which are Evil (wearing red beep) and Good spirits (wearing blue beep). The court it's divided in three zones: Bad spirits zone, Good spirits and a neutral zone separating both good and Evil zones. The main aim in this game is to try to bring the spirits to your side. The fight must be on the neutral zone and, once you've been taken by either Good or Evil spirits you have to change your beep and you become a new Good/Evil spirit depending on which spirit you were. It's a very funny game to play with kids and teenagers!

That's it! See you next meeting!

DIDAC