Review of vertical and horizontal movement.
Study of the diagonal direction.
Consolidating game activities for diagonal movements.
EQUIPMENT: GIANT CHESSBOARD – NAME CARDS AND HOLDERS - COLOURED HOOPS - WHISTLE – SOFT TOY ON A PEDESTAL (BOLETUS THE GNOME)
Main instructions for the children.
Go into the castle to a room of your choice.
Make a movement and then say if it is vertical or horizontal and then leave the castle.
Never forget to keep facing Boletus.
Activity details for the teacher.
After the question Who can remember the different ways we can cross the castle?, the children are asked to go on the board in turn and try one movement and then leave the chessboard.
Get the children to use the correct terms for direction; those who are not on the board can help.
Periodically replace the children on the board with another small group, giving opportunities to participate to those of the group who appear to be having more difficulty.
Main instructions for the children
Everyone enters the castle and goes to any room they like.
On each beat of the tambourine, move from one room to another, but only in a diagonal direction.
Don’t skip a room.
Always stay in a room of the same colour!
Don’t bump into other children.
If a room in your path is already occupied, go into another room and continue in a different diagonal direction.
If all the rooms adjacent to you are occupied, stop and wait until one of these becomes available.
Activity details for the teacher
Before the activity starts the children are asked the question “Is there another way of crossing the castle?”
Let the children find the answer, helping them to eventually find the correct name: often children will say ‘at an angle’. While this is not incorrect in a general sense, it is not the standard chess term, and therefore tell the children that in the castle this movement is always called DIAGONAL.
Get the children to observe that the diagonal is always made up of squares of the same colour (it is useful if children can come to their own conclusions and not just be told something, so questions and answers are always advisable: When you go diagonally, is there anything interesting and different to the way you moved before? Have you noticed anything about the colour of the squares?).
The children go onto the chessboard and occupy a square of their choosing; on the beat of the tambourine they start to move, one square at a time in a diagonal direction, without skipping a square and always staying on the same colour. Two children cannot be on the same square at the same time and they mustn’t bump into each other.
They can take a new diagonal direction if one of the squares on their path is occupied.
If all the squares that provide the possibility to move diagonally are occupied, they stop and wait for one to become vacant.
Main instructions for the children
Go outside the castle on the opposite side to Boletus (1st rank).
On the beat of the tambourine enter the castle.
On every beat of the tambourine, move one room in a diagonal direction using a Sideways Castle Step.
Try to arrive on the horizontal line of rooms immediately in front of Boletus and me (8th rank).
After you receive a bow from Boletus, leave the castle.
Activity details for the teacher
Stand near Boletus. The children form groups of 8 on the opposite side to Boletus and face him.
On the first beat of the tambourine, they go onto the chessboard and then move one square with every beat using the Sideways Castle Step, only along the diagonal. If they reach the edge of the board, they take another diagonal to continue to advance.
When they reach the squares directly in front of Boletus, bows are exchanged.
After the exchange of bows, they leave the chessboard and go back to repeat the activity.
Activity details for the teacher
This game activity has several similarities to the previous game.
Stand near Boletus and ask the children to move towards him or her taking the shortest path (who is quicker than me?), moving in time to the tambourine and using only the diagonal.
When they reach the squares in front of Boletus, greet them and bend Boletus so he gives a little bow.
After the children bow they leave the chessboard and go back to repeat the activity.
“Every day very many carriages of every type would arrive at the castle; there were little ones, big ones – some could hold two passengers, others four and some even had room for eight! Sometimes one carriage would crash into another or leave the road – on a few occasions some passengers even fell out of their carriages. This upset the king very much and to make sure that there were no more incidents of this kind in the future, he issued a royal decree regulating carriage traffic with strict rules.
Main instructions for the children
Remain in your carriage until you get the GO SIGNAL! (a whistle or command).
When you get the go signal, your carriage goes around the castle; be careful that a passenger is not ‘lost’ along the way.
When the tambourine beats once, your carriage goes across the castle diagonally.
Your carriage can’t leave on the side it entered from.
If you encounter another carriage crossing your path, you must stop and let it pass or take another route. Always stay on the same colour!
When the tambourine is given a series of light beats, go back to the starting position.
When the carriage is in the carriage house, the ‘carriage driver’ goes to the back of the line and the next in line takes their place.
Activity details for the teacher
The children form 3-4 carriage lines, each made up of 5-6 children. The first in line is the carriage driver who steers the carriage; the other children are the passengers.
The carriage is stationary in the carriage house (a hoop outside the chessboard, which is occupied by the first child in line). On the go signal (a blow on the whistle or a voice command), the carriages move freely in the space around the chessboard (also walking quickly).
On a beat of the tambourine, the carriages cross the chessboard on a diagonal of the carriage driver’s choosing, maintaining a straight line and without bumping into another carriage.
If the carriages cross paths, one stops until the other passes or changes to another diagonal direction on the same colour squares.
When the tambourine is given a quick series of light beats, the carriages have to return to their starting positions, with the carriage driver returning to the end of the line, the child who now becomes first in line is the new carriage driver and the activity is repeated.
CLOSING CHANT: “From the carriages it’s nice to see everything pass diagonally! 1 - 2 - 3 yeaaaaaah!”.
This game introduces the theme of shared space (i.e. group space), with the children finding themselves in the common space of the chessboard, through which they have to move simultaneously. There is the stimulus of rhythm (provided by the tambourine), which decidedly shifts the focus from conscious thought and reasoning to movement. For this reason, the teacher will emphasize the rules regarding respecting shared space: avoiding bumping into each other and the creation of friendly alliances. Everyone has a defined individual space (a chessboard square), but they are also in the shared space of the chessboard with a common objective.
The diagonal direction is experimented with by means of sight, physical perception and hearing (listening to the rhythm).
Activities 3 and 4 promote in the child the ability to identify the shortest paths and to develop a visualization of the space in its entirety, as well as widening the field of vision and developing strategies for the use of movement.
This is a group activity that involves:
Responsibility for those who guide the carriages (carriage driver) not to ‘lose’ a companion along the path, to maintain hand contact and to be aware of all the passengers in one’s carriage, not just those in close proximity.
The passengers developing trust in the carriage driver, who can choose the path the carriages take with complete autonomy.
The development of empathy, i.e. to personally relate to the feelings communicated by the others (to put yourself in ‘other people’s shoes’), starts with simple principles such as those of this game activity. The teacher can ask the children to think of a group as a single body formed from different organs; each one actively contributing not only to its health but also to its very existence. In short, everyone is important! It is useful to make it understood the happiness or unhappiness of an individual is the concern of the whole group and both emotions must be accepted with empathy and be respected (dynamics of conflict or indifference).
The possibility to play freely and fully enjoy the fun of moments such as when two carriages cross paths. This promotes the active participation of the entire group in a shared playful moment without competition.
The choice of the best strategy for moving the various carriages by the carriage driver leads to respect for and attention to the space of others and develops the carriage driver’s sense of responsibility, with this role being assumed in turn by all the children.