Agility, Space and Movement - Lesson 5

The sixth lesson in the Nursery series on Agility, Space and Movement focuses on developing the children's ability to balance objects while in motion. The lesson's learning objectives are for the pupils to balance an object on a specific body part while stationary and as they travel, as well as to follow instructions attentively. The success criteria ensure that children can demonstrate these balancing skills and understand the key vocabulary, which includes terms such as 'balance', 'travel', 'movement', and 'focus'. For this lesson, the required equipment includes a choice of musical instrument, bean bags in four different colours, and coloured hoops, cones, or patches to mark areas.

The warm-up activity, 'Squirrels in the tree', encourages the children to move around the hall in various ways, such as stomping, crawling, or running, and to quickly form groups of three upon a signal, creating a 'tree' for the 'squirrel'. This is followed by the main activity, which involves balancing bean bags on different body parts and incorporating movement as directed by the teacher. To conclude the activity, each child is asked to place their bean bag into a hoop matching the colour of their bean bag. The lesson ends with a cool-down where the children march on the spot, gradually slowing down and performing calming actions for each part of the body, which helps in teaching the importance of being calm and controlled after physical activities.