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Resources
One metre-long piece of string/wool and about five cocktail-stick flags,
for each child. Magnifying glasses recommended.
Where
Places with diverse ground cover. E.g. Skinny
Woods, Hawkhill Wood,
Innocent Walkway, some areas of Craigmillar
Castle Park.
Why
Encourages children to take the view of a small creature, and to use
their imagination to develop an empathy with small creatures.
How
Explain to everyone that each one of them is going to act as a scout for
an expedition team. Their mission is to set up the most exciting and
challenging expedition ever for the team - leading them to new places
and exploring different plants and animals on the way. However, the team
is no ordinary team - they have in fact been shrunk to the size of an
ant (or creature equally as small)! Therefore, in order to complete the
task, everyone will have to imagine that they themselves have
also been shrunk. They must first find an
interesting piece of ground, with lots of different features on it, like hills
(mounds), boulders (pebbles) or lakes (puddles). Then they must
shrink themselves (crouching down, so their eyes are no higher than 20cm
from the ground) and set up a trail for the team to follow, encountering all sorts of
strange plants and huge animals (like worms or slaters) on the way. As you can imagine, the trail will be a true adventure for the
team, so a rope and flags must be set up to guide them. The rope
will show the way and the flags will mark the beginning or end of
different sections of the journey. Each section should be different to
the one before and after. Then hand out the ‘rope’ and
flags, and get the children to find an interesting spot. Once they have
set up their trails, each child should share it with someone else,
taking them through the journey as if their partner were the size of an
ant and pointing out the different landmarks, hazards and interesting
features on the way. |
