Positive Playgrounds - Playground Circle Game

Landmarks in Education

Cross Curricular Circle Game

Playground Circle for a class of 30

Circle games are an important teaching tool. They have a proven track record of good practice in schools. Students enjoy the creativity and fun of working from a circle as well as the change in routine. No stranger to the Drama teacher, however, often inaccessible to other curriculum areas due to the lack of a viable space. The ‘Playground Circle’ solves the problem by utilizing an often overlooked-space; the playground. No need to move desks and chairs, just take your class outside.

The governments move towards a tripartite lesson in the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies have left many teachers searching for suitable starters and plenary. The ‘Playground Circle’ can help. Just choose from the list of games and adapt to fit your curriculum needs. Suitable for KS2, 3 and 4 your circle can be used for a whole class or adapted to smaller group sizes. Apply ‘Circle Time’ and ‘Brain Gym’ activities to your circle and broaden your choice of games.

Impress OFSTED by catering for the needs of your kinesthetic learners and using activities, which appeal to boys. Improve your classroom management by using the ‘Playground Circle’ as a reward. Encourage teachers to try new strategies in their curriculum delivery.

The Circle Motif
Using the ‘Playground Circle’ as a management strategy has several benefits. All students face one another and this makes visual communication easier (an important factor when you consider that’s 80% of all communication is non verbal). It aids turn taking and promotes unity. The circle symbolizes equality; each person around it being equal to the other. It is also a useful tool for whole class activities which can be difficult to manage, and it is a useful place to start and finish smaller group activities. The circle can be created to accommodate your school’s average class size. Smaller classes will be reflected in the cost.

Playground Circle with extra circle for use with small groups

Space
Whilst as teachers we may well want to address the needs of visual and kinesthetic learners, the environment may preclude it. Cleared spaces in schools are at premium. The sports hall tends to be the domain of the PE Department and as such constantly used. Likewise the school hall, needed for assemblies and dinners etc.

The playground tends to be overlooked during curriculum time. Particularly in the summer, students view lesson time spent in the playground as a real treat. This makes delivery of the material easier because of the fun element.

Problems can arise because of the amount of space in the playground, with fewer boundaries in the playground than the classroom. The ‘Playground Circle’ addresses this by demarcating space, giving students an allocated place to complete tasks.

Addressing Hard to Reach Learners
Students who understand themselves and the world around them through movement are kinesthetic learners. They constitute 33% of the learning population. A further 33% will use this sense (touch/movement) as a support to their dominant mode. These tend to be visual learners who will also benefit from Positive Playgrounds learning experiences.

Kinesthetic learners can be hard to reach in the classroom environment. Especially ones in which there are furniture such as chairs and desks to move to clear a space. Permanent structures such as labs to work around can also cause problems. In such circumstances, sedentary, desk bound tasks can be very much the norm. These tasks operate ‘outside’ kinesthetic learner’s style and are therefore much less accessible.

Playground Circle with stars

The ‘Playground Circle’ offers an opportunity to address this in a fun and enjoyable way. It addresses the needs of kinesthetic learners by responding to learned information via movement in and around the circle. Information can be learned and presented physically. The information shared and experienced in the circle can be adapted to all curriculum areas needs simply by asking questions relevant to your schemes of work.

Lesson Starters and Plenary
Attention grabbing lessons starters and consolidating plenary can be approached from a new angle. Begin or end the lesson outside. A playground lesson can also be an excellent starter lesson for a unit to explore some general concepts which can be looked at in more detail later. This gives the concept an experiential basis for later learning. Mix and match games and warm-ups, which fit in with your lesson plans.

Improving Classroom Management
Using the ‘Playground Circle’ as a reward either as a complete lesson or as plenary can help to improve general classroom behaviour. Heading outside for games on a sunny Thursday afternoon can be safely described as a treat and should be sufficient to encourage the completion of less well liked tasks.

Management Strategies
Agree on a strategy with the class beforehand and practice this several times when you arrive at the circle. This establishes a process for quiet and for changing tasks.

* Countdown from 5-1
* Blow whistle
* Hand up = stop talking
* Finger to lips

Appeal to Boys
A particular concern for education at present is finding activities that appeal to boys. The physical nature of the circle games provides just this. Learning and presenting information in a visual/kinesthetic context (via role play) recent studies show are students most preferred style (next to watching TV). Whilst many games accent ‘winning’, circle games encourage good group work, sharing and turn taking. These skills can be practiced via circle games.

OFSTED
Positive Playgrounds have been preparing school playgrounds with graphics in readiness for OFSTED for many years now. During February ’04 I used the playground graphics they prepared to reinforce keywords during an observed lesson. OFSTED considered this to be a ‘good’ lesson.

Circle Games
Warm Up & Concentration Games
Just like a sporting activity, a circle activity should be started with a warm up. This can be distinct from the main games. Its purpose is to consolidate the group and activate the learners. Its emphasis on fun and creativity helps to start the activities positively.

Warm Up Games

Fruit Bowl
Appoint students with a ‘fruit’ e.g. Apple, orange, pear, banana. Make sure there are several of each. Call out any of the fruit names, these students should change places around the circle. Call out ‘fruit bowl’ and the entire class changes places.

Compliments Game
When the teacher says action, the class moves around within the circle. When the teacher says freeze, the class must freeze like statues. Practice this several times. When the class is responding well, on the next freeze, the class must then go to their nearest class member and pay them a compliment. i.e. “you look nice toady, I like your hair/you are clever/you are good at drawing”. This helps to create a positive atmosphere within the group and helps students to get used to the idea of saying something nice to one another (which can be tricky and feel awkward at first).

Duck, Duck Goose
Students crouch around the circle facing each other. One person is ‘it’ and walks around the circle. As they walk around, they tap people’s heads to say weather they are a ‘duck’ of a ‘goose’. Once the goose has been chosen they get up and chase ‘it’ around the circle. The aim is to tap that person before they are able to sit down in the goose’s spot. If the goose is not able to do this, they become ‘it’ for the next round and play continues.

Wink Murder
A volunteer is chosen to be the ‘murderer’ and another to be the ‘detective’. The detective must not know who the murderer is, so must turn away or leave the room whilst s/he is chosen. The murderer then stands in the circle with the rest of the group. S/he then ‘kills’ people by winking at them, trying not to get caught by the detective. Those who have been winked at need to act out a noisy death. The detective has to try to guess who the murderer is. The detective has three guesses. If they guess correctly they remain thee detective, other wise a new one is chosen.

Concentration Games
Concentration games are calming after the excitement of the warm up. They require the focused attention of the student to turn take. They are about thinking rather than physical exertion, and can warm down to the games which are the actual focus of the lesson.

Crouching Game
All students start standing around the circle. The game ends with all students crouching down. One student begins by crouching. Students must then decide randomly who will crouch next. If two students crouch together, the game begins again. Students must decide visually – using eye contact alone (no talking or gesturing), who will go next. Students need to concentrate on subtle movements and pay attention to the whole group.

Word Association Game
The teacher suggests a word e.g. ‘stars’ or ‘sea’. Each student in turn then says one word associated with it. The game should be kept as pacey as possible. Teachers can use key words from their programmes of study. This can be a really useful game to generate language related to language related to topics learned in the classroom.

“I Love You” Game
Students stand in the circle and each in turn must say to the person on their right “I love you”. However, this must be said ‘deadpan’ without giggling. It provides a good opportunity to get the laughing out of the way to start thee more serious part of the lesson. It also helps to create a good working atmosphere within the group.

Cross Hands Game
Students kneel around the circle crossing arms with students either side of them. They then lean forward on to the floor with palms facing downwards on the floor. The game begins when a nominated student pats the floor with one hand. Then, working clockwise around the circle, each hand in turn pats the floor. This is tricky as students have crossed arms. Students need to concentrate on turn taking. An extension game here is to use two pats as a cue to change the direction of the ‘pats’ around the circle.

Pandora’s Box
The teacher mimes opening an invisible box. S/he mimes taking out an invisible object and uses it. E.g. Sunglasses, cricket bat. S/he then closes the box and passes it to the first student who then repeats the process. This continues around the circle. Students try to guess which objects have been mimed.

Ball Games
Passing a ball amongst the group promotes concentration. The teacher begins by stating their own name and then the name of one of the students. The teacher establishes eye contact and then throws the ball to the student. By establishing this as a process with the class, the teacher helps to avoid unexpected flying objects. Again, try to pick up the pace of the throws. Extension activity: Keep adding extra balls (maximum of three).

Plenary Games
Plenary games, used to consolidate information learned and present it in a new media can be managed easily from the main circle. Teachers can see instantly from student’s movement responses if information has been understood and check the class’s response to different ideas.

Dead Cat
In Dead Cat, the centre spot becomes important. The teacher reads out a statement e.g. “six is a number in the two times table”, or “plants need light to live”. The class responds by moving closer to the centre circle the more strongly they agree with the statement. The map the students make on the circle feeds back important information to the teacher as to who has understood, and what students’ beliefs are.

Swap Spots
Students each stand on a spot around the circle and the teacher stands on the centre spot. The teacher says “swap spots if….” Followed by a statement of their choosing e.g. “…if you like ice cream” or “you think a square has four sides”. The statements can be fun for a warm up or Curriculum led. Teachers can prepare statements from their schemes of work.

Hot Spot
A nominated student stands in the middle of the circle and speaks for 30-60 seconds on a chosen subject.

Tableaux
The teacher calls out a key word and the students have 5 seconds to become a frozen picture (or tableaux) of that word. This is a useful dramatic tool for depicting visually, information learned in the classroom. Tableaux can be created in pairs and in groups and the circle used as a performance space.

Forum
The circle can be used as a forum to act out problem situations, which the class then solves together, re-enacting the solutions. This is a brilliant tool for using in Citizenship lessons in which complex scenarios need discussing. This is also a particularly useful tool when looking at the issues of drugs and bullying.

Whole Lesson Activities/Structure
If planning to spend a whole lesson in the playground, teachers should choose warm up, concentration and plenary activities from the list to suit their schemes of work.
If using the playground activities as a reward for good behaviour/work, or as a starter or plenary activity, just one game from each section should generate around a fifteen minute activity.

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