Skating Fun & Games

[Isk8NYC]

Couldn't find the archived version of this thread and I assumed the links were outdated anyway.

[Isk8NYC]

Lifesavers / Candystand.com:  http://www.candystand.com/play/figure-skating

To play, you have to click and fling your skater into the air so she can complete the jump.
Fling and a prayer - just like real-life!

[Isk8NYC]

Playasport.com's Figure Skating game: http://playasport.com/my_sports/skating/index.html

"...you can create your own skater to manage through a season of events. Select your programs, train, and practce to take home the Olympic gold!"

[Isk8NYC]

shockwave.com's Championship Figure Skating game: http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/figureskating.jsp

"Practice your axels and shine up your skates. It's time to impress the judges in the hyper-competitive world of Championship Figure Skating! If you're going for the gold, you'll need to land every leap, rock your routine and create a captivating costume. Championship Figure Skating features:
9 challenging levels
15 fun tricks
16 different outfit items

So glide onto the ice and make sure your icy debut sends a chill down their spines - Play Championship Figure skating today! "

[jjane45]

I really liked this thread: Games for beginner groups on ice

Skittl1321
03-11-2009, 02:29 PM
I teach tots, but some of these might be okay for over 5s too. I'm not sure what "limited" skating ability is for you, but I'm assuming most of the class can march, even if slowly. Some of these games don't even need that.

Statues- I always ask kids to stand like a statue when I want them still and balanced. For cone holders (rare- I generally don't let kids hold onto anything but me for a few moments, unless its been a few weeks and they can't stand yet.) We count to 10 and they have to be a statue without holding on. It's a fun challenge.

Monkeys on a bed - (Song: 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head, mamma called the doctor and the doctor said- no more monkey's jumping on the bed. Then do 4, 3, 2, 1). This is a "stand in place" game for tenative skaters- to the rhythm of the song bend knees up and down- for "brave" skaters do 2 foot hops.

Elevator- This is a game for dips, non-moving. There are 5 floors, 5 is standing all the way tall, falling on the ice is the basement. Say a number of a floor and dip to that level. Make up stories about why you would go to each level (candy machine on the 3rd floor, oops left our money in the basement- oh no monster in the basement, rush to the 5th floor).

Head shoulders knees and toes (song)- to get them moving. Sing it backwards too.

We sing a song called Finger Family- I have no idea if the teacher at our arena made it up or learned it somewhere. Each finger has a name, and we dance with our hands making them go where we say. For movers "all around" they march in the circle, for non movers this is standing and balancing on ice. "Tommy thumb is up, and Tommy thumb is down. Tommy thumb is dancing all around the town. Dancing on my shoulders, dancing on my head, dancing on my knees and tuck them into bed."

"Ocean"- get in your "car" and drive to the ocean. If they are ready you can dip under "bridges". When you get to the blue hockey circle, put on your swim gear and hop in the ocean. You can sit on the ocean floor and stand up for air (getting up/falling), you can dip down to pick up sea shells, we have a shark that kids will spot, and a shark can't eat you if you are "swimming" backards (wiggles) making a face to scare him off. But if you are skating forward he can bite your bottom! Especially good when there is a spare teacher to be a shark.

Race to fall/get up- Spread students wide apart, to prevent accidents this game moves fast. Count to 3 and fall as fast as you can. Everyone has to show that their bottoms are on the ice and hands are in the air. Count to 3 and race to stand up. Kids who flop around like fish insisting they can't get up often beat me at this.

Wall-E- Have students march to the wall, and then say since they made it there they are all wall-e's now. Laugh at your own cleverness that this is a movie title Ask if they want to be robots. Then have the robots dip down to pick up trash, march 10 steps, set the trash on the ground and stomp (or jump) it to make it disappear. Pick up more and continue until you are all the way across the rink. (This was a surprisingly big hit.)

Bubble gum (song: bubble gum bubble gum in a dish, how many pieces do you wish)- everyone says their number, or color or something, then we try to wiggle backwards to blow up a giant bubble. Keep asking if it's big enough, then pop it and skate back in place. Some kids won't get far, but they usually still enjoy it.

Bubble popping- blow soap bubbles and have kids reach to pop them. Sometimes this encourages scared kids to get going because they want to pop! This can be in place, or the kids can follow you around the rink.

Zoo- we have a bin of beanie babies that we play with. We can throw them and retrieve them. We can put them on the ground and dip to pick them up. We can balance them on our head while doing dips, or while marching.

Color match (we use plastic bowling pins)- Around a hockey circle (or even smaller if these are very slow marchers)- place 1 pin of each color. have students take from the bin one at a time to match the colors. This is surprisingly entertaining to them. At the end, you can let them crash into the pins. (If you do get bowling pins and have non-marchers, sometimes they like to sit on the ice and glide hockey pucks at the pins. It's something to do while getting comfortable with the ice.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clarice
03-11-2009, 07:29 PM
I love all of Skittl's suggestions! Another that is popular with my tots classes is "going down the slide". I draw a playground slide on the ice, with a staircase to march up and a long line to glide down. It's amazing how long they will continue to go up and down the "slide".

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Isk8NYC
03-11-2009, 07:33 PM
Those are wonderful, Skittl. Thanks for sharing them.

I'm terrible at games like "red light, green light." I always make someone else lead that game with my students. Yes, I admit it: I pass the buck and help the weakest skaters cheat at the game so they don't get left behind.

Randy Winship from the ISI does a cute thing with group games like this - he has the faster skaters go ahead of him, then he shooes the laggers back to the start, telling the speedsters to "catch up." It was really funny and defused a lot of the frustration you see from racing games.

I'm much better at imagination and adventure games.

"Dock the Ferry" is great for Basic 2 classes. If there's only a few students, I actually draw lines for the docks. The skaters start facing the glass, blow the ferry's whistle, then do alternating swizzles out of the dock. When they get a few feet away, I have them "Stop the Engines" (glide/snowplow stop), then come back into the port using backward swizzles. "Prepare for docking" means a backward two-foot glide.

I usually let them bump into the wall as long as they don't have super-fast glides. They think it's hysterical, especially when I hit the wall. (This, after I spend weeks telling them "Don't use your face on the wall to stop!" to make them practice forward snowplow stops.)

ROCKING HORSE: (USFSA Basic 1)

First, teach them the basics of backward swizzles - they don't have to be perfect, just to get the feel for "open your heels, glide, close your heels." You don't need a line of them - standstill ones are best.

Then take the skaters fishing! Draw a "pond" (or just use a hockey dot) with fish facing the "fishin' hole" about 2' from the edge. The fish should be around 3' long, smaller for tots, larger for teens/adults.

Give everyone an imaginary fishing pole to hold in front of them, about waist high. I like to keep their hands together in the front so they can't lean to one side or the other.

The skaters stand on the tail, bend their knees, then do a forward swizzle to let the fish "kiss their toes" followed by a backward swizzle to pull the fish out.

With stronger skaters, you can have them cast into the pond (forward), then pull up their catch (backward) using their hands/shoulders. Just beware of the ones who want to catch the big one because they could fall if they get carried away, lol.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CoachPA
03-11-2009, 07:39 PM
Red Light, Green Light seems to work for my little ones. We have the basic red (stop), green (march), and yellow (two-foot glide) colors, but we add additional lights after they've mastered those three. We have every light color, many of which the kids help determine: blue (small hop in place), purple (spin--or rather, march, in a small circle), orange (dips), rainbow (skate as fast as you can), etc.

The tots that really struggle or will not move much also like to pick up rings and put them in a bucket. The only catch is that they cannot crawl ring-to-ring or to the bucket. (You can use those cheap plastic rings that you use for the pool.)

If you have access to music, play "The Twist" or the "Chicken Dance." Have the kids gather around the hockey circle while you stand in the middle and lead everything.

For "The Twist", have the skaters do a backward wiggle or simply twist in place if they can't go backwards well just yet. Emphasize getting down in the knees bending as though you are doing a dip, which will help with balance. Have them to march or swizzle to the center during certain parts or skate around the circle with you.

For the "Chicken Dance," stand in the middle of the hockey circle with the kids spread out on the circle. This is a fun one because most kids will participate and have a chance to be silly, and it doesn't require a lot of skating for the more stationary skaters. Go through all the motions of the song and on the musical part, march around the circle on in place for those who are a bit more hesitant.

[jjane45]

archive thread cont'd

Isk8NYC
03-11-2009, 07:51 PM
Re: Falling. Whenever a SMALL beginner (with a helmet) falls, I first say "That's okay, everyone falls" very dismissively, make sure they aren't really hurt, then I ask if I can spin them!

Have them lay on their back, grab their shoulder and foot, twist and spin them like a game spinner! It makes all but most grumpy kids laugh*, then the others all want to fall down and get spun. Of course, they have to get back up on their own.

It's tough on your back, but it really is fun for everyone and that fear of falling is lessened by a fun reward.

*Note: In addition to Grumpies, many ADHD and autism-spectrum kids don't like this because of the physical contact. Know your audience.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kim to the Max
03-11-2009, 07:55 PM
We play a lot of simon says With my tot's a favorite is "Simon says smile really big....Simon says wave to mommy and daddy!"

I also will do a whole make believe picnic/campfire with the tots with ants that ruin the picnic, so they need to stomp on all of them.

One thing that some of my friends will do is to draw a path for the kids to follow, a la candy land using sharpies on the ice.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

slusher
03-11-2009, 10:38 PM
I teach beginners a lot. Kids that like to lie on the ice and not get up.

I have one rule. It is, that for any game, the "achievement" has to be done on their feet. So if we play a random game involving picking up things, when they put them in the bucket they have to be on their feet. I hold the bucket and I'm 10 feet tall so they have to stand up. For these kids, getting to standing is the big goal.

So, a big game is sorting. I'll have any number of objects, I like margarine lids that I've cut a hole in the middle and wrapped with colored tape. Throw them all over the ice because I'm a terribly messy person and the kids have to pick them up and put them in the same color piles. This is where girls rule, if a boy puts a pink item on the blue pile, the girls (age 2 or 3) will just turn on the boy and tell him he's wrong, it's hilarious. But, I don't care if they crawl to the ring and crawl to the bucket, to put it in, they have to stand up.

Once they can stand up, another game is being trees. I always think of this as the Barbara Walters game "if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be" and might have actually said that phrase once or twice,

Trees grow from a seed, so lie on the ice and be planted, sit up and poke through the earth, stand up, get your balance then put your hands over your head. Are we Christmas trees? Are we oak trees, do we sway in the wind? That sort of thing. Eventually we get chopped down and fall over. The boys like the chopping down part, some good actors in my classes this year.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

lillia
03-17-2009, 03:27 AM
A very nice game to play on ice is "going to the shop".
I did it with children up to like nine yoears old when I was teaching that sort of beginner-groups.

You (the trainer) are the shop and the children are the one that is out shopping.
They skate forward to you and asks "What can you buy in the shop today?"
Then you come up with something clever - like for example you can answere "Today you can buy ponies" And the can do the (I don't know what it's named as in english.. but we calls it harhopp and it's a small jump forward, like a pre-waltz jump). Or you can say "Today you can buy bubbles" and they will make bubbles with their feet. You can also make them pretend that they are animals or that sort of things. Like a rooster for example - they will go on one leg with the other foot at their standing-leg knee shouting "Kuckelikuu" like a rooster. They think it's very funny!
Use sounds and movements - they'll love it! (You should make the movements to, so they can watch you and "follow the leader")
Only the imagination can stop you with what you can make them do!
The best thing with the game is that you "practise while playing". They will think it's a funny game - but actually, you work on important skating stuff!!

Good luck!


---------------------------------------------------------------

Other threads to look up from the archive:
Advice for a new group coach
Snowbunny/tot game ideas
Pre-Alpha: Games/Fun ideas??
Basic Skills Tricks and Games

[FigureSpins]

Every year, US Figure Skating has a "Fantasy Skating" contest where the contestants submit their picks for a competition and if their chosen team of skaters does well, the contestant wins a prize.  (It's not just US skaters - it's anyone.)

I always do poorly because I know bupkis about Ice Dancers and Pairs, plus I'm an awful spectator.  I just like to watch and it doesn't bother to not know the skater(s) names.

They should be opening up this season's version soon since the ISU Grand Prix is later this month.

[Isk8NYC]

This is cute - a figure skating puzzle maze printout.
http://www.printactivities.com/Mazes/Shape_Mazes/FigureSkating-Maze.shtml

"How Figure Skating Works" by Keltie Thomas, illustrated by Stephen MacEachern
I borrowed this book from our local library - it's very well-written and fun for kids to read.
http://services.raincoast.com/scripts/b2b.wsc/featured?hh_isbn=9781897349595&ht_orig_from=raincoast


Wall decorations: http://www.ltlprints.com/catalog/view_fotolia/21019257