Snowbunny/Tot game ideas

[AshBugg44]

I'm a very uncreative person and I really need some good ideas of games to play with snowbunnies, who are 3-5 years old. We play ring-around-the-rosie because it helps them get used to the idea of falling and getting up, and also red light green light (both with dips on red light and later on in the session, stops). Any other good ideas for fun games?

[dbny]

Simon Says - they all love it. In the first game I play with any class, I have Simon say "fall down". Then when everyone is sitting on the ice, I say "boy it's cold down here, everyone up!" It never fails to catch them all, and we all have a good laugh. I also have Simon tell them to make "airplane arms", "silly bird wings", and "hands on your table". That helps them tell when their arms are actually in the right place. You can also draw on the ice with washable markers. A few things I do with markers are 1) draw a path to follow with different marks to show where to do different things (spiral to turn around, diamond to swizzle over, "< < < <" for marching, "Z" for a dip, etc) 2) draw pictures of different kinds of balls, flowers, hearts etc. for the kids to swizzle over. You can do one per kid, or do them in rows for when they are doing consecutive swizzles.

Bring in small stuffed animals from the dollar store, or wherever you can find them cheaply. Draw a line and have each kid throw their animal over the line, go get it and bring it back (or use two lines, so they throw them back and forth - watch out for wild throws). They can also do swizzles over the animals, or hold an animal straight out in front to help keep their arms in front and still.

[Tennisany1]

My daughter loves "What Time is it Mister Wolf" and "Go Go Stop." In her first class they also played a game where the instructor spread a bunch of plastic food all over the rink and kids picked it up and brought it to the "pizza" that was drawn on the ice. They also seemed to spend a lot of time following a path drawn on the ice in felt pen. There were things to do along the way for example at a star they were to jump up, at a spiral they were to turn around, sideways lines indicated walking sideways etc.

Another favourite was the colour game. One child and the instructor think of a colour and the rest, standing a fair distance away with another instuctor, try to guess what the colour is. When the correct colour is guessed, the kids guessing try to skate past the instructor and child who chose the colour to the other boards before they are tagged. Any child who is tagged joins the colour choosing group.

I think the two most favourite games were belly flopping and rocket ships. For belly flopping, the kids skate as fast as the can about half the width of the rink and then fall on their stomachs and try to slide to the other side. It gave me a heart attack every time they did but the kids sure loved it. I think they were in about canskate level 2/3 when they did this. For rocket ships they lie on their backs with their legs bent and blades against the boards. When the instructor yells "rocket ship" all the kids push off the boards and slide on their backs. Kids in snowsuits can really fly! Must say, when my daughter is feeling particularly goofy she will still try these ones. I've put a stop to it now that she no longer wears a helmet!

Hope that helps.

[Isk8NYC]

I'm semi-famous (just kidding) for using toys, although I haven't done it in a while. I keep losing one from each of the sets, you see. So, I have six Dwarfs and five out of six soft bowling pins. I use them for everything: pickup games, distractions, obstacle courses, cones, and circles. Ask permission from the Skating Director: I had one say "No Toys" because they felt it was unsafe. Realize that, especially if you're the only one doing it, you will attract attention and distracts the other groups' students. Can't beat them for swizzles and slalom courses.

I like to sing (off-key of course) songs like "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and have them touch each in turn while standing still. Once they've mastered the dip, we try to do it moving forward, which they enjoy. On the same note, you can pretend to pick up watermelons or pumpkins and carry them around (which really makes them use their arms correctly.)

Some people play "Red Light, Green Light" to practice stopping, but I haven't mastered that as yet. (Either they don't hear me or someone loses big time, so I don't enjoy it.)

"London Bridge" is always fun to work on gliding dips, although lately my groups tend to look more like upended ducks waddling through. I also will use a hockey stick handle (no blade) and play "limbo" the same way - NOT bent backward, but squatting to glide under the stick.

I tried something new last week that had some success: I had them lightly hold onto each other's shoulders to make a train, then march across the ice together. It seemed to help the "shufflers" pick up their feet. Plus, the cute "choo choo" and "woo woo" sounds attracted a lot of attention.

[Isk8NYC]

Draw a line and have each kid throw their animal over the line, go get it and bring it back (or use two lines, so they throw them back and forth - watch out for wild throws).

You're right: watch out. That's how my bowling pins lost their ability to inflate. (I stuffed them to salvage their cuteness.) The little boys throw things with such force and brutality, then they skate over and stomp on them! Parents, of course, thought this was acceptable. I actually stopped using them with boys because I really liked them and didn't want them destroyed.

[Blosmbubbs]

In my classes we would play the red light green light game and add some more colors like purple, pink, yellow, orange etc.. Also we play a game where we stand in a circle and pick an animal and make the sound of the animal while doing backward wiggles and wiggle their tales, then before skating back do a turn or a hop then march back. Or the balloon game, stand in a circle again this time pick a color and take a balloon out of their pocket and stretch it then blow it up as they wiggled backward then pop it with their hands then skate back. Plastic cups are good too for swizzles or to make castles so the kids can practice stopping without knocking the castle over. Balls, hoola hoops, animals, jump ropes, bubbles are all good too. I made up a baseball type game with a ball and cups as the bases. Pretty fun for the kids.

[frvanilla]

We often play Dead Bugs on the ice. Have the kids skate around and when you say "dead bugs", they have to fall down and at the count of three, they need to stand back up.

We have a "no toy" policy at the rinks I work at. So sometimes I just made up adventures. Let the kids skate to the blue circle and say "jump into the lake"; then either ask them to "swim across the lake" or do backward skating while they "rock the boat". Then say we have got to a beach and ask them to pick up sands, fish, shells, sea stars and put them in their pockets (you can draw them out with washable markers). If you say we are on top of a mountain, ask the kids to ski down the hill with you (slalom), making snow balls (stops), and making snow angels. And if you say we are in a forest, you can do "jump over the logs", "become their favorite animal", "touch their ankles and become very small because it is raining", etc. :lol:

[AshBugg44]

Some people play "Red Light, Green Light" to practice stopping, but I haven't mastered that as yet. (Either they don't hear me or someone loses big time, so I don't enjoy it.)


When I play it, I never make the kids go back that can't stop in time.

[Summerkid710]

One of the easiest games is noisy feet/quiet feet. You have the kids do the loudest marching they can possibly do (gets the shufflers going) and then you make the "Shhh" noise and they do a two foot glide.

Another game the kids love is the fishing game. You pantomime carrying your fishing pole, getting worms. Throwing your imaginary line into the ocean (middle circle, hockey net box, whatever). Reeling the line in. Ask each child what they have caught. Usually, the kids say a red fish or a starfish, or jelly fish (we had one kid who always caught a tilapia). Then someone always says they caught a shark which initiates backward wiggles away from the "ocean". We'll have one of the instructors skate around acting as the shark trying to get the skaters to skate faster or the shark will get them. It's not done in a scary way. It's totally silly and the kids love to be the one who catches the shark which starts the wiggles. By the end, everyone says they caught a shark. Alligator works well, too.

Mrs. Clock is another good one (it's also called Mr. Fox, etc). This is the one where the kids say, "Mrs. Clock, Mrs. Clock, what time is it?" Then Mrs. Clock (the instructor) who's standing on the other side of the ice says, "it's 2 dip o'clock" or "6 march o'clock" or "three swizzle o'clock", etc. The kids have to repeat the whole Mrs. Clock, Mrs. Clock thing after each thing you tell them to do. When they get up close to you, and they say the thing, you say Midnight and try to tag someone as the kids skate back to the other side. Then they are the next Mrs. Clock. We usually try to tag like two kids and they take turns choosing the thing for the others to do. This way they learn the names of the manuevers as well.

[slusher]

We often play Dead Bugs on the ice. Have the kids skate around and when you say "dead bugs", they have to fall down and at the count of three, they need to stand back up.


....stealing this idea.....

We have a no toys policy too, and also no markers (they stained snowsuits) so we play "going on a trip".
Where are we going? On a Trip! To where? California! Let's drive to the airport! and we would skate to some sort of mark on the ice like a dot and that then becomes the "airport" and it goes from there. There is ALWAYS a plane crash. The kids make most of it up and I add in the movements (swizzles, jumps etc) along the way.

I used to work in schools as a teacher's aide (and I have a pile of my own kids too) so this sort of stuff comes easily, thinking on the spur of the moment that is. I would love to have toys occasionally.

[Isk8NYC]

Do "No Toys" include small cones? You could pick up some tiny soccer cones and put numbers, colors, etc. on it to beat the system!

[Mrs Redboots]

I've seen instructors "racing" the kids... and, of course, letting the kids win! Utter delight.....

We don't seem to use markers on our ice, don't know if it's policy or what, but sometimes the instructor will mark out an "S" shape with his skates, and bet their skaters they can't follow the marks.

One of the instructors now has those cloth skittles and balls, but I don't know how he uses them as I've always gone by the time that class gets on to the ice. I can see it would be fun, though.