Learning & Development: Outdoor Game - Magic boxes

Aim: To practise and improve basic fine motor skills (hand-eye co-ordination)

Learning intentions: To enable the children to practise and improve the skills of throwing and aiming

Practice: Once the children have mastered the rules of the game, leave the equipment freely available so they can set the game up without adult support.

Resources: Collect as many boxes as possible: Large (computer), medium (photocopying paper), small-medium (shoe) and small boxes (present). Have more large boxes than small ones, particularly for the younger children. Balls and bean bags in various sizes. A container(s) for the balls. A selection of bags that can hold several balls, so fairly large, but not so big a small child cannot carry it. If you want, get the children to decorate the boxes before playing the game. They can use thick felt pens or thick pencils or paints.

Step by step

- Arrange as many boxes around the garden as you can. If possible, hide them behind shrubs, buildings or equipment before the children come outside.

- Put as many balls into a large container (or large cardboard box). Each child playing takes a bag and puts some balls in it.

- Tell the children you are going on a hunt for magic boxes. They are magic because they eat up balls.

- When you find a box, ask the children if they would like to see if this is an 'eating' box. If they say 'yes', ask them to throw one of the balls into the box. The younger the child, the less interested will they be in matching the size of the ball to the size of the box. Older children will likely talk about whether a particular size ball will fit into a particular box. Or you can pose this question to them.

- If the ball lands and stays in the box, you can say it is an 'eating box'; if not, then you can say that clearly it is not hungry. In this way a child doesn't feel disappointed if they don't get a ball into a box. If the ball bounces out, you can say the box didn't like the taste of that particular ball. Encourage the children to fetch the balls that roll away, as in this way their eye/movement co-ordination is refined.

- There is no winner or loser and you can stop playing when you want to.

Adult role

- The adult needs to be involved in the game to help children understand what is expected, to be a role model and to be a play-mate.