hERE ARE SOME ACTIVITIES THAT ONE COULD USE IN A PE CLASS TO REINFORCE SOME OF THE ORIENTEERING CONCEPTS.
1.
dIRECTIONAL Foot Bag:
This activity
will be more effective if students have already learned some of the basic
footbag maneuvers. Have the students get into groups of 4 or 8.
Designate north and then have each student place themselves in one of the
cardinal compass directions. (N,S,E,W and add NW, SW, NE, SE if 8
in circle.) The object of this is for the students to pass the footbag
around the circle calling out the directional position of the person who
they are passing to (or the person they passed to). Footbag is a
great warm up activity for any lesson!! If the students are unfamiliar
with the footbag, they could pass a soccer ball on the ground, or throw
balls to each other.
2. Directional
pacman tag: 
Pacman tag is
a game where the students have to stay on the lines of the gym floor.
Designate which color lines are in bounds. You can use some, or all
of the lines. The "it" must also stay on the lines. Everyone
moves around the gym on the designated lines. Start out walking and then
let the students move progressively faster to warm up. In this version
of the game, the "it" must call out the direction that s/he is moving in
order for the tagee to be "it".
3. Topographical
Map Puzzle: 
Make as many copies
of a topographical map as you have students. Cut up one copy of the
same map into as many pieces as you want and letter or number each piece.
(You should draw the lines on which you will cut on the copies to be distributed
to the students.) If possible, laminate the pieces so that you can
use them again. Place the pieces around the gym. Give the full
maps to the students. They must go around and write the letter or
number of the map piece into the respective square on their map.
You could sequence the letters so that they create a saying or a word.
There are obviously many variations that can be made to this game.
You could make teams with each team having a different map and different
puzzle pieces and play it as a relay. Or, have a few different maps
cut into pieces and give each student a piece of map. They have to
find the other people with pieces form the same map and put the map back
together. Use your imagination. Create these games so that
you can use the same pieces another time!!
4. Map symbol relay
The purpose of this activity is to
get practice in quick recognition of various map symbols. Make a
set of (laminated) 3x5 cards that have a map symblo on one side and the
name of another symbol on the back. For instance, make one card with
the symbol for swamp on the front and the word contour lines on the back.
The next card will have contour lines drawn on the front and perhaps the
word railroad on the back. The third card will have the picture of
the railroaad symbol and another word on the back. Make 2-3 sets
of identical cards (however many teams you want to divide the class into).
Put the cards at the opposite end of the gym or field from where the teams
are lined up. Call out the name of the symbol the first team member
is to find and to start the game. For instance SWAMP- GO. The
first person runs down to find the swamp card, carries it back to his or
her teammate and tells them the name of the next symbol (contour lines).
The first team with all of the cards found in the correct order wins.
The whole team can participate by confirming the correct choice of the
symbol brought back. Have them line up the cards in the order picked
up. Another way to involove the whole team more effectively is to
take symbols that are all found on a particular map. Give the teams
a copy of the map. As the symbol cards are returned, the players
must find the respective symbol on the map and indicate its location on
a separate piece of paper (by longitude and latitude).
This game utilizes the school map that the
students drew in lesson one. Or
if you haven't drawn a school map, you may be able to acquire one from the school.
The purpose of this activity is to introduce the sport of orienteering in an
uncomplicated way. You will need to set out the controls ahead of time
and mark their location with a number on the school map. You can set out
as many or as few as you want. (Orienteering
services sells little stickers that look like orienteering flags.
These work well to mark the contol locations.) Write a letter, word, or
number on each control sticker. Make a couple of copies of the master
map. Make copies of the blank map with one of the control sites circled
to give to each team. It is a good idea to specify a different control
on each map as the first site for each team to go to. This spreads the
teams out at the start of the activity. Each of the controls is worth
a specified number of points. For instance controls marked as 101, 102,
etc. can be worth one hundred points. Controls numbered 201, 202, etc.
can be worth 200 points, etc. Make sure that the controls that are harder
to find or further away from the start are worth more points...
The next part of the preparation is to make
a control description and scoring sheet.
These will be given to each team (2-3 people) along with a copy of the map which
has the first control site they are to visit marked on it. At the start
of the activity, each team will copy all of the control locations for the master
map to their own map. (To make this easier, you could simply give each
team a map with all of the control sites marked. But still indicate which
site they must visit first.) Once all the teams have the locations copied
and the directions are fully understood, the teams may start. This works
well as a timed event. More complete directions are indicated on the control
description sheet.
Return to task cards and activities page.
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page.
