Parachutes
Try these games with the children standing in a circle holding the parachute by the outside edges:
Making waves – An adult directs the children to make small or large waves by moving their arms up and down. Slow to start then faster and then slow. Introduce a story about the sea or the wind on a stormy night.
Rolling the ball – An adult places a ball on the parachute. The children move the parachute up and down to stop the ball falling through the centre hole. Vary it with different sized balls.
Shaking Popcorn: Place some beanbags on the parachute. The children shake the chute to make them rise like popcorn.
Being in a wheelchair is not a barrier to parachute games as it’s easy to make adjustments, if working with a group of all wheelchair users additional adult support standing in between the wheelchair users is recommended to help raise the parachute up higher;this stops the parachute getting caught in the wheelchair wheels.
Trust Game
Each child works with a partner. One child is blindfolded. The other child gently leads them and gives verbal instructions to avoid obstacles,leading child then swaps over with the “blind” child. They can also pretend to be a guide dog for the blind.
Balloon Bop Game
Start by having children stand in a circle while holding hands.
An adult drops the balloon into the circle. The children then tap the balloon with knees, shoulders, heads, elbows, chests, etc. They cannot use their feet and they must continue to hold hands.
The goal is for children to work cooperatively by moving together holding hands and to keep the balloon from hitting the ground.
All Aboard Rope Game
Start with a piece of rope that can be made into a loop for all the children to fit inside.
Place the rope on the ground in a circle and have all the students sit inside the circle.
Next, make the rope circle a bit smaller and challenge them to all sit in the circle again.
Continue making the circle smaller.
The children then have to work together to come up with creative solutions to fitting in the circle. Such as only putting fingers in or the hands into the circle.
Big Floor Puzzles
Children work together to complete big floor puzzles. They have to share floor space as well puzzle pieces to finish the puzzle. Amazon has a good selection of traditional cardboard puzzles and soft foam jigsaw tiles. Just type “Big floor puzzles” into the search box.
Feed the Woozle
Cooperative game where children have to work together to get 12 silly snacks into the Woozle’s mouth. It also promotes fine and gross motor skills.
The game can be played at 3 different levels. It has won 4 awards in the USA.
Peaceable Kingdom the company who created Feed the Woozle also offer other cooperative board games.
Group Story
One child starts the story talking for one minute;the next child continues for one minute and so on until everyone has had a go.
Bingo
Kids love bingo. Kids with disabilities love bingo because it doesn’t require knowing lots of rules, and since everyone plays through every game, it scores well on the engagement scale. It requires that they listen; identify the numbers, words, or pictures on the card; place a cover on the squares (fine motor skills), and recognize the pattern of covered squares.
Many bingo games are commercial and available through online or brick and mortar stores. Teaching Made Easier, an online subscription tool for making games, is an excellent way to make sight word, number, or other sorts of bingos, including picture bingos.
Vocabulary Building Bingos – These bingos have children cover pictures of animals or items in other categories to build receptive language.
Number Recognition Bingos – Teaching Made Easier makes it possible to customize the range of numbers used for Bingo. You can make one set of cards that uses numbers from twenty to forty to give children to practice in recognizing numbers larger than twenty, but not the “whole shooting match” up to 100. You can also ask children with strong number recognition to read the cards, as it helps them build their skills in reading numbers aloud.
Board Games
You can build a board game based on any number of different games: Parchesi, Sorry, Monopoly. The simplest games are simple games that start at one place and end at the finish line. They can be used to support counting or they can be used to support specific skills. You can use dice or you can create spinners. Many Math series provide spinners that you can adapt: Once again, Teaching Made Easier provides a template for spinners.
Counting Games – An example is Halloween Rumble. Start with a serpentine path divided into squares, use dice (to building counting and adding skills) or a spinner. You can use a spinner for skip counting games (by 2’s and 5’s).
Social Skills Games – Design this after games like “Life” or “Monopoly,” where students take cards to complete a social skill. Perhaps you might have a stack of “requests” such as, “Ask a friend for help on your math,” or a greeting: “Greet a teacher in school.”
Games are a great way to engage children, as well as give them lots of opportunities to practice skills and content knowledge. They are supporting & learning with their peers; it can provide some formative assessment information, letting you see whether a child is understanding a skill, a content area or a set of concepts.