Children play Paddleboat to practice right and left.
Children pretend to paddle with their arms, switching from right to left.
Materials
- Stickers (optional)
Preparation
- Plan how you will go over left and right with children, using your favorite way of explaining how to tell one from the other. (One suggestion is to put a sticker on children’s right hands.) Remember: Learning left and right takes repetition and practice, usually over several years!
- When you play, keep in mind that if you’re facing children, your left and right will be different from theirs. Make sure you are using the same left/right as they are.
Directions
- Tell children they are going to play a game called Paddleboat.
- Break them into groups of three or four. Have each group sit on the ground, one behind the other, facing forward. Each group is a paddleboat!
- Model left and right for your students before beginning to play. Ask children to lift their right arm and make a paddling motion. Then have them do the same with their left arm. Check that everyone understands the difference between left and right.
- Tell them it’s time to paddle the boats! Children move their right paddle first, then their left, and so on. You’ll call out the moves (right, left, right, left).
- After about 30 seconds, say STOP!
- Then begin again, this time with everyone moving their left arm first. Continue to start and stop the paddleboats, alternating between starting with the left or right arm.
- Play for about five minutes. Try it again several times during the week, and in the weeks to come. Repeat right/left activities frequently!