Recreation and Sports

If you are planning a Valentine’s Day party for children, games are essential. Here are some games appropriate for the preschool crowd. Preschool-age children love to fish. You can create a fishing game with small toy fishing poles and hearts (as fish). Use an empty plastic tub as your “lake” and put into it red hearts cut out of construction paper or cardstock. Each heart is good for a prize. One might be good for a Hershey’s kiss, or other small candy, another might be for a small plastic heart. Put magnets on the cardstock hearts and a magnet on the fishing pole. Then the kids can “fish” for hearts and win a prize at the same time. Each child should only be allowed to “catch” one fish each.

Preschoolers love balloons and you can create a heart target for them to aim their balloons at. Create a target out of cardboard or heavy cardstock and put it on the floor somewhere. You might want to have several targets on the floor. Give the kids balloons that have been blown up but aren’t tied shut. Let them let go of the balloons in the direction of the target and see where their balloon lands. Be forewarned: kids will want to play this over and over again. So either have plenty of balloons ready to go (perhaps held closed with a clothespin) or have plenty of adults around who want to blow up balloon after balloon. You can also play a similar game by putting a heart target into a box or laundry basket and having the children try to hit the target with an inflated balloon.  Be sure to provide prizes for everyone!Preschool age children love a good game of “Duck Duck Goose” or “Simon Says”. For Valentine’s Day, you can put a twist on these classic games. Have the kids play a game of “Cupid, Cupid, Love” instead of “Duck, Duck, Goose” or have them play “Cupid Says” instead of “Simon Says”. Be sure to add a smooch at the end of each order in “Cupid Says” or have the kids incorporate Valentine’s Day activities, like “Cupid says, give your neighbor a hug”.

This is a game young children love. Have them “throw smiles” at each other. Sit them in a circle and show them how the game will work. Only one person in the group will smile first. He or she will smile wildly and widely for the whole group. The rest of the group will not smile, not even a little tiny smirk. Once the smiling person is done, they will literally “wipe” the smile off their face and pass it to the next person in the group, who will repeat the wide smile and hope nobody laughs. The kids that laugh or smile are out of the game (those who should be stone-faced anyway). The game can continue until only one stone-faced person is left. Be sure to provide every child with a fun prize just for trying.

Preschool teachers might want to encourage creative thinking with a little game of “Valentine’s 20 questions”. The teacher can have a visual in mind, which might be a heart, or Cupid, or a card or something relative to the holiday. The teacher says “I’m thinking…:” and the children must ask questions about what the teacher is thinking. The teacher can give tiny clues along the way especially if he or she is losing the interest of the younger children in the group. Whoever figures out what the teacher is thinking can be the next one to begin the next round of 20 questions. Be sure to ask the child what they are thinking before the next round begins or it could go on longer than it needs to!Children love “pin the tale on the donkey” so why not “pin the heart on Cupid”? In this game, simply provide each child with a big red heart with his or her name on it. Have a big cutout of Cupid on a wall and blindfold each child, spin him or her around and have them stick their heart on Cupid (there should be adhesive of some sort on the back of the heart). Once everyone has stuck their hearts, let them look at where they ended up.

Domonique Leicher writes about a lot of topics. This author also offers products for http://www.uniformhaven.com/ with items like Landau style 8048 Student Tunic Scrub Top and Dickies Style 82002 Gen Flex Utility Drawstring Pant as well as a host of additional items.

Ice Hockey is composed of two basic skills, great skating technique and great stickhandling skills.  In this introduction, let’s look at good basic stickhandling.  The very first thing to consider is whether the hockey stick you are using is the best one for you.  It may be an old stick inherited from a friend or brother, or it may be the “top of the line” that you had just read about in a magazine.  There is no best shape or material for a hockey stick, but the most important consideration is to have as much of the stick blade on the ice as possible.  This is known as “stick lie”.  To check this, look at the wear on your stick blade.  It should be worn pretty evenly all along the middle.  Wear just along the toe, or just at the heel, shows that you may need a stick with a different lie number.Players who like to play hunched over a bit (like Wayne Gretzky) will require a lower lie number, like a 5, and players who skate more upright use sticks with higher lie numbers.

 A stick should be long enough for you to feel comfortable receiving and executing passes, and this is best determined by trying out different stick lengths.  You might do this by trading sticks for a few days with your friends or team members.  The old rule that your stick should come up to your chin is just a rough estimate, and is not a hard and fast rule.   Finally, a rule that is usually quite sound is “the younger the player, the less curved the stick should be.”  It is easier for younger players to develop good passing skills with a stick that is straighter.  As he matures and his skills develop, he can change sticks.Place your hands on the stick far apart enough to be comfortable, but the farther down the lower hand is, the more you will need to bend at the waist.  So take a comfortable standing position and adjust your hands accordingly.  To begin a pass, the puck is taken from behind the body and swept to the area of the midline of the body.  When the puck is in this area, this is the critical time to ensure the puck will get to its target.  Once it is through this area, shift your weight to the front leg and point the stick blade at the intended target.  This last motion has the same effect as the follow through of a stroke in golf, ensuring that the puck is sent in the right direction.

Practice a pass slowly, thinking through each step: start the puck toward the midline, center yourself and the target, and follow through.  Remember that the motion is a sweeping motion, not a slapping motion.  A slapped puck may dance across the floor instead of sliding, or may explosively get to a teammate before he is ready to receive the puck.  If possible, aim “tape to tape”, from your hockey stick to a teammate’s hockey stick.  If there is no one open, pass to an area that a teammate can skate to and receive the pass.  If you practice these skills thoughtfully and slowly, you are guaranteed to become more comfortable and proficient in passing!

Elmer Palinkas writes about a lot of topics. This writer also offers products for http://www.uniformhaven.com/ with items like Landau Style 8011 Button Tab Tunic and Dickies Style 82754C Gen Flex Round Neck Top as well as a host of other items.