Daytime, Nighttime

Children live a whole day with their bodies: they rise slowly at sunrise, scurry around at noon, slow down at sunset and curl into a ball when night comes. It practices responding to signals and changing speed.

How to play

1. Show the four signals with gestures: sunrise (arms going up), noon (hands like sunbeams), sunset (arms coming down) and night (hands together on your cheek) (1 min).
2. Start curled up on the floor; at “Sunrise!” grow very slowly until you’re on tiptoe (1 min).
3. “Noon!”: the sun is strong and we move fast all over the space with arms wide like sunbeams (1 min).
4. “Sunset!”: get slower and slower; “Night!”: curl into a ball and freeze like a rock (1 min).
5. Repeat whole days, each one shorter, and sometimes the teacher skips a part to catch us off guard (1 min).

Rules

• At noon, run into empty spaces, no bumping.
• At night, everything is still and quiet.
• Wait for the teacher’s word to change.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: in a chair, growing means stretching arms and trunk, and noon uses arms and moving around if possible.
• Hearing loss: each part of the day has a big gesture and a colored card (yellow for day, blue for night).
• Children who struggle to stop: make sunset last longer so they have time to slow down before freezing.

Learning goals

• Warm up with changes of speed.
• Respond to verbal and visual signals.
• Move from energy to stillness.

Teacher tip

Make your gestures really big the first time. The usual problem is kids rolling and giggling at night: count down “three, two, one… asleep!” in a whisper.

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