North Pole Expedition Movement Story

A movement story in which students go on an expedition to the North Pole: they step across newspaper ice floes, huddle together against a blizzard and turn into polar animals. It combines balance, body expression and helping each other.

How to play

1. Introduce the expedition (2 min): each student gets a newspaper sheet (their "ice floe") and a fabric piece as a scarf.
2. Gear up (3 min): students mime putting on winter gear and walk stomping through snow and stepping carefully on ice.
3. Ice floes (4 min): spread the sheets on the floor; on "The ice is cracking!" everyone jumps onto one. Each round, remove floes so students must share without anyone falling into the water.
4. Blizzard (3 min): when you wave the fabric, students huddle in groups of 4 like penguins and slowly rotate so everyone gets a turn in the middle.
5. Polar animals (5 min): 1-minute turns as a polar bear, seal, arctic fox and walrus.
6. Giant snowball (3 min): the whole class rolls the giant ball back and forth without letting it get away.

Rules

• Step onto the newspaper floes carefully: no sliding jumps, to avoid slipping.
• When floes run out, share: nobody gets pushed off.
• Act out the animals without touching or biting classmates.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: the ice floe can be a large hoop the wheelchair fits into, and the animals are expressed with trunk, arms and sounds.
• Shy students: they can always work with a trusted partner in the blizzard and animal scenes.
• Lower fitness: alternate slow and fast animals and lengthen the blizzard breaks.

Learning goals

• Keep balance on small surfaces, alone and with others.
• Imitate animals and situations with expressive movement.
• Help classmates so nobody is left out of the game.

Equipment for a class of 25

• newspaper: 30
• fabric pieces: 25
• giant ball: 1

Teacher tip

Use doubled newspaper and replace it when it tears; it slides on wood floors, so ask students to step flat. Playing wind sounds in the background makes the blizzard far more convincing.

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