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Warm up and cool down
Where: Indoors or outdoors
Space needed: Space for a parachute to be unfolded
Number of children: 6+ (These are the same for each game.)
When you first get the parachute out there will be a lot of excitement, so it’s good to try and channel that. Get the children to spread around the outside of the parachute. Each child should hold a handle if there are handles.
Get everyone to shake and flap like crazy to see the ripples and waves in the parachute and then get them to slow down and shake more gently before coming to a halt. You can repeat this a few times to get the children used to the parachute. Then try an exercise where you flick the parachute up together and then lower it down slowly. If you do it right you should get a big ‘mushroom’ of air underneath that’s quite hard to pull back down again. Finish by doing one big ‘mushroom’ flap and getting everyone to sit down as they bring it down. If you’ve got a huge parachute, a nice trick you can do when the ‘mushroom’ flap is at its highest point is to step inside one pace and, still holding on to the handle, bring the parachute down around the outside of the circle with everyone in the middle. This can make a great ‘cave’ in which to tell a short story. When you need to pack the parachute up, I find it works well if you get the children to all stand up and walk slowly towards you.
Cat and mouse
Get everyone to sit around the outside of the parachute holding on to a handle (perhaps after a ‘mushroom’ flap.) Choose one child to be the cat and another child to be the mouse and, unsurprisingly, the aim is for the cat to catch the mouse. The mouse goes underneath the parachute and crawls around while the other children flap the parachute to hide where the mouse is. Give the mouse a few seconds to get lost among the waves and ripples before releasing the cat.
Ask the cat to take off their shoes as they will go on top of the parachute. They move around on top and when they think they know where the mouse is they have to put their hand on the mouse’s back. It’s harder than it sounds, particularly if you tell the other children that their job is to try and keep the mouse hidden for as long as possible. Give everyone a go at being either the cat or the mouse.
Bouncing ball
Get the children to stand around the outside of the parachute holding the handles before splitting them into two teams with one team on one half of the parachute and the other team on the other half of the parachute. It works best if there are a similar number of big and small children on each team and the big and small children are spread evenly around the parachute.
Start by throwing a soft ball into the middle of the parachute, and the aim is to try and flick or flap the ball off the other team’s side. If you can manage that your team will get a point. Everyone must hold on to the parachute while playing and you can’t use your hands or legs to hit the ball back on to the parachute. (For older children I let them use their heads to keep it on). This is a really simple game that you can play for quite a long time before everyone gets too tired.
Number swap
Split the group into two teams and get the children standing around the outside of the parachute, one team around one half, the other team around the other half. Give each child on a team a number until everyone on the first team has a number. Then on the other team the child directly opposite number one is also number one, the child opposite number two, is also number two and so on. It works better if the children with the same number are evenly matched, although in this game the smaller kids can have an advantage.
Get everyone to start flapping the parachute before calling a number. The two people with that number need to let go, go under the parachute and swap places. The person who comes up first and grabs hold of the handle wins a point for their team. It helps to emphasise that the winner is the first to grab the handle so there’s a clear marker for when they are finished. Keep playing until everyone has had at least one go and the winning team is the one with the most points.
Warn the children to be careful when under the parachute so they don’t run into each other. For that reason I’d only call one number at a time to avoid too many people under the parachute at once.
