Workshops with National Danish Performance Team

Sport for all Sport for fun Sport for life

WORKSHOP 1

Four versions can be used to promote different areas of development

“Playing for life”

1.

Endless relay races Activity The group is divided into teams, according to the space available and number of participants. Each team lines up in a row. The first participant must now move to the opposite side and then back again. Here, the challenge could be balancing bricks on the back of the hand while taking place in the relay.

Then, the next person in line goes until everyone has had a turn.

Difficulty barometer • Adjust the tasks according to the participants’ level

Social development:

The tasks are designed so that the participants are dependent on each other.

They may be dependent on each other as pairs or in groups. The participants in the group team up in pairs, and each one places a brick between themselves and the other person (hand to hand, head to head, etc.)

The relay race starts again but when the pair comes back, they must go under the legs of everyone in the group before the next pair leaves.

3. Participation: Easy

Difficult

The activities are not defined beforehand, but instead the participants are allowed to decide what each colour means or how they must transport the brick.

2. Physical development:

The colour of each brick defines an activity that the participant must do. When the relay race starts, the first participant moves down to the end and picks a brick. The colour of the brick determines which activity the participant must carry out on the way back. The activity may be hopscotch, jumping, rolling, running backwards, etc.

4. Communication development:

The participants play in pairs. In each pair, one person is blindfolded and must balance his or her brick. The partner give verbal instructions, but may not touch his or her blind partner. Once all the pairs have completed the task once, they may swap roles.

WORKSHOP 2

Four levers for development and adjustment:

“Fun and engaging exercises”

Get strong by coincidence Activity The six Six Bricks are placed in a circle. In the centre, is a bag containing many bricks. Each coloured brick symbolises a strengthening exercise. The participant picks a brick from the bag and then puts it back again. Then, the participant runs out to the respective brick and performs the exercise, and then runs back and picks a new brick.

1.

Difficulty barometer • Adjust the number of repetitions for each exercise.

• Adjust the difficulty level of the exercise

Social development:

Strengthening exercises can only be done in pairs, and therefore everyone is dependent on his or her partner. One common brick is selected from the bag. Depending on the number of bricks, the participants may also follow each other in large groups.

3. Participation: Easy

Difficult

The participants are divided into six groups and everyone is allowed to decide what strengthening exercise the colour of their brick symbolises. Every participant must continue with the activity until they have collected all six colours.

2. Developing motivation:

The participants must keep the bricks they select, and together build a tower - higher and higher.

This is timed. When time is up, two participants exchange towers, and the tower must then be broken down in the same way as it was built. The same exercises used to build the tower brick by brick, must also be used to remove the bricks.

4. Physical development:

The participants are asked to perform specific movements from the edge of the circle to the bag with the bricks. They may be asked to crawl, creep, or carry another person on their back.

WORKSHOP 3

Four versions can be used to promote different areas of development:

“A world of dance”

Find your emotion Activity To make the participants aware of their body language and facial expressions. Each colour symbolises an emotion. The participants then must go around each other and signal the emotion they have drawn using their body language and sound.

1.

Difficulty barometer • Emotion images can be adjusted to ones that are easier for younger participants to express.

• The bricks can be supported with music.

Communication:

Each participant is given a brick representing a mood, style or emotion. The participants then try to find others who have the same colour as their brick, without showing their brick.

Once someone finds a matching partner, they give a high five and continue the activity.

3. Social: Easy

Difficult

The participants play together in pairs. One participant now performs the sequence for his or her partner with a self-chosen expression picked from among the six colours that were previously danced.

When the sequence finishes, the partner with the bricks must indicate which colour they think the other partner tried to express during the sequence.

2. Cognitive:

All the participants are taught a short sequence. Once they have learned the sequence, it must be performed using the expressions that relate to the brick the instructor shows. The brick can either be changed after each round, or multiple times during the sequence.

4. Experimentation:

The participants play in pairs. They receive a brick. The brick’s colour determines the type of movement they must perform to cross the floor. When the participant sees the brick’s colour, he or she must move according to the movement associated with that brick. For example, the colour green is associated with forests, tribes, Tarzan, leaves, etc.

WORKSHOP 4

Four levers for development and adjustment:

“Urban Movement”

2. Experimentation:

Over, Under, Around Activity The participants stand in a circle so that everyone can see each other. Each participant thinks of three other people. The participant must go over the first, under the second, and around the third person before he or she returns to his or her starting position. The aim is to be the first to finish.

Difficulty barometer • Add or reduce the number of persons the participants must interact with.

Round Two: Each participant is given a brick. The brick must be balanced on one part of the body. Then, the game is played again and, this time, the brick must be balanced all the way through the activity.

The participants play together in pairs. The pair must now balance the brick in between them.

Then, the participants must think about three other pairs to go “Over, Under, and Around”.

The colour of each participant’s brick determines the way in which the others must move around the participant. If the blue brick is “Over”, this means that everyone must go over the participants with blue bricks. The aim is not to get around three people, but to move between each other, explore, and use their sense of curiosity.

3. Collaboration:

4. Dependency:

1.

Social:

In this version of the game, the aim is not to finish first, but to solve the tasks as a group before returning to their starting point as quickly as possible.

Easy

Difficult

All participants must now balance their bricks on their heads and go around each other. As the participants move around each other, they can choose to stop and tilt their heads slowly, allowing the brick to slide off. At this moment, the other participants’ task is to catch the bricks before they fall on the floor. This raises awareness of the participants’ environment.

WORKSHOP 5

Four versions can be used to promote different types of development:

“Tumbling and mini trampette”

Follow the LEGO Brick Activity Assign a meaning and define an exercise down the track for each of the Six Bricks pieces (e.g., Roll, Crawl, Hop on one leg, etc.). The participants then present the colours’ meaning.

Once the participants know the meaning of all the colours, each participant is able to build his/her unique combination of exercises down the track.

Difficulty barometer • Adjust the number of different exercises that can be combined.

• Adjust the level of difficulty of the exercise according to the target group.

• Exercises to be done together.

1.

Social:

The participant builds a combination of exercises and swaps roles with a partner. This is done in order to make the way the exercises are combined more challenging.

3. Competition: Easy

Difficult

The participants line up in pairs at the start of the track. The instructor shows a combination of activities, symbolised by the bricks, that are to be completed down the track before their partner.

2. Involvement:

The participants themselves define the meaning of each brick. The participants are divided into small groups, and every group is tasked with defining the meaning of their colour. Then, the activity is run the same way as before.

4. Cognitive/experimental version: The exercises for each brick are only demonstrated going forwards. If the brick in its exercise combination turns upside down, the exercise must be done backwards down the track. For example, forward/ reverse roll, hop, and cartwheel to the opposite side.

WORKSHOP 6

Four levers for development and adjustment:

“Build your own balance/figure”

1.

Each group is placed at a certain distance from a secret figure. Each group chooses a participant to be the group´s communicator. After starting, the communicator runs up and looks at the secret figure.

At this point, the communicator is the only person who knows the shape of the figure. His or her task is to go back to the group and explain the figure to them so that the group can build the same figure. The communicator can do this using verbal or non-verbal communication.

Follow the LEGO Brick Activity The participants are divided into small groups with X number of people in each group. The instructor constructs a figure using Six Bricks bricks in which the number of bricks used is equivalent to the number of participants in a group. It is now up to the groups to imitate the Six Bricks figure with their bodies.

This gives the participants the opportunity to form different shapes with their bodies and be creative according to the number of bricks chosen and how they are used.

Communication:

Difficulty barometer • Adjust the number of participants in each group.

• Build more in width than in height.

3. Collaboration: Easy

Difficult

The group agrees on assigning each participant in the group a specific colour that matches the colours of the bricks.

Then, the groups are presented with a new figure and they must be exactly at the space in the figure that corresponds to the colour of their brick.

2. Participation:

Each person forms a figure and places it in the centre of the floor. The groups are divided in circles around the figures. At the start of the activity, each group runs to the middle and tries to imitate the figure with their bodies. If they manage to imitate the figure successfully, the group is allowed to take the figure back to their starting point. The group that collects the most figures until there are none left, wins.

4. Creativity:

Instead of having the same number of bricks as participants, the figure can be built of fewer or more bricks, thus challenging the participants to think differently.

WORKSHOP 7

Four levers for development and adjustment:

“Rhythmical challenge”

Activity The game is about learning a rhythmic sequence or a series of rhythmic movements using the bricks.

Each brick represents a certain movement, e.g., RED = (side hop clap) x 4. BLUE = ( jumping jacks) x 4. (The movement can have four or eight strokes). Everyone learns the six different movements. Then, a tower can be built representing a series of different movements that must be made one after the other.

The way in which the tower is built can be changed. All bricks are placed on the floor. In small groups, the participants collect different bricks for their towers. One participant from the group runs out and selects a brick, takes it back to the group, and the whole group then do the exercise together. This is repeated until the time is up. Now, they can build a “rhythm tower” and can show their sequence to the other groups.

All the participants are divided up into six groups. Each group is given a brick in one of the six colours and each group member has a brick in that colour. Each group learns THEIR BRICK’S movement.

Everyone now walks around and finds a partner, and exchanges a brick with them. To exchange a brick, the participants must learn the brick’s movement. A participant can only take possession of the new brick and find a new partner once they have learned the movement. The participant repeats the colour he or she has just learned with the new partner.

3. Creativity:

4. Social collaboration:

1.

Rhythm tower Difficulty barometer • Shorter or longer compositions can be built. For example, RED – BLUE – RED or RED – YELLOW – BLUE – RED – GREEN – ORANGE. • Fewer/more colours included in the game.

• Varying lengths of each exercise

Easy

Difficult

2. Communication:

Physical:

An addition. All the participants are divided up into six groups. Each group receives a brick in one of the six colours. The group must find the movement associated with the brick and demonstrate the movement to the others.

The movements associated with the bricks are made in pairs, i.e., in twos.

WORKSHOP 8 “Meet a Dane”

Exercises to be used in classroom visits Activity: “Small talk” This game is about communication, and is sedentary. The participants stand/sit in a row. At each row end there is a set of Six Bricks. The bricks are assembled in a tower at one end.

The participants must fit the bricks at the other end of the row together, in precisely the same way, by communicating down the line.

Adjusting the activity for greater joint-participation The person at one end builds a figure of their choice. This figure must now be communicated down to the other end of the row so that an identical figure using the same colour of bricks in the same places can be built.

Activity: “Build under the table” Requirements: All students have their own Six Brick set.

Activity: ”What I remember most” Requirements: All students have their own Six Brick set

In this game, in small groups, the students must build a LEGO figure that stretches as far as possible, under the table. It must be able to balance on the edge of the table.

In this game, the students must build the figure they remember best from their NDPT visit. They can do this individually or in groups of 2-3 people. Then, they must describe what they have built. e.g. something they experienced during Acrobatics at the workshop, or a cartwheel they have heard of.

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