Hi,

After the speeches, tour, and truncated schedule, we start the school year with some team building outdoor activities offered by the National Guard. One struck me as perfect for piquing the interest of little kids in fishing.

Gear:

two 2" wiffle balls with the hook part of velcro glued all over them

two 10 foot nylon 1/8" or 1/4" cords

two 4 foot pvc sections

as well as

two hula hoops

10 fish silhouettes cut from the fuzzy side of velcro material, each over 8" long

(Assemble the above into two "fly rods", put the hula hoops about 15 feet apart, and spread the fish between them)

procedure:

the kids break into two teams, each having one boat (hula hoop)
only one kid in the boat at a time
as soon as the signal is given, the fishing starts
as soon as one fish is caught, the rod is passed to the next kid (who gets "in the boat")
when all the fish are gone, the team with the highest number 'wins"

what happens:

the kids realize right away that they have to communicate as a team

the one fishing tends to have a little trouble getting any length to his/her cast until someone comes up with a 'better' way to cast the wiffle ball on the string

the one casting tends to jerk the "fly" (ball) back if it doesn't hit a fish, until someone realized that overcasting and dragging works better

the ones not casting get hit with the wiffle ball in the backcast if they aren't paying attention and moving out of the way (a good lesson when fishing)

LOTS of laughing


Not rocket science, but good indoors or out, with lots of potential variations (more hula hoops, types of fish for points, etc). We had 15 stations, and this was the one they all loved best.

Just fyi,

Kat