Superheroes have been popular since I was a child. My favourite was Wonder Woman, but I remember watching Batman, The Increduble Hulk, Spider-Man and Lois And Clark on TV, as did all the other children in my class. And these iconic super heroes are still popular, generations down the track. But there are also many other super heroes, and the children at school have recently been talking about PJ Masks, a new Disney superhero cartoon. Earlier this week, the children were pretending to be PJ Mask characters, and running around chasing each other, talking and playing PJ Masks. So I began thinking about how I could help to encourage and promote this interest in superheroes in other areas of play.
I borrowed some little wooden block people from the block corner, went home and created these super simple super heroes from wooden pegs, pipecleaners and felt. I brought these little super heroes into school the next morning, created a cityscape using a few blocks, and this table has been used all day by children making up stories and using the super heroes to save people.
The great thing is, their simplicity means that children can pretend that they are princesses, queens, Wizards, or super heroes - whatever they want. By limiting the details - I could have drawn symbols on the body, or Spider-Man's pattern, but I chose not to - a block doll with a red cape can be Spider-Man, Superman, Spider Girl, or Owlette from PJ Masks.
Resources required:
Block dolls or wooden pegs
Pipecleaners
Scraps of felt
Marker pens / nail polish / paint
Glue
Needle and thread
For the block dolls, I simply cut a small rectangle of felt and used needle and thread to secure the cape around the neck.
To create the wooden peg superheroes:
I coloured in the red, black and blue pegs using marker pens and coated them with clear nail polish so that the colour didn't come off on little hands. I coloured the green peg using green nail polish. You could use paint as well - it's all a matter of preference and how much effort or time you want to put in.
I didn't do faces, but I did overhear one child saying "he needs eyes, so he can see where he is going!" Faces are a matter of preference also. I like to leave faces blank so that children can use their own imagination - rather than force an expression or emotion on the child, the child can pretend that they are happy, sad, angry, hurt, joyful, determined, naughty, scared, or heroic.
I wrapped a pipecleaner around the neck a couple of times for the arms and secured with a spot of glue.
Cut a rectangle of felt (I use acrylic felt as it is cheaper and doesn't tend to pill) and secure around the neck using needle and thread.
To make the princess above I wrapped a bit of sequinned fabric around the peg with a bit of glue. I cut little holes in the fabric to pull the pipecleaner arms through and secured in place with glue. Then I used a bit of wide ribbon as the cape.
The children have really been enjoying boardgames and card games recently, and they have been bringing them in from home to play. So I created this Super Hero board game with the children.
We used:
A3 size card. You could do it on an A3 piece of paper and laminate it, but storage then becomes an issue because it does not fold well. You could glue an A3 piece of paper into a manilla folder, which then provides a bit of sturdiness but folds into an easily stored A4 size.
Pencil, ruler, and eraser
Marker pen
Pictures of Super Heroes. I googled images of Superhero clip art, and printed them off.
Scissors
Glue
The children began by cutting out the Super Heroes, while I drew up the game board - I first drew it in pencil, then went over in marker pen once I was happy with the layout. The children helped me to decide on the design of the game. The children coloured in the game squares and the city buildings. We left the outside white, as I thought it would be too confusing to have coloured squares on a coloured board. Then the children glued the Super Heroes where-ever they wanted on the board. I used a marker pen to outline the tiles, and wrote the numbers and Start and Finish on the tiles.
You play by putting your counters on the start, throwing the dice and moving your counter around the board. First person to reach the Finish, wins.
I also created small cards, on which are written Super Hero Tasks. If you land on a Super Hero, you get a Task Card. Some of these tasks include:
* Strike a Super Hero pose. Everyone else has to guess who you are.
* Super Heroes have to keep fit. Everybody run once around the outside playground and come back to your spot.
* Super Heroes are Super Tidy. Pick up one thing off the floor and put it back in the right place.
* Spiderman has a spider on his outfit. Draw a picture of a spider.
* Super Heroes eat lots of fruit to keep healthy. Draw a picture of a fruit and everyone else guess what it is.
* Super Heroes need to stay fit. Everybody run on the spot for 1 minute.
* Crawl around the room like Gecko and come back to your spot.
* Super Heroes have to be quiet. Creep quietly down the hallway and back to your spot.
* Shout "To The Batmobile!", run around the circle and back to your spot.
* Shout "Into the night to save the day!"
* Super Heroes need to be strong. Everyone do 5 press ups.
* Shout "Super heroes to the rescue!" and run to the wall and back.
* Everyone do 5 star jumps.
* Superheroes fly. Run around outside as fast as you can fly.
* Use your ice powers to freeze someone.
* Walk like a spider to the wall and back.
* Shout "Cowabunga, Dude!" and strike your best Ninja Turtle pose.
* Ninja turtles love pizza. Draw a picture of a pizza, filled with your favourite toppings.
These are just ones that I have thought of, but you will probably be able to think of a lot more. I wanted a range of tasks that promoted lots of different skills, thinking, cognitive, confidence, and physical. The children had great fun playing this game!
Resources required:
Block dolls or wooden pegs
Pipecleaners
Scraps of felt
Marker pens / nail polish / paint
Glue
Needle and thread
For the block dolls, I simply cut a small rectangle of felt and used needle and thread to secure the cape around the neck.
To create the wooden peg superheroes:
I coloured in the red, black and blue pegs using marker pens and coated them with clear nail polish so that the colour didn't come off on little hands. I coloured the green peg using green nail polish. You could use paint as well - it's all a matter of preference and how much effort or time you want to put in.
I didn't do faces, but I did overhear one child saying "he needs eyes, so he can see where he is going!" Faces are a matter of preference also. I like to leave faces blank so that children can use their own imagination - rather than force an expression or emotion on the child, the child can pretend that they are happy, sad, angry, hurt, joyful, determined, naughty, scared, or heroic.
I wrapped a pipecleaner around the neck a couple of times for the arms and secured with a spot of glue.
Cut a rectangle of felt (I use acrylic felt as it is cheaper and doesn't tend to pill) and secure around the neck using needle and thread.
To make the princess above I wrapped a bit of sequinned fabric around the peg with a bit of glue. I cut little holes in the fabric to pull the pipecleaner arms through and secured in place with glue. Then I used a bit of wide ribbon as the cape.
Super Hero Boardgame
We used:
A3 size card. You could do it on an A3 piece of paper and laminate it, but storage then becomes an issue because it does not fold well. You could glue an A3 piece of paper into a manilla folder, which then provides a bit of sturdiness but folds into an easily stored A4 size.
Pencil, ruler, and eraser
Marker pen
Pictures of Super Heroes. I googled images of Superhero clip art, and printed them off.
Scissors
Glue
The children began by cutting out the Super Heroes, while I drew up the game board - I first drew it in pencil, then went over in marker pen once I was happy with the layout. The children helped me to decide on the design of the game. The children coloured in the game squares and the city buildings. We left the outside white, as I thought it would be too confusing to have coloured squares on a coloured board. Then the children glued the Super Heroes where-ever they wanted on the board. I used a marker pen to outline the tiles, and wrote the numbers and Start and Finish on the tiles.
You play by putting your counters on the start, throwing the dice and moving your counter around the board. First person to reach the Finish, wins.
I also created small cards, on which are written Super Hero Tasks. If you land on a Super Hero, you get a Task Card. Some of these tasks include:
* Strike a Super Hero pose. Everyone else has to guess who you are.
* Super Heroes have to keep fit. Everybody run once around the outside playground and come back to your spot.
* Super Heroes are Super Tidy. Pick up one thing off the floor and put it back in the right place.
* Spiderman has a spider on his outfit. Draw a picture of a spider.
* Super Heroes eat lots of fruit to keep healthy. Draw a picture of a fruit and everyone else guess what it is.
* Super Heroes need to stay fit. Everybody run on the spot for 1 minute.
* Crawl around the room like Gecko and come back to your spot.
* Super Heroes have to be quiet. Creep quietly down the hallway and back to your spot.
* Shout "To The Batmobile!", run around the circle and back to your spot.
* Shout "Into the night to save the day!"
* Super Heroes need to be strong. Everyone do 5 press ups.
* Shout "Super heroes to the rescue!" and run to the wall and back.
* Everyone do 5 star jumps.
* Superheroes fly. Run around outside as fast as you can fly.
* Use your ice powers to freeze someone.
* Walk like a spider to the wall and back.
* Shout "Cowabunga, Dude!" and strike your best Ninja Turtle pose.
* Ninja turtles love pizza. Draw a picture of a pizza, filled with your favourite toppings.
These are just ones that I have thought of, but you will probably be able to think of a lot more. I wanted a range of tasks that promoted lots of different skills, thinking, cognitive, confidence, and physical. The children had great fun playing this game!
Capes
Capes are super easy to make using a rectangle of fabric and a bit of elastic. Stitch the elastic on one end of the rectangle and fasten securely to the opposite side. Using elastic rather than ribbon means that children can put their capes on and off themselves without needing adult help; also it is not going to get tied in a difficult knot around their necks; and if someone accidentally pulls on their cape, it will be able to stretch and not hurt their neck. I made yellow satin capes, green satin capes, brown velvet capes, pink fur capes, and blue sequinned capes using fabrics that had been kindly donated by parents. You can use any type of fabric you have got!
Ninja Tag
This has to probably be my best idea ever! After lunch, the younger children in the other rooms have their sleep, and the active, busy 4 year olds often forget to use their quiet voices when playing outside. After lots and lots of reminding them to use quiet voices while they were playing tag, I came up with this brilliant idea - Ninja Tag! Just like tag, but SILENT!!!!! LMAO. It was hilarious to watch, and more and more children wanted to play - fist-pump moment for me!!!!
Super-Hero Songs
There are some great super-hero songs suitable for mat times here along with links to listen to the songs.
Ten Superheroes Standing On A Wall (Tune - 10 Green Bottles standing on a wall)
This is a counting song I made up. You could get 10 children standing on chairs, and someone in the audience to be the one who says 'help', for the Super-heroes to save.
10 Super-heroes standing on a wall
10 Super-heroes standing on a wall
And if one Super-hero should answer a call
("Help!")
There will be 9 Super-heroes standing on a wall.
Continue until no Super-heroes are standing on a wall.
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