Another COVID-Friendly Initiative Task: Kick 'N Choose

Kick ‘n’ Choose

A strange benefit of COVID-19 is that it has been the catalyst for creativity and innovation. Mostly expressed as some version of “how on earth am I going to accomplish that?”. The activity Kick ‘n’ Choose came out of just such an instance – mainly how do I present an initiative with simultaneous action opportunities, physical distancing, and no touching of objects. Oh, and the participants range from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 1.

As the name suggests, Pick ‘n’ Choose (Silver Bullets, p. 77; Quicksilver, p. 149) served as an inspiration with substantial contributions from Frantic (Silver Bullets, p. 18). Take a rope and set up a circular boundary approximately 6 m in diameter. Place three hula hoops inside it spaced about 1 m from the rope boundary and equidistant from each other. It’s nice if the hoops are different colours. Create an outside circle of polyspots 2 m apart from each other and 1 m from the edge of the boundary. Finally, collect all your kickable objects (balls, giant dice, rubber pigs, etc.) and place 3-4 of them in front of each poly spot. Invite group members to stand on their own polyspot.

The goal is to only use your feet to put as many objects as possible inside the hula hoops within 60 seconds. The different hula hoops have different values – 1 pt, 5 pts, and 10 pts. Group members must stay outside the boundary circle at all times except for the one or two people who are designated as retrievers for the round and must stay inside the rope circle. Their job is to only use their feet to kick out any objects that make it inside the boundary but don’t make it into a hula hoop. Provided they maintain physical distancing, group members are allowed to leave their spot to retrieve any items that are outside the rope boundary. After 60 seconds, total up the cumulative point value. Play several rounds so the group has opportunities to improve their performance. Also, it’s fun.

A few learnings…

1. Rubber pigs are great objects to use in this activity. They are kickable and roll much better than rubber chickens yet they bounce unpredictably. That said, participants may be so excited by the oinking noise they make that when participants get their feet on a pig, they will spend the 60 seconds stomping on it to make it squeak and not kicking it or other objects into the hula hoops.

2. The ideal play space is an area with barriers to keep the objects from being kicked far far away. Or into a road. Or under shrubbery. Like the participants, the facilitator is going to get an aerobic work out wherever this initiative occurs.

Written by Kathy Haras, Ph.D