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This is a progression of 15 orienteering lesson plans to be used with grades K-5. The lessons may be tailored for the age and developmental stage of the children. These lessons were created and tested by Navigation Games staff at Cambridge Community Schools, 2012-2019. They differ from the K-5 PE classes in several ways. The PE classes have a strong focus on physical movement; here the activities dwell a little more on the maps. Either progression will work well to introduce orienteering to young people.
Working with Children:
Working with Children:
Developmental Level. These lessons and activities are designed to teach map reading, spatial awareness, spatial relationships, and other skills to students in grades K-5. It is important to remember that children undergo many physical, mental, and emotional changes throughout these years. A student in 5th grade is much more physically and mentally developed than a student entering Kindergarten. Our activities are designed to practice orienteering skills through games that are both simple and fun. While many of the games will be a challenging for kindergartners, they are still fun and engaging activities for students up through 5th grade. The pace and content should be adjusted to match the children's level. In some activities, students who have achieved master of the skill can become helpers who teach other students, until the entire class has mastered the activity.
Keep the children moving. Students spend most of their days at school, sitting at desks, listening to teachers, and learning. By the end of the day, few students are eager to sit down and listen. This provides a difficult challenge for teaching new activities. We recommend starting out every class with a highly active warm-up game. In the lessons below, we provide many suggestions. Teachers may choose to play the same one or two active games at the beginning of each class. Playing the same warm-up game each time can be a great way to establish consistency, while at the same time providing the students with a chance to run around and get their jigglies out. Copycat, (Active) Simon Says, and (Active) I Spy are excellent options to use every week.
Agency. Give the students choices so they feel in control and are more engaged. Strive to have the students understand and want to achieve their learning goals so they make choices that further their progress toward those goals. There are many ways students can be given agency. Look for opportunities to give the children choices throughout the lesson. At the end of the class, they may decide between warm-up activities for the next class. Choice may be used as a reward: if the students are well-behaved, respectful, are listening, and finish the main activity early as a result, then they can have time at the end of class to decide which games or activities they would like to play. You may give them a list of options, or just provide them free play time.
Please enjoy your time working with the students, and we look forward to seeing their progress throughout the program!
Lesson Plans
Lesson Plans
Lesson 1: Boundaries & Listening: Students learn the boundaries of the play area, play tag games to practice staying within a set perimeter, and practice active listening in order to establish classroom expectations.
Lesson 2: Gathering & Treasure: Students practice paying attention and following directions. They use these skills to practice gathering in a central location, and to find hidden treasure.
Lesson 3: Animal-O: Students practice finding objects, and learn how to follow instructions by finding them in a specific order.
Lesson 4: Grid-O: Students learn about and practice the skill of map orientation by navigating a variety of courses on a grid pattern.
Lesson 5: Geometric Animal-O: Students use very basic maps to locate, identify, and move objects in precise ways.
Lesson 6: Map Memory: Students race back and forth from one map marked with checkpoints to a blank version of the same map. Each time they must memorize one checkpoint from the marked map, and copy that checkpoint onto the blank map.
Lesson 7: Tabletop-O: Students will use a model village to practice the relationship between objects, view a space from the top-down, and begin to develop basic concepts of matching objects to shapes on a map.
Lesson 8: Geometric Symbol-O: Students will revisit the Geometric Animal-O game, but with an added twist to help them learn and practice using symbols to identify objects.
Lesson 9: Making Maps: Students will use a whiteboard and a drawing of the space to practice moving objects around in order to match the map, or make adjustments to the map in order to match the objects. They will also identify objects based on symbols.
Lesson 10: Symbol-O: Students will learn map symbols though an activity similar to Animal-O. Here they will use a map legend to learn the relationship between symbols and their corresponding features, and then proceed to locate that feature in order to find each checkpoint.
Lesson 11: Symbol Memory Relay: Students use maps and images to match checkpoints marked on one map or image to the other.
Lesson 12: Map Progression 1: Students use images of the space to find checkpoints throughout the area.
Lesson 13: Map Progression 2: Students use specialized maps and orienteering maps to find the locations of hidden checkpoints throughout an area.
Lesson 14: Basketball O: Students use a map of the lines on a basketball course to locate checkpoints and complete a series of courses.
Lesson 15: The Ultimate Test: Students will participate in an activity called "Poison Score-O", which is designed to evaluate their ability to use a map and identify locations based on that map. Worry not, there is no actual poison in this activity.
Contributors and Acknowledgments
Contributors and Acknowledgments
Authors: Ethan Childs, Adam Miller and Barb Bryant.
The authors wrote and edited the lesson plans, but many additional Navigation Games staff had a hand in developing the lessons. Cristina Luis managed the teachers, created the lessons database and provided guidance. The lead teachers doing lesson development were Adam Miller, Ethan Childs, Evalin Brautigam, and Melanie Sergiev, under the supervision of Cristina Luis and Barb Bryant. Many other people have taught Navigation Games classes and contributed to the lessons and approach, including Eugenio Trevisio, Marie Berzinova, Tomáš Kamaryt, Keegan Harkavy, David Landrigan, Priya Landrigan, Juan de Oliveira, Pavla Zdrahalova de Oliveira, Juan Manuel Merida Sanchis, Violeta Feliciano, Geoff Pingree, Anaka Landrigan, Jason Tong, Sarah Gregorio, Mike Porter, Anna Swan, and Anna Lenihan. In the summers, interns and high school students (most from the Cambridge, MA, Mayor's Summer Youth Employment Program) taught Navigation Games classes at summer camps. Kristin Hall and Julia Bishop helped those students develop lesson plans for the summer programs. Our summer staff included Ethan Childs, Isak Prellner, Evalin Brautigam, Adam Miller, Melanie Sergiev, Maiken Sandberg, and Marina Carlson. Interns and students included Aidan O'Keefe, Chanpera Toeumhernand, Colin Harmer, Connor Bresnahan, Ellen Jacobson, Emie Gerard, Ethan Hall, Ethan Rothenberg, Gabriel Nielsen-Nunez, Hersh Kanner, Jackson Codd, Jeffrey Chen, Julia Armand, Keegan Harkavy, Lincoln Craven-Brightman, Lucas Oliveira-Chace, Maggie Bayly, Nathaniel Saintfort, Peter Cannistaro, Peter Phan, Phineas DeSola, Sarah Hughes, Sam Peck, Shanti Söderström, Shayne Thorpe, Sophia Price, Theo Boehm, Vincent Chen, Walter Ditrani, Yasser Elfathy, and Zoe McNerney.
Many of the individual games and activities came from elsewhere.
Acknowledgments: Erin Schirm (philosophy and guidance, boundary games, gathering), Andrea Schneider (Animal-O, ideas, advice), Dave Yee (Animal-O), Deb Humiston (guidance), Linda Fobes and Julia Bishop (lesson plan structure and consultation on the plans themselves). Cristina brought activities back from her experience with orienteering teaching in Norway. Carol Renfrew's books, the UK's Tri-O, and presenters at MAHPERD conferences have been valuable sources. We have included links to videos by Sportunterricht. We are grateful to Cambridge Community Schools for providing us with a place to give these classes -- huge thanks go out to Director Roslyn Shoy, the directors and staff of individual Community Schools, as well as Program Directors Liz Lewis and Ellen Thompson, and administrator Sage Carbone. We thank all our supporters including the SOS Foundation, Cambridge Community Foundation, the Iain Wilson Foundation, New England Orienteering Club and Cambridge Sports Union, and our donors.
References: See our References Page! Below are internal references for NG staff.
Orienteering Units. This is our main reference document.
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