Ready for 350 little orienteers - I think

I finished my map on Wednesday and am VERY chuffed with the result - just to get an orienteer to test it out... Nonetheless, it is more than great for my kiddies this week.

The children will start off with some fun cone grid activities to teach them the basics of keeping the map orientated. Then, I've created a load of orienteering courses, each with three controls (there will be 23 controls out there in total) and I've coloured them green, orange and red according to difficulty for the various grades (1 to 6) that I'll see during the week. The plan is that once we've done the cone grids, the children will get maps showing controls and they'll run to the three controls on their map (lots of variation) and then back to me. Depending on how much time we've got, they could get in two to four courses. Children don't often wear watches so I can't say, "Be back in 20 minutes".

The children know their school so getting lost won't be a problem and I'm only using part of the map - the buildings and the fields to the right.

Phew! It has been lots of prep and map drawing but I'm quite excited about my week ahead. I'll put out my controls this afternoon so that they're all in place for the morning. It will take me a while to set out the grids and my first class is at 08h00.

Cards for the 'Counting Coloured Cones' game

Correx board 'controls' for the orienteering course. I'll use these for the permanent course that I'm leaving at the school at the end of the week. I've used alphabet 'codes' on the controls - the little ones can remember letters or pictures.

An 'obstacle' cone grid. I use metal droppers (4x4) with candy tape to create the 'walls'. The children have to run around the 'walls' to get to the correct controls.

Here's wishing me good luck!