RIC-20950 Early years Fantasy - Witches

Cross-curricular activities
Health and physical education
• Play ‘What’s for dinner, Mrs Witch?’ This game is played like the traditional ‘What’s the time, Mr Wolf?’ Mrs Witch (or Mr
Wizard) hides her/his eyes and the other children line up behind and chant, ‘What’s for dinner, Mrs Witch/Mr Wizard?’
The answer could be, for example, fi ve worms, one toad, three spiders or two rats, and they move forward that many
steps. When they hear the answer ‘You’, they all turn and run. Mrs Witch/Mr Wizard turns and chases them and the fi rst
one she/he catches becomes the next Mrs Witch/Mr Wizard.
• Play ‘Don’t stop on my hat’. Draw a large outline of a witch’s hat, colour it black, cut it out and place it fl at on the ground.
The children line up and walk over the hat and back around in a circle. Play music and when it stops, the child standing
on the hat or the last one to cross it, is out of the game. The last child standing is the winner.
• Go on a witch hunt. Provide a ‘witch’, which could be a witch toy, an illustration of a witch or even an adult dressed
as a witch. Set a trail for the children to follow to fi nd the witch. Then complete individual cards, each with a list of very
simple written instructions with pictorial clues, and then hide them in various places. Each card leads the children to the
location of the next card, until fi nally the witch is found. The witch hunters can take turns trying to read the cards.
• Make a list of the horrible things a witch might put into her cauldron to cook. Discuss whether any of the ingredients she
might use would be healthy. Explain that the things a witch could cook in her cauldron would be likely to make you very
sick or change you into some other creature. Then ask the children to suggest some healthy food for the witch to cook.
This food could be written in a list, with matching pictures cut from magazines added.
• Talk to children about how different people and animals move. Encourage them to stride along like a witch or to ride on
a pretend broomstick. They could then jump like a toad, fl y like a raven or a bat, creep like a cat, or scurry like a mouse
or rat.
• Children sit in a circle and one child, the witch, walks
around the outside of the circle carrying a black spider.
One vacant spot is left in the circle. The other children
chant ‘Spider, spider, where are you? Black and hairy
from the witch’s brew. Spider, spider, when you drop,
I’ll start running to fi nd my spot’. The spider is dropped
behind one child, who has to pick it up and race the
witch to the vacant spot in the circle. If that child
reaches the spot before the witch, he or she
is safe and the witch has another turn. If
the witch beats the child with the spider,
that child must walk around and drop
the spider behind another child and the
game continues.
• Play ‘Wicked Witch says’, a game based on the old,
well-known game of ‘Simon says’. This game focuses
on listening skills. In this game, the children can only
do what Wicked Witch says. For example, if Wicked
Witch says ‘stand up’, the children have to follow the
command. But if an order is given such as ‘Put your
hands on your head’, the children can not do it and
are out of the game if they do. The aim is to trick the
children into doing something not prefi xed with
‘Wicked Witch says … ’ or into not following
a Wicked Witch instruction. The last child
left in the game is the winner.
86 Early years themes—Fantasy—Witches www.ricpublications.com.au – R.I.C. Publications ®