Encourage children to learn to use their diaphragms and abdominal muscles to control exhalation.
Materials Needed:
- Plastic drinking straw for each child
- Cotton ball or crumpled ball of paper for each team
What to do:
- Divide children into even teams
- Give a straw to each child
- Have children in the team, lay on their bellies in a circle
- Place cotton ball in front of one of the children in each team. They must use their straw to move the cotton ball to the next child and so on, to pass it around the circle, until the cotton ball reaches the first child again.
- Players cannot touch the ball with their hands, straw or anything else!
Hints and Tips:
- Have each team sit around a table instead of laying on the floor.
- Instead of blowing on the ball, have players pick it up by sucking it onto the end of the straw. Each player should pick up the ball and place it, in front of the next child and let it go. This focuses on inhalation rather than exhalation.
- Breathing through a straw encourages players to inhale and exhale more deeply. They learn to use their diaphragms and abdominal muscles to control the exhalation.
