WOW Game Title: Ocean Exploration 1
Physical Education Game: Parachute Exploration
Content Area: Math
TEKS Focus: Understanding Addition and Subtraction
Counting Money
Fractions
Multiplication/Division
Physical Education Unit: Cooperation, Muscular Strength and Flexibility
Grade: 2
Resource: www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/ocean/Waves.html
Parachute Ocean Exploration 1 by Pam Atkins
Equipment/Materials: 1-20’or 24’ parachute, drum and mallet, whistle can be used.
Set Up: Prior to activity, teacher discusses with students “What causes ocean waves?”
The winds cause waves on the surface of the ocean (and on lakes.) The wind transfers
some of its energy to the water through friction between the air molecules and the water
molecules. Stronger winds (like storm surges) cause larger waves. Waves of water do
not move horizontally, they only move up and down (a wave does not represent a flow of
water.) You can see a demonstration of this by watching a floating buoy bob up and
down with a wave; it does not, however, move horizontally with the wave.
Activity:
Lay parachute on ground with students evenly distributed around parachute. Prior to
students touching parachute, teach students drum beat cues: 1 beat = hands on parachute
and stand up, 2 beats = put parachute on ground, students sit down and hands in lap, fast
repetitive drum beats = students stand up holding edge of parachute and shake
parachute creating “small ocean waves”, slow repetitive drum beats = students stand up
holding edge of parachute and extend arms up and then bend at waist and knees taking
arms all the way down in slow motion creating “giant ocean waves.”
After students are taught the drum beat cues, then teacher beats cues and takes
class through an “ocean wave exploration.” During this exploration, teacher may
designate which students are permitted to go “under the ocean.” When going under
students should lay on abdominals with head down on forearms. Students will
experience the wind creating the waves!
Variations:
 There are numerous ways to designate which students go under the parachute.
One way is to assign each student a number, fraction or money amount. Teacher
may choose to call out numbers at random, fractions, even numbers, money, odd
numbers, multiples, adding 2 numbers together, etc.
Review Questions:
Skill Focus: Which muscles did we strengthen while working with the parachute?
Academic Focus: Challenge the class to do 100 ocean waves counting the aloud
by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, etc. If 5 students went “under the ocean” and retrieved 25
cents each from the Pirates treasure chest, how much total money did the group
bring up?