# Little Steps

## Overview
In this chapter, students engage in fun physical activities designed to enhance body balance, coordination, strength, and awareness. Each activity involves movement challenges and games which promote mental alertness, quick decision-making, teamwork, and health education. Students set personal fitness goals and work gradually toward them, reflecting the idea that success comes from small steps.

## Key Activities Covered

### 1. Balancing the Stick
- **Activity**: Balance a stick on your palm and try to keep it from falling.
- **Goal**: Improve each time by setting a target duration.
- **Skills Developed**: Balance, strategic thinking, gravity awareness, and decision-making.

### 2. Keep on Moving
- **Activity**: In groups of four, three players hold hands and one is in the middle; move together from start to finish without touching the middle player.
- **Skills Developed**: Coordination, concentration, and group balance.

### 3. Hold Your Ground
- **Activity**: Four boxes are drawn on the ground with different exercises. Students move until the music stops, then perform the task in the box they land in.
- **Skills Developed**: Stability and body control during transitions.

### 4. Planks
- **Activity**: Lie down and lift your body using elbows and toes, hold the position.
- **Skills Developed**: Strengthening of core muscles, mental endurance, and focus.

### 5. Find the House
- **Activity**: Run or skip around a circle with hoops placed inside. At the whistle, jump into a hoop. Fewer hoops than players—those without are out.
- **Skills Developed**: Quick reaction, mental agility, and decision-making.

### 6. Chor-Police
- **Activity**: One player is the guard (police), others are thieves who try to steal an object. If the guard turns around, thieves must freeze. Moving while seen leads to elimination.
- **Skills Developed**: Cognitive alertness, balance, coordination.

### 7. Shuttle Run
- **Activity**: Teams pick and bring balls from one side to another, one by one, through skipping or trotting.
- **Skills Developed**: Agility and coordination under time pressure.

### 8. Dodging - Move to Safety
- **Activity**: One group runs from start to finish while dodging the chasers in the middle.
- **Skills Developed**: Reaction speed, agility, and flexible movement strategies.

### 9. Vaccine Vijayate
- **Activity**: A tag game where students represent diseases and vaccines, catching their corresponding match.
- **Skills Developed**: Awareness about diseases and vaccines, reducing fear of injections, and understanding immunisation.

## New Terms and Definitions

| Term | Definition |
|-------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| plank | An exercise where you hold your body straight and stiff like a plank board |
| coordination | The ability to move different parts of the body smoothly and efficiently |
| agility | The ability to move quickly and easily |
| balance | Staying steady and not falling over |
| reaction time | How fast someone can respond to something |
| chaser | A person who tries to catch others in a game |
| flexibility | The ability of your body to bend and stretch easily |
| immunity | The body’s ability to fight off diseases |
| vaccine | A medicine given to protect against a disease |
| core muscles | Muscles in your stomach and lower back that support body movement |

## Practice Questions

### Easy
1. **What is the purpose of the plank activity?**
**Answer**: To strengthen core muscles and increase willpower.

2. **In the game 'Chor-Police', who tries to catch whom?**
**Answer**: The police guard tries to catch the thieves.

3. **What skill does the 'Find the House' game develop?**
**Answer**: Quick reaction time and decision-making.

### Medium
4. **Explain how 'Keep on Moving' helps in teamwork.**
**Answer**: Players must move together without touching the middle person, requiring coordination and cooperation.

5. **Why are fewer hoops used than players in 'Find the House'?**
**Answer**: To increase challenge and test quick decision-making under pressure.

### Difficult
6. **How does the ‘Hold Your Ground’ game improve body control?**
**Answer**: Students must quickly transition into a specific position and hold it, requiring limb control and mental focus.

7. **What is the objective of the 'Dodging' game?**
**Answer**: To escape the chasers by dodging, which improves speed, agility, and reaction time.

8. **Why is 'Vaccine Vijayate' important beyond physical activity?**
**Answer**: It builds awareness of diseases and vaccines, helping students understand the role of immunisation.

### Very Difficult
9. **Compare the benefits of ‘Shuttle Run’ and ‘Plank’ exercises.**
**Answer**: Shuttle Run develops agility and coordination under movement, while Plank builds core strength and mental endurance.

10. **How do movement games support mental development?**
**Answer**: They enhance decision-making, concentration, quick thinking, and cognitive function while improving physical abilities.

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