Great Children’s Lessons covers the elements of what makes up a great children’s lesson. Have you ever been stopped in your tracks watching an incredibly fun and captivating children’s snowsports lesson? Laughter, joy, and delight are what you are most likely witnessing. The children engaging with each other, the instructor and their environment in a way that was so moving you wish you were in that lesson. Discover how to do this and how having a good lesson structure is essential.
What Makes Great Children’s Lessons?
This chapter will explore how to prepare and deliver great children’s lessons and discover why they are so important and rewarding. This chapter will help the instructor develop an ability to enter into the world of a child’s mind, creating experiences that will develop a lifelong passion for the mountain environment.
The information in this chapter will also provide the tools and information to understand how children develop and showcase how to build age appropriate lessons that create successful learning environments.
The Instructor
The ski instructor has the ability to promote a lifelong love for the mountains. They have the power to change lives and develop self belief and a joy for learning. A great children’s instructor can see the world through the eyes of the children they teach and has the empathy and mindfulness necessary to engage and connect meaningfully with the unique human being in front of them.
Instructors’ responsibilities;
- Having empathy
- Be a role model
- Be mindful of the CAP model
- Not being impaired
- Not coming to work if you are sick or feeling unable to focus
- Knowing the ski patrol’s numbers and procedures to adhere to when a student gets hurt or lost. Knowing how to radio patrol at the lift shacks
- Knowing the children’s names and how many are in the lesson
- Having the phone numbers of the parents of all the children in the lesson
- Remembering, or better yet, writing down/ taking a photo of the clothing colours of children in the lesson to be able to identify them to patrol if they get lost
- Clear communication and leadership is needed so the children are informed and know how to keep themselves and their group members safe
Safety – Fun – Achievement
Safety
In addition to being a safe instructor we also need to have fun and create a successful learning environment. Skiing is a risky sport and your role is to minimise risk and negative consequences for our students whilst still having fun and achieving set goals. Fun in the mountains sometimes requires taking calculated risks with the students’ stage of development and skill level in mind. Being safe doesn’t mean being a boring instructor. We can be safe and fun and have it all be within the limits of a comfortably risky environment. Being safety conscious and adhering to the ski area’s safety codes will help minimise safety risks. Educating students to have a personal safety checklist and getting everyone’s buy in will enable the instructor to push the limits of skill development.
Having a safety discussion around the snow safety code rules is a great way to help children learn the code and stay safe.
- “What does “ski in control” mean to you?”
- “What would a safe stopping zone look like to you?”
- “How much space is needed around you for you to feel safe when skiing?”
- “Can you describe some of the safety signs around the mountain?”
Personal Safety Checklist
- Do they know the instructor’s name and what to do if they get separated from you and/ or the group?
- Do they know the main stopping areas within the area they are skiing in?
- Let the children know they can seek help from other instructors, lift operators, patrollers and most people in a resort uniform
- Create a trusting environment at the set-up of the lesson where everyone feels supported and knows they can discuss how they feel
- Encourage students to self-reflect how they feel emotionally during the lesson. Are they comfortable with the level of task and/or terrain?
- Use questions during the lesson asking the children how they would feel about levelling up or adding another level of complexity to the task
- Encourage students to speak up about how they are feeling
Fun
If the main objective is to find out what the children already have fun doing and then try and make skiing more fun than that, we’re on our way to being a great instructor. At the end of the day fun is the main reason we come up to the mountains. Learning is fun. Learning to ski is fun if we can make the lesson about the students and less about ourselves. Fun will be the result if you let the natural connection between humans evolve, with two-way communication and open discussion. Children love to have fun.Achievement
Teaching children to ski is an extremely rewarding experience. For example, seeing their faces light up when they understand speed control through a gliding wedge and the resulting leap in self-confidence is awesome. It’s not how much or what they achieve that’s important. The main thing is that they’ve had the opportunity to achieve. Having a safe and fun experience in the mountains is a worthy achievement. Often it’s the instructor, parent or both who let their own projections of achievement and success cloud the moment. Keep the lesson plan simple and student led.