Scavenger Hunt

Develop a Scavenger Hunt list for boat and paddle parts as well as personal clothing and safety gear. Give the crowd masking tape and a magic marker so they can write on the tape and stick it on the part. The older the crowd, the higher the challenge of technical vocabulary. Include esoteric paddling terms (abundant in the sport!), and let them make educated guesses.

Boat anatomy

Suggestions:

• Amidships-the middle of the boat.
• Beam-the widest part of the boat
• Bow-the front end of a boat
• Stern-the rear end of a boat
• Freeboard-the degree to which a canoe sits above the water; the distance between the waterline and the gunwales.
• Gunwales-the rails along the edges of the hull.
• Hull-the main body of the boat stripped of any additional parts.

Name It and Claim It

As a great icebreaker for new groups, Name It and Claim It gets people loosened up. Each small group creates a circle with a paddle in the center. As you call out a paddle part, one member must run into the center, pick up the paddle, and"claim" the part by grabbing it (tip, powerface, backface, drip ring, throat, shaft, and so on). Keep calling out parts, until everyone is clustered around holding their piece of the paddle.

With larger groups, two at a time can run to grab the part, which creates a real mob cluster by the end. This game is also appropriate for learning canoe and kayak parts.

Terminology Cards

Develop a common vocabulary by using Terminology Cards which define boat and paddle parts by name. Like flash cards, put the term on one side, definition on the other. (Laminate cards to protect them.) Divide your students into partners and ask each one in the pair to teach half the material to the other.