A lesson Plan for when there's little equipment.

Looking through my lesson plans, I came across this plan that I had used for several sessions at various Rda Groups.
It's one to use if there isn't a lot of equipment available, which sometimes I come across when teaching at Rda Groups.

Poles.

I used 4 poles which I placed down the centre of the school,they were paced out with 6 paces between each pole, these I used in several ways.

1. The riders walked their horses over each pole, aiming to keep their horses walking a straight line using the coloured part of the pole in the middle to help guide them. This is useful to help ride a straight centre line in dressage tests.
2. The riders then walked over the poles and steered their horses over different colour sections going to the left then to the right over the next pole. This could help towards working towards riding loops and improving steering.
3. The riders had to halt between each pair of pole, counting to 5 before walking on over the next pole.A variation to this is to get riders to count to different numbers each time they halt.
4. The poles were used to bend through, this gave the riders chance to think about their turns. A variation to this is to get riders to halt as they walk between the poles, again getting them to count to a number before walking on.

 Buckets and Uprights.

I had 4 buckets and 4 Uprights which I placed down each side of the school, they were placed alternating and also a bucket opposite an upright. There were various items on the uprights.This was used in the following ways.

1. The riders halted by an upright and collected an item and put it in a bucket.
2. The riders collected an item and transferred it to another upright.
3. The riders collected an item from a bucket and placed it back on an upright.
4. The riders collected an item out a bucket and put it in another bucket.
5. The riders collected an item from the upright at 'M' and walked between the poles and placed it in the bucket at 'H' then they walked towards 'E' and collected an item from the upright there and then walked through the poles across the school to the bucket at 'B' then turning towards 'F' to carry on doing this until they reached the end of the school at 'A'.
6. The riders did the above and also halted every time they walked through the poles.

To finish the session the riders started at 'M' did the 2 lots of uprights and buckets along that side, then at 'A',turned down the centre line and walked over the poles towards 'C'. At 'C' turned left and completed the last 2 lots of uprights and buckets getting to 'A' to finish.