The indoor Orienteering game
To prepare the boys in advance for orienteering, you should teach
them some basics of map reading. Orienteering depends heavily on
the competitor being able to read an orienteering map quickly and
accurately. One exercise that is useful can be done indoors  at
a meeting before the event. You need to start with with a rough
drawing of the meeting room. Add details like furniture, windows,
doors etc. It is very effective to draw it on a page of a flip chart
as you explain it to the boys. Prior to the meeting you should have
drawn the floor plan carefully on another page of the chart and
draw circles around specific locations on the floor plan (map).
Before the boys are in the room hide small prizes, or certificates
for prizes at each of the circled locations. As you produce a second
version, let the boys decide what important features should be on
the map. You may have to guide them into using features that you
have already selected on your first map. After discussing how the
map should be drawn, you flip the chart to your more carefully drawn
copy with the control locations, and explain the rules. The boys
should read the map to find the prizes. You may want to lay your
map on the floor to let them orient it to the real world (the room).
Show them that they can do this by using the features on the map
and thus do not need a compass to orient a map. For the next meeting,
expand your map to include the grounds near the building then perhaps
the whole neighborhood. Soon they will outgrow this map and be ready
for some real orienteering.
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