Grade Level: 2-8
Equipment: Foam balls, pins, pinnies
Game Description: In Pinball, there are 4 teams: throwers, rollers, retrievers, and goalies. Each team has it’s own role. Using the basketball court lines, place about 10 plastic pins in a line in the middle. The goalie team surround those pins and will try to protect them from getting knocked over. The throwers and rollers stand on the sidelines of the basketball court with dodgeballs, and continuously throw to try and earn points knocking over pins. The retrievers are along the ends, always getting the loose balls that were thrown, and giving them back to the throwers and rollers. Play for a few minutes each round, or until all the pins are knocked over! Keep track of points, or don’t – your choice! Make sure everyone gets a chance to play all roles. Lots of throwing, blocking, running, rolling, and fun in this physed game.
Category: Gr 3
The Reaction Game
Grade Level: K-5
Equipment: Cones
Game Description: This is a quick and easy game that works on reaction and reaction timing. Players partner up or get into small groups and find a spot somewhere away from others – and place a cone down in the middle of them. The teacher (or leader) will then call out different actions (think like in “Simon Says”) and the players must complete those actions. If the teacher yells “GO!” then the players try to be the first to touch the cone to earn a point. And the game continues on and so on so forth… try switching partners after a certain time or score. Or try the alternate version as seen in the video!
Pin Galore Soccer
Grade Level: 1-8
Equipment: Plastic pins, foam soccer balls
Game Description: This is a great modification to the regular game of soccer that has proven to increase participation and motivation in the gym. Instead of the typical scoring into the other team’s goal, players will try to knock over the other team’s pins instead! If a player kicks the ball and it knocks down a pin from the other team, he gets to bring that pin (or pins if it’s more than 1) to his side and add them to his own team’s amount. The game goes until 1 team has all the pins or until the time runs out. Great lead-up soccer game for physical education.
Army & Navy
Grade Level: 2-8
Equipment: None
Game Description: This fitness or warm-up/running game is a calling game. The caller (usually the teacher) calls out these commands:
Army: Run to one side of the gym
Navy: Run to the other side of the gym
Hit the deck: Lie face down
At ease: Stand up
Try adding some rules such as “first one to Army gets a point” or “last one to Navy is out”. Players must be careful to wait for the “At Ease” command before getting up to run somewhere. Or add your own ideas to modify this quick physical education game to suit your needs. (Thanks to Justin for this game idea)
Dice Tiggy
Grade Level: 1-6
Equipment: Hula Hoops (4 different colors), pool noodles, dice
Game Description: Dice Tiggy is a unique game idea in which the teacher rolls a dice, and the outcome of the roll directly affects what is to happen next. First start with hula hoops – 4 different colors – spread out on the floor around the playing area (enough so there’s 1 for each player). Every player must start in a hoop. The roll of the dice matters in the following way: if a “1” is rolled, then the players in the BLUE hoops are it and will grab a pool noodle from the pile and go around tagging all the other players who had to exit their hoop once the roll was made. When players are tagged, they need to jump back into any hoop until everyone has been caught and are back into a hoop. If a “2” is rolled, then the players in the RED hoops are taggers. If “3” then GREEN. If “4” then YELLOW… If a “5” is rolled, then everyone does 5 quick jumping jacks or other exercise of choice. If a “6” is rolled, then the TEACHER is it! Play many rounds of this game for some good exercise and fun for all (Thanks to Brett Sinnett @commandokiddz for this game idea)
Fruit Salad
Grade Level: K-5
Equipment: Pinnies (different colors)
Game Description: Fruit salad is a tag game for kindergarten to grade 5. Give out different color pinnies to the taggers and ask the students to name fruits that are the same colors of the pinnies. If students get tagged by a certain color then they freeze into the shape of the particular fruit that matches the color. As a class you can decide upon different ideas of how to freeze into a particular fruit. The class also determines how to unfreeze the different pieces of fruit so there are lots of different kinds of actions and they can make up a new version almost every time.
Examples: Apple – Cut, Banana – Peel, Blueberry – Wash, Watermelon – Roll, etc.
Try it out with the VEGETABLE theme as well! Move and learn at the same time with the Fruit Salad physical education game.
(Thanks to Curtis Glasgow for this game idea)
Hit & Run
Grade Level: 1-8
Equipment: Foam Balls
Game Description: Hit & Run is a physical education warm-up or dodgeball lead-up game. The idea is very easy, and it really gets the heart rate up: First thing, students partner up. One person starts with the ball. The other person has no ball, and gets a 5 second head start, then runs away. After the 5 second head start the thrower can go chase. They throw as many times as needed until they make a hit. When a hit is made they switch roles. Important to emphasize safety and where on the body it is okay to throw and not to throw the ball. Other than that have fun with another awesome PE game idea! (Thanks to Tate Braeckel for this game idea)
Sideline Soccer
Grade Level: 2-8
Equipment: Foam Balls
Game Description: In sideline soccer, teams become goalies along their respective sidelines, using their best goaltending skills. Imagine the set-up as big lines of goalies stretching across the entire length of the sidelines – for each team. Meanwhile the first 5 players from each team enter the playing area from the front of their line to play some soccer (choose 2-3 balls to use all at the same time). Whenever a goal is scored on a team, just put the ball back into play and keep going – no need to stop the play for anything! After 2 minutes blow the whistle and the 5 players from each team that were on the playing area will go to the back of their teams line of goalies and 5 new players who were at the front of the line enter in as players. Great game to play to work on all the soccer (football) skills. Also a great game for large groups.
Tricky Dribbling
Grade Level: 3-8
Equipment: Basketballs (or soccerballs), plastic bowling pins
Game Description: Here is a quick game that helps players improve their dribbling skill (not just basketball, but could be done in soccer or hockey for example as well). Partners build their own ‘mini-course’ in whatever shape or line they’d like. Then they dribble through, inside, or around it, trying to NOT knock over the pins. Lots of different ways this basic idea could be turned into games of sorts, as can be seen in the video… all-in-all just another fun little way to spice up a routine skill and development.
Frogger (another great version)
Grade Level: 1-8
Equipment: Hula hoops, benches, scooters, mats, bean bags
Game Description: This version of Frogger has resemblance to the popular video game, except in this version, the HUMANS try to get across to the prize on the other side while the CREATURES try to tag the humans to send them back to the beginning. Incorporate different basic skills in this unique invasion/territory tag game and as usual, get moving!