Grade level: 3-8
Equipment: Foam balls, Lilly pads, mats
Game Description: Popcorn Basketball is a neat mini-game to play which helps reinforce shooting technique. Players move from spot to spot taking shots into a large target. One player is inside the target area, continuously tossing the balls out like a popcorn machine.
- In the middle, set-up an exercise mat on it’s ends so that it forms an oversized square basketball hoop-like target.
- Place about 20-30 lilly-pads or poly spots on the floor as shooting spots. Place dodgeballs ontop of them.
- One player sits inside that target (will be unseen to the rest of the players). The rest choose a starting shooting spot.
- On the signal, players will go around shooting from different spots, continuing to attempt to shoot the balls into the target area.
- As players move from spot to spot shooting over and over again, the player in the target area keeps throwing the balls out.
- Game continues until you want to switch the player in the middle and start a new round.
I tried this with K-2 students. It worked well with the 1st and 2nd graders but not so much with the kindergarten group. I changed it a bit and it worked very well the next day for all grade levels. We used the same set-up but had the poly-spots on the floor double as bases. If you're on a spot you cannot be tagged. I assigned two taggers pool noodles cut in half and they chased the kiddos around when shooters tried to retrieve new balls. When a student got tagged they then would move to a corner of the gym where various exercise stations were set up. Since jump rope for heart is going on we had jumping stations.... first was a jump rope station where a predetermined number of jumps had to be completed before returning to the game, a station of hula hoops placed in a large circle that tagged players would have to two foot jump around (think hopscotch but in a circle), and a station with two floor balance beams that students would jump over a predetermined number of times. After completing a station the student returned to the basketball game. It worked very well for each grade level.