Grade level: K-8
Equipment: Scarf, flag, or object
Game Description: Steal The Bacon is a classic game. Two teams face off with the goal of trying to earn points each round by stealing the bacon in the middle and bringing it back to their own team without getting tagged. There is room for variation in this game as you see fit; perhaps add in some math equations where the answer to the problem is the number of the players who run!
- Form 2 even lines standing across from each other.
- Place a flag (bacon) in the middle of the two teams.
- Players on both teams must be numbered off at first…1…2…3…4…5…etc
- When a number is called out, the students who of that number will attempt to run to the middle, grab the bacon, and bring it back to their team to score a point.
- For example, if the number ‘3’ is called, then the number 3’s from each team hustle to the middle to grab the bacon.
- If the player who grabs it gets tagged by the other player before making it back home, then the tagger earns the point.
The kids enjoy this game but i’m having students run into each-other as they’re grabbing the bacon. Any ideas on how to avoid this?
hmmm good question, as it does tend to happen a few times during the game… you could try adding a rule that if a player falls to the ground, then his/her team automatically loses the point. that would at least force the students to be more careful..
Thanks good idea. I changed this into a three player game as well. 2 points if you get the bacon back without getting touched and the other two people can steal 1 point by touching the person who has the bacon. For some reason when there were three people they didn’t run into each-other as much.
A few suggestions:
If a student does not grab the bacon, but is tagged by the other player then their team wins the point.
If a any of the two students crosses the mid-point line marked by the bacon then the other team wins a point.
Have a squared area of play, teams on opposite sides as usual, but now the bacon must be taken to passed the lines where non of the students are lined up.
Another idea is having two bacons to steal then call out two numbers, one needs to take the Bacon from the middle and the other go to a hula hoop or area where they can receive it from their teammate before running back passed their team line, first one to cross wins.
I read your rules to Steal the Bacon to refresh my understanding of this great game. After reading the comment about “students run into each-other as they’re grabbing the bacon” I considered how to make the game a bit safer. To do this I used oversized cones (around 2′ tall) and place the bacon on top of the cones. (I have 6″ fat yellow sponges which I used for bacon). By not bending down to grab the bacon the students did not have crashes.
You can also have two items as the bacon, leaving one per team to race to. The team only goes after their own “bacon” and then it’s a race to score first. I do it with field hockey, soccer, lacrosse: whoever scores first wins the point. I also add in passes- the number called gets the ball, then has to pass to everyone standing on the sideline (they pass to the person on the sideline, the person passes back to the number, and so on until everyone has gotten a pass) and then they can go try to score a goal.
If you number the students from 1-8 on one side and then reverse the numbering for the other team, that may help reduce collisions. That is, instead of the #1 plays both running from the left end of the rows, one is running from the left side and the other from the right. This way, they are not arriving to the bacon from the same side.
The way we played years ago, the 1s were on opposite sites of the lines-the numbers went in order the opposite directions. Also, in pe, we used bowling pin for the bacon and there was also a bowling pin at the end of each line next to the #1s. When the number was called, the students first went to the opposing line to grab the pin and run it to their side before heading to the center to grab the “bacon”-as this was many years ago, not sure if ours were the original rules, or our pe teacher just added the extra running. We usually played it inside the gym on rainy pe days and we had 50-60+ kids.