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The Name of the Game
By Kathy Erickson
These cross-curricular, hands-on games are so much fun, students will be begging to play (and learn) all day long
The media continually floods teachers, parents and students with news of overweight children and adults. At my school, Mount Lebanon School in West Lebanon, NH, I've created many strategies that our classroom teachers implement to spice up their day and keep kids active and learning at the same time. Here are some games that allow hands-on, cross-curricular fun and learning.
Warm-up Cooperative Freeze Tag
Two taggers, each with a soft object in their hands, count to five to begin the game. The rest of the students are in boundaries, ready to start. When the taggers tag someone, two students are needed to free the frozen student. The helpers create a Circle of Friendship around the frozen person and touch hands. This circle then releases the frozen person. A helping student cannot be tagged.
Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb
A ball is sectioned by drawing lines with permanent marker to create four areas. In each area, the words noun, verb, adverb and adjective are printed. The class creates a circle or small groups of four or five kids. The ball can be bounced, thrown, served or rolled, depending on the skill levels. When a student receives the ball, wherever one of his or her thumbs lands is the focal area. If his or her thumb lands on verb, the student says a verb or can ask for help remembering what a verb means and then use his or her own example. This game can be played with any curricular area with any size ball.
Have fun!
Healthy Heart
Before the game starts, students cut out heart shapes that will represent healthy blood flow from organ to organ. Students then form three circles in a triangle formation, approximately 20 feet from each other. Each circle represents a system or organ such as the heart, lung or stomach.
In each organ, a person will hand out hearts to every person who enters that organ. Between the organs in the open space is a tagger you should name a bad habit such as "Junk Food." The students choose an organ they'd like to move into. If they successfully reach another organ, they're given a heart by the "Heart Handlers." If the students are tagged by Junk Food, they must give a heart to the closest Heart Handler standing in an organ. After about a minute of play, I like to add another piece of Junk Food or another bad habit between the organs and change the Heart Handlers. After another minute or so, depending on the size of the class, I add a third Junk Food, and so on. After the game, we talk about the effects of too much junk food in our systems and how our ability to move changes drastically with an unhealthy amount of junk in our bodies.
Physical Education Orchestra
The William Tell overture makes an excellent selection for this activity. Any orchestrated, large ensemble piece would work. The class or group is separated into three or more groups and each is given an action to perform at their directed time. One group may be jogging, clapping, waving their arms, juggling scarves, bouncing balls or doing any other body movement that they can start and stop quickly. The teacher or student then directs the sections to play at a given time in the musical arrangement. The arrangement can have one, two or all sections "playing" their instrument at the same time.
Archeological Dig
Paper "bones" are placed under brown sheets of paper all over the play area. There should be enough bones to complete one entire skeleton for each group of students (for example, if there are four groups, there should be four skeletons). Groups should have no more than four kids each. Working in relay format, the students go out for the "dig" one at a time and try to find the bones they need to complete their skeleton.
Younger students need a complete example to refer to while older students must create their skeleton from memory. If a bone the group already has is found, everybody in the group must do five push-ups. If the dig site is empty, the students in the group do five jumping jacks. The students continue until the skeleton is complete. If a group is having trouble, they can ask the teacher for small hints. Archeology can also be used to put other systems together using a similar format with a new creative scenario.
A Trip to the Bank
The pre-game discussion includes saving money and protecting and caring for belongings. Coins are then placed all over the floor. Students stand around the perimeter waiting with a container or "bank." The coins played with can depend on the age level. Each bank is protected and filled alternately by two students. While one student is picking up money, one coin at a time, the other is caring for their belongings. The students work to earn (pick up) their money by using their pinky and thumb, ring finger and thumb, middle finger and thumb, index finger and thumb or thumb and thumb. Fines – payable to the teacher – are imposed for poor behavior. The teacher in turn can remove money from any account that isn't being properly cared for. At the end of the time period, students sort and stack their money. Many addition, subtraction and classifying activities can take place at this point.
Hidden Math Tag
Students begin the game with a numbered card. Playing cards ace through 10 are the most useful. One card is used per student. The cards are shuffled and placed in a stack that includes number cards and aces for the number of taggers needed based on the group size. One tagger per eight kids is generally best. Each student is dealt one of the cards and turns it toward his or her chest. The students find a space within the boundaries, look at their card and wait. The aces are the taggers, which the other students do not know until the game begins.
When a student is tagged, he or she sits down and waits for a math helper. A helper must show the tagged student his or her card and the cards must be combined in some manner to create any chosen math problem whether it's addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc. For pre-school and kindergartners, number recognition may be the goal. After the math problem is complete, the two students exchange cards for a new experience or the student who needs to practice a certain multiplication table may need to maintain his or her card for repetition. After a given time period, the cards can be reshuffled and dealt again. This game can also be adapted to spelling words.
Kathy Erickson is the Physical and Adaptive Physical Education Specialist at Mount Lebanon School, West Lebanon, NH.
March, 2005, Vol.35, No.6
