Six Physical Education Games and Activities Your Elementary Students Will Love

The physical education games that are described in this article can be played at the beginning of gym class as part of a warm exercise, during the period wholly or partially devoted to games or physical education activities or at the end of class as part of cool down exercises.

In addition to the obvious benefits of providing good exercise, combating obesity and developing motor skills, the other skills that I wanted my students to demonstrate when they play these games are co-operation, sportsmanship and enjoyment.

Here are 6 examples of physical education games that my students and I enjoyed.

1. The Sheep And The Wolf

Formation: Two lines are drawn 20 to 30 feet apart. One student is the wolf and the rest are sheep. The sheep stand behind one line and the wolf stands in the center.

Aim: When the wolf claps his hands, the sheep try to run from one line to another without being tagged on the back. If they are caught, they become wolves. Only the original wolf can clap his hands to bring the sheep out.

2. Squirrels In The Trees

Have the class form a large circle and count off in three's. Have two students, one being a fox and the other a squirreloutside the circle.

Have the one's and three's join hands forming an arch (or tree) with the number two's in the middle as squirrels.

To start the activity, the fox chases the squirrel outside the tree. The squirrel runs into a tree to get away.

The squirrel in that tree must now run out of the tree and is chased by the fox. If the squirrel is caught, he becomes the fox.

Have all the squirrels squat down when they run into a tree so that all squirrels have a chance.

Have the other students that are trees change places with the squirrels so that everyone has a turn running.

3. Bounce Change

Have students form two lines (the red team and the blue team) behind two leaders about 15 feet apart. Each student in each line gets a number from 1 to the end.

Place a hula hoop at opposite ends of each team's line. Place a blue ball in one hoop and a red ball in the other hoop.

When the teacher calls out a number, the two students with that number must run to a hoop, get their team's colour ball and bounce it to the other team's hoop.

in the meantime, the leader of each team, has their team form and sit in a circle. Once the student place the ball in the other team's hoop, he returns and sits in his team's circle. The first team all sitting gets a point.

The game continues with the teacher calling out a different number.

4. Stretched Baseball

Play this game on a baseball diamond or line up 4 bases about 10 feet apart with the first base being about 25 feet from home plate.

Divide the class into two teams, one team at bat and the other in the field. Each player gets a turn at bat instead of 3 outs.

Rather than a baseball, you can use a beach ball or T-ball for primary grade students or kick a soccer ball. If the fielding player throws the ball past home plate before the runner reaches home, the runner is out.

Count runs just as in baseball.

5. Club Snatch

Students are divided into two teams and numbered. The teams face each other with a club or similar object placed in the center between the two teams.

The teacher calls a number and that numbered student on each team tries to grab the club and get back to their postion without getting tagged. If the student succeeds, he/she earns a point for their team. The team with the most points wins.

Note: You can give 2 points for getting back safely and 1 point for tagging the player with the object.


6. Tail Snatching

Divide the class into 2 teams and place them a fair distance apart. Give each team, strips of coloured cloth, a different colour for each team. Each player sticks the tail under their belt and is not allowed to tie or hide it.

At the signal, the teams run toward each other and attempt to snatch off each other's tails. Holding and fighting,etc. are not allowed.

After a few minutes the team that has the most of the other team's tails is the winner.

Feel free to adapt or change these physical education games according to the needs of your class. Just be sure that you and your students have fun, and if you want more just go to my website.