Favorite Physical Education Activities, Games and PE Warm ups

Favorite physical education activities, games and PE warm-ups usually involve students actively interacting with others and games that ultimately require some goal to be accomplished. If it's fun trying to accomplish this goal and challenging but not to the point of frustration, it will be a great game for physical education class.

During the course of a school year, an Elementary Physical Education Unit plan should include a variety of physical education activities. No student likes to do the same things all the time . Students strengths lie in all different areas and its the job of a good P.E. teacher to give those students a chance to experience a variety of physical education activities where they may or may not excel. Games for physical education vary depending on what age group being taught and some games can easily be adapted for adaptive physical education classes. Kindergarten physical education games will be very simple while physical education games for elementary students in higher grades will become more goal oriented, cooperative, team oriented and even begin to involve some strategy. A good elementary physical education unit plan will cover several different areas and include individual, partner, small group and team activities. Warm ups will be important as will fitness, sportsmanship, working together with teammates, using different muscle groups, thinking outside the box in some cases, strategies, achieving success, accepting defeat, learning new ways of accomplishing goals and as an instructor creating lessons that are enjoyable.

A kindergarten physical education lesson plan for one week may look something like this:

Monday - Warm up ( fun walks- animal, locomotor etc), simple tag games with a element of make believe ( fairy god mother tag)

Tuesday -Warm up - (hula hoop and line tag put together equals race car tag) Parachute play

Wednesday - Warm up-( Safe spot tag) Partner fitness activities and simple stunts

Thursday - Warm up (Music warm-ups) Ball exploration

Friday - Warm up (Follow the leader type activities) bean bag activities - each kindergartner has a bean bag, then partner activities with bean bags.

These types of physical education activities set the first parameters in getting students ready to move to the next level as they grow. In the activities listed, the students are exposed to fitness, working with others, using their imagination, listening to cues, moving in space, playing with equipment and several other things that teachers will build on from year to year.

Therefore Elementary Physical Education lesson plans will be similar in some ways from one grade level to the next. Lesson plans should consist of constant progressions as students move from one grade to the next. Here I will give you some examples Games in Physical Education class:

1st Grade:

The Flowers and The Wind - Boys star out as the Wind Girls start out as the flowers at opposite ends of the gym. Girls pick a type of lower they would like to be. Girls go to other end of fthe gym near the boys. Boys try to guess what kind of flower they are. If they guess it, girls run back, boys chase girls. If caught, girl joins boys team.

2nd Grade:

Jewel Thieves - Pick two people to be IT..All other students (Jewel Thieves) spread out at one end of the gym. At the opposite end of the gym, spread out beanbags(jewels). Students(jewel thieves) try to run down and steal a jewel without being caught by ITS. If caught they must drop jewel if they have one and freeze until another teammate who is not caught takes them by the hand to safety(behind line) * cannot be caught when saving someone. Keep playing till all jewels are back to jewel theives end. Pick now Catchers.

3rd 4th and 5th Grade

Four Corner Steal The Pin - divide gym into four sections - put 3 pins at the back corner of each section and one hoola hoop in each section. Divide students into four teams, put each team in a section with a different color pinnie. Object of the game is to try to go into other teams sections and steal a pin and bring it to your section without getting caught while in their section. If you do get caught, go to their teams hoola hoop(jail). can only get out of jail if one of you teammates tags you out then free walk back. When one team is out of pins. Game is over, team with the most pins wins

As teachers are always looking for  new and exciting games for their Physical Education classes, the old favorites are often times what students really want to play over and over again.  So take on new ones but always mix in the old P.E. games as well.