Physical Education Activities and Games in the Gym For Elementary Children

Here are some of the best physical education activities and games in the gym for elementary children. As a long time PE teacher, I will share with you some of my favorite self made activities. They are activities that I learned along the way from a workshop or maybe and article or possibly even another teacher. They have been great Physical Education activities for elementary children and very easy to make.

The only thing you need for this activity is some rolled up newspaper. This is a true favorite of kids between Kindergarten and 3rd or 4th grade. They can relate to this game so well because an important thing is happening to them. They are losing teeth. They will all want to be the Tooth Fairy.

Get some newspaper, roll it up, use masking tape to tape around it so it stays and voila, you have your tooth fairy wand. Make two or three of them.

Choose one or two children to be it. . They are the taggers. Choose one or two others to be the Tooth Fairy. They are the un-taggers and get the wands. When someone is caught by a tagger, they sit down. When the Tooth Fairy comes with the wand and taps them on the shoulder they are free to play again. Very Smple. Very fun.

Set up a volleyball net if possible otherwise just divide into two sides of the gym.

You will need to make the ghosts. Ghosts are made out of old rolled up socks or newspaper and covered with pieces of old cut up sheet, then tied with string to make a ghost with a litte bit of a tail when thrown. You will need several ghosts. Fifteen or more would be nice. They fly nicely.

Start by saying that you want to get all the ghosts out of your house. Eaxh team stays on their own side of the court or as I like to say in their own house.  Give a time frame and let the children start throwing them. On the whistle all children stop throwing and run back to their line or designated spot. Count the number of ghosts on your side. Which ever team has the least amount of ghosts on their side wins the game.

For this game you will need to buy elastic. You will also need a couple of old towels to cut up and some masking tape or duck tape.

Make strips of elastic with two loops on the end so that a child can sit down and put the two loops on the the end of their shoes and have about 12 inches in between. You will need about 8 of these elastic pieces. Then cut old towels into 3" wide by 6" long pieces. Roll up and tape them in the middle. Give 8 students sit with the elastic pieces on their shoes and 5 or 6 towel pieces. Have them pull towel pieces back onto elastic and shoot them out like a bow and arrow. These children sit inside the center of the gym circle. Other children are on scooters. Children in the middle shoot out the stars(towel pieces). Children on scooters collect them and bring them back to the children in the circle. Switch shooters after a while.   There is not mush of an object to this game.  the children just like to see the stars go flying and the others have fun collecting and returning them.

Being creative and finding some activities for kids that are not necessarily the traditional ones keeps it fun for kids and fun for the teacher too.  Some of these kinds of activities would be great for student teachers or teachers looking for some differnet activities to do with their elementary students in Physical Education class. 

There are all sorts of things around that PE teachers can save and gather and use for make it yourself physical education activities for elementary students.  They are usually very interested and sometimes can even make this type of thing to play with at home.  So be creative and have fun playing.