20 Simple Ideas for Kindergarten P.E. with Minimal Equipment
1. STAR JUMPS. No equipment. All class. Warm-up: Say ‘Arms out!’ and jump, landing with your arms and legs out like a star. Shout ‘Arms in!’ and jump, landing so you are stood up straight with your arms at you side. Do this with the kids a few times, and then say they have 10 seconds to do as many star jumps as they can. After you’ve given them ten seconds, ask a few students how many they did. This makes things competitive, and you can now get all the kids to try again and see how many star jumps they can get in another 10 second period. This time round they’ll start doing super-fast star jumps as if their lives depended on it. Very good exercise to wake up sleepy students! Oh, and don’t be surprised if the kids go from saying they managed to do 10-12 star jumps in 10 seconds to eventually topping each other by telling you they did 100+!
2. FUNNY RUNNING. No equipment. All class. Warm-up: Have all the kids sit nicely against a wall. They then have to run to the opposite wall in a certain specified way. You can tell them to run as tigers, as elephants, as birds or whatever else you can think of. As snakes is particularly good, as they then have to commando crawl across the gym. You can also have them walking backwards, walking like robots, walking sideways like a crab or dancing across Gangnam-style.
The main thing here is that they aren’t allowed to stand up and start moving until you count down ‘3, 2, 1, GO!’. You can have fun with the kids by not saying the right number and so making them do false starts. If I see any kids who have started to stand up before I’ve counted down, then I’ll usually make everyone sit nicely before starting the countdown again. The more you build up the anticipation of what they are about to do, the more they’ll jump wholeheartedly into doing it.
3. TEEPEE-PENCIL. No equipment. All class. Warm-up: I almost always use this as the last activity of the class. All the kids stand up and are free to walk around the gym. When you shout ‘teepee!’ they have to put both their hands together above their heads and then not move. If you shout ‘pencil!’ then they have to stand with their arms at their side.
Slowly build in more commands lesson by lesson. I also used ‘ball!’ where they had to curl up in a ball on the floor, and ‘tree!’ where the kids had to stand with their arms out like tree branches. If I shouted ‘bridge!’ then they would have to make an arch with their body, keeping their hands and feet on the floor. If you shout ‘fall!’ or maybe ‘starfish!’, then they have to flop flat on the ground.
This could be run as an elimination game, but I personally used it as a chance to give out points just before the end of class to the students who responded the quickest to the commands. You can get the class to work up quite a sweat if you go back and forth between commands like ‘teepee’ and ‘starfish’, as they’ll be standing up then flinging themselves down again and again!
4. PAIRS: No equipment. All class. Game: Choose one student or use a fellow teacher to demonstrate what you want the kids to do. Everyone has to find one other student to stand back-to-back with and then link arms with that other person.
You then shout ‘Change!’ and start counting down from 5. Within those 5 seconds, all the students have to find a new person to stand with and link arms. Anyone who doesn’t find someone is eliminated and has to go and sit down. With younger kids you don’t need to put any more rules in and they’ll be happy to run around screaming looking for someone to link arms with.
With older kids you can introduce further rules about who they have to find to link arms with. You can then change things up every round by specifying that they are only allowed to link arms with (for example) someone of the same/opposite sex, or from the same/different class.
E.g. ‘Okay this time stand boy-boy or girl-girl, change! 5,4,3,2,1. Steven, you’re out! Okay, this time stand girl/boy, change! 5,4,3,2,1.’
5. JUMP JUMP. No equipment. All class. Game: All the students stand against one wall. The winner is the first person to touch the opposite wall. They can only move towards the winning wall in certain ways.
If you shout ‘1 jump!’, the students can take 1 jump towards the winning wall. If you shout ‘1 step!’, then they can take one big step towards the wall. You can vary up the number of steps or jumps they are allowed to take.
Every lesson I have a different word which acts as my ‘monster’ word. If I say the ‘monster’ word (for example it might be ‘Mike!’), then all the students have to run back and touch the wall where they started from originally. If I can tag any of the students before they reach the wall then they have been caught by the monster and are out. I usually don’t bother to actually eliminate any kids when I say the monster word, but just pretend to chase them. They love being chased and will shriek like the hounds of hell are at their heels! You can also fake them out by saying words that start with the same letter as the monster word (for example, instead of ‘Mike’, I might say ‘Mmmmmmmm MONKEY! Mmmmmmmm ME!). If a student runs when you haven’t actually said the monster word, then they have to start from where they ran back to as the game continues. Some kids will only take a few steps back before they realise their mistake, but some will run all the way back screaming before they realise you didn’t say the monster word.
Any child that is caught taking more than the number of jumps or steps you said has to go back to the beginning and start over again. If you have students who are always edging forward or taking more jumps than they should, you can shout the monster word. Because they’ve cheated, they’ll be nearer to the winning wall and closer to you, so you can tag them out of that round of the game.
6. MONSTER. No equipment. All class. Game: All the students sit down against one wall. They have to run across the gym and reach the other wall and then sit down. One or two students are chosen by the teacher to be monsters, and they stand up in the middle of the gym. The teacher says ‘go!’ and all the students try and run past the monsters and reach the other side. If a monster tags a student before they can reach the other side and sit down, then the student is eliminated from the game.
I find that if you let eliminated students become monsters too, you’ll quickly find half of your class trying to get caught on purpose as they want to be made into a monster! This kind of ruins the game. Also, if you have too many monsters in the middle then you can’t police things, and you’ll find that there are some students who don’t want to be made into monsters EVER, and who will therefore lie about being tagged unless you see it happen and enforce the rules.
With only having two or maybe three monsters in the middle, the teacher can act as a referee and call out any student they see getting tagged.
If you have them, you can give the monsters a foam stick or something similar to use to tag other students.
7. RUNNING ELIMINATION. A whistle. All class. Game: The class stand against one wall. You say ‘Ready, Go!’. The class have to run and touch the other wall before you blow your whistle. You can run this like a ‘beep test’ and gradually increase how quickly you whistle.
When I say ‘Ready, go!’ I point to the wall they have to run to. Sometimes, when the kids are halfway across I’ll point at the other wall and say ‘Ready, go!’. This means all the kids now have to stop running and quickly change direction to run back to the wall they just came from. It’s pretty funny if you do this a few times in a row! This is also a good way to keep the slower kids in the game for a few more rounds.
If a student doesn’t make it to the wall before you blow your whistle then they are eliminated. Keep doing this until you have a few kids left, they are the winners. Ideally by the time you finish, the kids who win should be drenched in sweat and barely able to catch their breath because they’ve been running so much.
8. ON YOUR MARKS. No equipment. All class. Game: All the kids stand against one wall. You say ‘On your marks!’ and they get into the first running position (on all fours). You say ‘Get set!’ and they lift their knees off the ground, ready to start running. You shout ‘Go!’ and they have to race to the other side of the gym and back. Points to the quickest runners, and watch out for the kids who only run halfway then try and turn round and run back!
9. SPRINT RACE. Some cones (and a drum if possible). 2-3 students. Game: Have all the kids sit along the side and choose two or three students who are sitting nicely. They stand in a line. Place a cone per student halfway across the gym, and then a drum per student at the far end.
When you say go, they have to run to their cone and then run back to where they started, then run past the cone to the far side of the gym where you have placed a drum. They have to hit the drum five times (and count out loud as they hit it), and then run all the way back to where they started from. First person to do this wins and gets points. If you don’t have a drum then you could perhaps have the students jump five times (and count out loud) before they can run back.
A variation: Have the students race by weaving in and out of cones from one side of the gym to the other.
10. FETCH. Some balls. 2-3 students. Game: It works with dogs and it works with students too. Get students up and have them stand in a line. Choose some different coloured balls, one for each student. You throw the balls and then the students have to run and grab their colour, then bring it back to you. First person to do this is the winner. This is particularly funny with very bouncy balls or big yoga balls which will ricochet around the gym!
11. WALK WALK RUN. No equipment. All class. Game: Best for very young kids (2-3 years old). Have them stand at one side of the gym. Start walking to the other side of the gym saying ‘Walk, walk, walk’, then at a certain point shout ‘RUN!’, at which point everyone runs to the other side of the gym and touches the wall. Sounds very simple but they love it!
12. TOUCH SOMETHING. No equipment. All class. Warm-up: The teacher says ‘touch something…’ and then whatever they want. E.g. ‘Touch something blue, touch something green, touch something big’. You can also work in ‘touch someone whose name starts with r-r-r’, the child in question will then get mobbed by all the other kids in class. Good to practice phonics a bit with them too.
13. SPEED THROWING. Balls. 2 students. Game: The teacher gives one of the two students a ball and stands them a short distance apart. The students then have one minute to make as many throws to each other as possible. If they drop the ball then that throw doesn’t count. Once they have set a target, choose another two students who are sitting nicely to come up and try and beat that score.
14. BOWLING. A big yoga ball and some plastic bowling pins. One student at a time: Choose a student who is sitting nicely. The student gets to roll the yoga ball at the bowling pins and sees how many they can knock over. I usually do this as a competition between two groups of students (based of classes or boys/girls etc).
15. HOOP RUN. Plastic hoops of different colours. All class. Game: Another simple game for very young students. Scatter hoops on the floor. You shout a colour and the kids have to run and stand in the hoop that is the same colour.
16. 1,2,3! Plastic blocks of different colours. All class . Game: Similar to the game above, put together different numbers of blocks and place them round the gym. The students then have to run to the place that has the right number of blocks when you shout it out. E.g. you say ‘3!’ and they have to run and touch the stack of 3 blocks. There’s no need to do this as an elimination activity usually, as the very young kids will be quite happy doing this and just diving on top of the blocks.
17. RELAY RACE. A ball. All class. Game: Divide the class into a few teams and have them stand in a line. Each team gets one ball which they have to pass down the line. When the person at the back of the line gets the ball they run to the front and the process starts over. This continues until every member of a team has ran to the front (the person who was at the front at the beginning should now be at the front again). The first team to do this is the winner. You can have them passing the ball over their heads or between their legs, or a mix of the two. With rowdy classes you can have them doing the relay while sitting down, which will keep them in a line and under control a bit more.
18. CHARIOT RACES. Big toy cars and plastic hoops. 4-6 students. Game: Choose some students who are sitting nicely. Divide them into pairs. One member of the pair sits inside the toy car (the cars I’m referring to are foot-powered kind of like the cars in The Flintstones). They hold a hoop out in front of them. The other student in the pair stands inside the hoop. The kid in the car is the chariot driver, and the kid in the hoop is the horse who actually does the running. The teams then race from one side of the gym to the other and back (you can lay out a race track with cones if you like). You can also put something at the far end of the gym that the chariot driver has to pick up before they can head back (like a ball or bean bag).
A simpler version of this can be done with just the drivers pedalling to the other side of the gym and back.
The kids love this activity and it’s a good ‘treat’ game to play to reward them for behaving well.
19. RIVER JUMP. Some sticks. 1 student at a time. Game: Put two sticks on the floor about half a metre apart. Tell the students this is a river, and they have to jump from one side to the other. Once they all do this you can move the sticks a little further apart. Kids that don’t make it across fall in the river and are eliminated from the game. Really young kids (2-3) love this, though with the younger students you’ll find that to start off with they just do a little jump on the spot, then step over the sticks!
20. WHEELBARROW RACES. No equipment. 4-6 students. Game: Get two or three pairs of students up. One student is the wheelbarrow and has to walk on their hands while the other student in the pair holds their legs. Race to the far side of the gym and back.
Taken from Big Blog of Teaching Ideas
