July 28, 2025 • 24 mins
Welcome PE Nation!
Today I want to explore five traditional PE games that need makeovers to increase student engagement, maximize participation, and ensure all students benefit regardless of athletic ability.
• Tic-Tac-Toe relay and other relay races need smaller groups of 3-4 students to prevent excessive standing around
• Hula Hoop Rock-Paper-Scissors games should include multiple pathways with fewer students per team
• Full-class team sports should be replaced with small-sided games (4-6 players) and modified rules
• Dodgeball raises concerns about targeting students, creating fear, and elimination - consider games with non-human targets instead
• Elimination games should be modified to quickly return students to play or completely remove the elimination aspect
Take care,
Dave
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5 Games that need a PE Makeover article
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello and welcome to the Supersize Fizzhead podcast.
My name is Dave and today Iwant to talk about five PE games
that kind of need a makeover.
They need some littlemodifications here, I think.
So let's get going Withoutfurther ado.
Here we go.
All right, welcome in myfriends from PE Nation.
(00:41):
First, I do want to talk aboutsomething I don't talk about
really ever, just as I'm lookingat the stats.
I'm not trying to brag, I'mtrying to thank everybody.
So my podcast has been listenedto in almost 100 countries,
which is just crazy really.
And yes, united States is thetop country, but I'm in every
(01:06):
continent, I think forAntarctica.
And again, this is not to brag,this is to thank you, because
sometimes I don't just stop andsay you know, thank you and tell
you who I am.
Again, if you don't know me, Ilive in Florida.
It's right off the Gulf ofMexico, it is.
I live in Fort Myers, florida,not too far from Fort Myers
(01:27):
Beach, and I teach in Estero,florida, which is not too far
from there, a little south.
So that's more about me.
I'm from Buffalo, new York, soI'm always rooting for the Bills
.
And again, if you live inanother country or anywhere else
, again, I thank you and it justblows me away.
People from nearby and far awaylisten to the show, so you know
(01:52):
.
Again, thank you, thank you,thank you, and if you want to be
a guest on the show, pleasesign up.
I will put the link in the shownotes.
And again, I don't do a lot ofinterviews, or haven't done a
lot of interviews lately, butI'd like to get back into that
as we go.
So if you want to share yourstory, share your program, share
anything about yourself, Iwould love to hear it,
(02:13):
especially if you could bringanything, even one idea, to our
PE community.
That would be worth it.
So again, thank you for thatand let's get moving here.
And, by the way, my dog iseating in the background.
My dog's name is Peppermint Iguess I never said that.
We call her Peppy and she's aShippu, a toy poodle shih tzu
(02:34):
mix.
She's very cute, she's mostlywhite and she's tiny.
She's like 10 pounds, 11 pounds.
So if you hear her eating inthe background, I apologize.
Okay, let's go on.
So today, again, I want to talkabout five games that might
need a makeover At least Iconsider makeover for PE to make
them better, to modify them toreach more students' needs and
(02:56):
to get more kids active andlearning.
So a little bit about when Igrew up.
I grew up in the 80s, as far asI mean, I was born in the
seventies, but I really grew upin the eighties.
And back then, you know, it wasgym class.
It wasn't even called PE class,it was like gym class and my
parents still call it gym classand some people still do, which
is okay, but I don't even have agym.
(03:16):
So definitely not gym class.
So, and you know, back then we,especially in middle school and
high school, we defined teams byshirts and skins.
We actually had to take off ourshirts, guys, and it was
mortifying really.
It was not great, it wasactually terrible, and
especially if you wereself-conscious or whatever.
(03:37):
They're just bad stuff backthen.
Right, but it was how it was.
In my memory, we playeddodgeball pretty much every day
Now we'll talk about dodgeballin just a little bit and I know
dodgeball is one of those topicsthat can go either way and
people are really passionateeither way, which we'll talk
about in a moment and teams werechosen by captains.
(03:57):
They kept picking until the lastkid wanted to cry.
Basically it was just badmemories for some people, right?
We actually in middle schooland I believe in high school, we
, like, we took showers in frontof each other, so there's no
privacy.
It was just different, right.
And so you know, times havechanged, thankfully.
My dad told us one time andwe're dying laughing that they
(04:22):
had to swim naked with eachother.
The boys swim naked with eachother.
The boys swam naked with eachother.
The girls had some kind ofbathing suit thing there, but it
was all about sterilization andchlorine and I don't know what
it was.
But you know, thankfully timeshave changed, right.
But you know, I think there'ssome games that really could use
a makeover.
As times change, we need tochange and innovate with these
(04:43):
games.
So here are five games thatneed a makeover.
So here's a boomer.
Here we go.
So the first one is thattic-tac-toe relay, and I love
tic-tac-toe.
I mean, who doesn't lovetic-tac-toe, right?
And in this game if you haven'tseen it, I think most of you
(05:03):
probably have students taketurns running down the court and
there's a tic-tac-toe board orhoops on the ground and kids run
down and put a jersey in thehoops, one at a time and try to
get three in a row, that kind ofdeal.
So you know, this goes alongwith really any relay race.
It should be fun and fast andactive, and it is.
Except when I'm looking atthese videos people post, it's
(05:27):
like two kids are running and 10kids are watching and cheering,
and so again, this goes withany relay race.
There should not be 10 kidsjust standing around doing
nothing at a time, I mean.
So you know, that's what I seewhen I see these videos, and
again it applies to any relayrace, let's.
And again it applies to anyrelay race, let's.
(05:49):
Let's change this so that it isless per group, right, and the
games that I play, where it'skind of a relay, where kids are
kind of trying to get likequote-unquote treasure or
something like that in hockey,basketball, whatever, I try to
have groups of like at the mostfour or maybe five if it's K
through one, k through two,maybe especially kindergarten,
because they get tired reallyfast and we're outside in the
heat.
So I'd say four or five pergroup at the most.
(06:12):
But with the younger sorry, theolder students I mean, I make
groups of like two or three.
I'd say three is the sweet spot, three to four, I guess, but it
depends on the grade level andhow many kids you have and that
whole deal.
But try to keep these short,right, these teams shorter.
And so how to modify this gameis just create extra games,
right.
Create, instead of one gamewhere a whole class is playing
(06:35):
one game, make multiple games 10kids on each team on red and
blue or whatever, have threeboards set up and have, you know
, four kids on each team.
And so I mean, really it's lesscheering and standing around
and more movement.
So that's really fortic-tac-toe relay.
That's what I want to see, andthat's number one, all right.
(07:00):
Number two is that Hulu hoop,rock paper scissors and again,
I'm always looking for good rockpaper scissors games so this
game took like the internet bystorm in I don't know nine, not
even nine, 10, 10 years ago,probably like seven or eight
years ago.
So students are hopping andthere's different levels of
hoops everywhere there's likepaths of hoops, everywhere
(07:21):
there's like paths.
And what I've seen was, when Ifirst seen this, I'm like am I
the only one that sees twopeople moving and 10 kids,
actually 20 kids cheering?
And because everybody's like oh, online they're like oh, this
is a great game.
It's a great game, it's awesome.
I want to play it tomorrow.
But there was again.
It's just like the tic-tac-toe.
There was very little movementfrom other students.
(07:42):
So in this game, two peoplefrom opposite ends of the gym or
whatever the courts, they hoptowards each other and they do
rock paper scissors.
Whoever wins keeps hopping andthen the next person in that
line tries to catch them.
Of the, I want to call it thelosing team, so that person goes
down the line if they lose anda new person comes out and the
goal is to make it all the wayacross.
(08:04):
And I haven't had parents andeven my principal reach out to
me like, hey, will you play thisgame?
And I'm like, no, I mean really.
I was like, well, let me modifyit.
So the way obviously and I'veseen people modify this the way
to modify it is to add morepathways, less kids.
It's just like the last gameless kids standing around
(08:26):
cheering and more kids moving.
So again, I did that one time Ithink I played it during a
field day, and that's what wedid.
We modified it with multiplepathways, again, four or five
per path, and they had to meeteach other either separate games
or just separate paths, andthey could all meet up.
So that's a good way to modifythe game.
(08:46):
Again, it's just like the firstone, just any relay race really
just needs to be more kidsmoving, less kids standing
around, and that's number two.
Number three is full class teamsports, and this is one of the
reasons why I left my formerschool.
My principal wanted me to teachmore team sports and less, you
(09:08):
know, skill based fun gameswhere more kids have the ball,
whatever object.
And it was just, you know, notto her standards, which is kind
of funny because she's not a PEteacher and she never was.
So, yes, I'm kind of bitter,but anyways, that's one of the
reasons why I left the school,because that's what she wanted
to see more of.
And I know and I teachelementary school, yes, middle
(09:29):
school, definitely.
More team sports, okay, highschool again, I don't teach high
school, I don't teach middleschool, high school some team
sports, and then, you know, someindividualized pursuits, right?
So, again, team sports aregreat, except what I see a lot
of is 11-on-11 soccer orbaseball or football or hockey,
kickball, where there's justhuge groups.
(09:51):
This goes back to the standingaround, right, I mean, I guess
you see a theme here.
There's a lot of kids standingaround and not a lot of kids
getting the ball or just beinginvolved, and the kids that play
travel soccer.
Let's just stick with soccer.
The kids that play travelsoccer, they don't pass to the
other kids that don't playtravel soccer, or the kids they
don't think are as good as theother, you know, skill wise, and
(10:12):
they, they're ball hogs, right,they don't get, they don't pass
the ball to anybody.
And then you know, the otherkids get very little exercise,
they get very little skilldevelopment, and this goes for
any game, right, that I'mtalking about of these team
sports.
So the way to modify it is thesmall-sided games.
This means teams of four to six, depending on the game space.
(10:33):
Objective we want to getstudents more touches on the
ball and work on basic skills.
So let me go back to soccer fora moment.
So this should be againsmall-sided games, should be
four to five or maybe six perteam.
Smaller fields modify the rules.
So maybe everybody has to touchthe ball before there's an
attempt to score, or the personwho scores.
(10:54):
You know, maybe they can't bethe next person who scores, they
have to set up the next goal,and you can do that in hockey
and football and anything really, but something where it's
smaller games and there'smodified rules, things like that
, where it can't just be thesame person scoring over and
over again.
You know, we even do that inCapture the Flag, where, if we
see the same kids scoring allthe time, a lot of times we play
(11:18):
Capture football where there'sonly one fault, one football and
you know, on each side so theycan only score like twice, so
they have to help set up or playdefense, something like that.
So any of these games where yousee kids ball hogging or you
know, you know I'd go over.
You know.
Talk about famous athletes.
You know, to me wayne gretzky.
(11:39):
I don't think there's anydebate that he's the goat, right
, he's the best in hockey ever.
I know Ovechkin just broke hisgoals record, but Gretzky has
more assists than anybody by farand that's why he has more
points by anybody, you know,compared to anybody, and that's
not gonna be broken.
He just has so many assistsit's unreal.
(12:02):
So he's setting up people toscore and that's one of the
reasons what made him great.
So, you know, talk about thatwith your students, but
definitely modify these teamsports, make them smaller, make
them more accessible to the kidsthat aren't, as you know,
they're not travel soccerplayers, they're not travel
hockey players or whateverInvolve everybody.
And that's what's going to maketeam sports better, these
small-sided games.
(12:28):
And that's number three, allright.
Number four is dodgeball, andyes, I know this is one of those
debates that's going to go onforever.
So, first of all, if you're ina different country, I know you
might have a different set ofrules or regulations and you
know, again, I'm not.
If you play dodgeball, youdon't have to.
I used to do this.
Actually, I used to hide that Iwas playing dodgeball, like for
(12:52):
a while, because I don't wantpeople to judge me.
So I don't judge anybody whoplays dodgeball.
I just try to give you a sideof the debate.
I guess against dodgeball.
So again, I loved dodgeball asa kid.
I've said this a few times, butI remember I'm not.
I mean, really, this is what Iremember At a fourth grade, like
sleepover camp it was for likeI don't know, a few days or a
(13:14):
week.
We played, we had this dodgeballtournament and I was the, and
these were the kickball, likethe red rubber rubber balls, the
ones in the movie dodgeball.
They were thrown at me by thisaggressive adult, really, and I
(13:37):
remember catching the ball.
He whipped at me and our teamwon the championship.
Because of it and in my mind,my fourth grade mind I still
remember being carried off thefield, people cheering for me.
I'm just kidding, that's notwhat happened, but it was
exciting, right, and you knowthat was the eighties.
That's when I grew up.
Right, I said that already.
I grew up in the eighties.
Dodgeball was like, felt like wedid it every day.
(13:58):
And when I started teaching andlike, started teaching PE in
2011, you know I, we playeddodgeball all the time.
I played against my kids, mystudents, me and my parents,
with the you know the Gatorskinballs, and we had fun.
Students enjoyed it.
Um, you know, I'd say no onegot seriously hurt, um, and but
(14:18):
the ball we're outside the ballcurves a lot and you know you
can't be 100% accurate on thosethrows.
You know we say like, oh, noheadshots.
And I still have people in mydistrict saying that, oh, we
play with no headshots.
It's like, well, how do youguarantee that, by the way?
So you know, I didn't know whatI didn't know back then, and
(14:39):
you know, as I started talkingto more teachers from really
around the world speaking of theworld, you know I just came to
realize that maybe it wasn't thebest practice.
So, first of all, our governingbody, shape America, states that
dodgeball is not an appropriateactivity for PE class.
You know school's been suedover dodgeball injuries.
I'm just again telling you thefacts.
(15:00):
It is an elimination game,which we'll talk about in a
minute for the most part, andkids as human targets is not
appropriate, which I'm going tobreak that rule in a moment and
I know I'm going to sound likewhatever.
But so once I noticed this, oronce I kind of thought about
this, I started taking a lookaround what is going on in my
(15:21):
class when I play dodgeball.
So, first of all, kids arecheating.
Kids cheat all the time indodgeball and they cheat all the
time at everything.
It seems like that's a wholeother cultural thing that I'm
saying, building a P culturethat I try to deal with all the
time, about playing fair andthings like that.
But I did notice, you know, thestronger kids were winning in
(15:42):
dodgeball.
They, you know, the not sostrong physically or even maybe
mentally students were scared.
I wrote an article about this,about my wife.
I didn't know this until, Idon't know, 10 years ago and
we've been married almost 20years.
You know she was scared.
She was hiding behind thebasketball pole, things like
(16:04):
that, when they played dodgeballwhen she was younger.
And you know I love dodgeballso much I didn't realize that
that, hey, not everybody lovesdodgeball and it's just the
intensity and the badsportsmanship, so things like
that.
It just, you know, I decided itwas time to phase it out.
So how did I modify this?
Well, again, I phased it out along time ago.
(16:25):
We, you know, we played a lot,then we played like a little bit
, then we played a little bitless and then we just kept.
I kept.
You know, maybe monthly weplayed it Then at the end of the
school year.
This is a long time ago.
At my current school we'venever played dodgeball.
I've been there four years.
It's going to be my fifth yeargoing into it pretty soon.
So, first of all, we play gamesthat you know children enjoy.
(16:48):
They kind of mimic dodgeballelements.
We have pins.
There's a great game I'veplayed for a long time
thephysicaleducatorcom Go tothat.
It's Joey Feith.
His game is called Prairie dogpickoff.
It's basically basically pinsand hoops and kids have to guard
.
Um, that's one of my staplesbecause it's kids aiming at pins
(17:09):
.
There have been times I playeda game called racket ralph I
don't know, we just called itthat because it was popular at
the time where kids build thebucket towers like bucket
pyramids and the fix it felixeshave to fix them when they get
knocked down.
So aiming at different targetsbesides students.
That's how we've modified it,or I've modified it.
Now.
(17:29):
Recently I have been playingGaga Ball.
I got a grant and I'm like,okay, I'll give it a try.
So this goes against the kidsas human targets thing, which I
get, but they do aim for theirfeet or ankles.
So it's not headshots, it's noteven close, and kids are moving
around.
The line moves very fast and,yes, it contradicts my stance a
(17:51):
little bit.
So I did soften my stance alittle bit and again, I'm just
trying to keep with the times.
But I just don't thinkdodgeball's the way to go, or
you know, just modify it andmake sure it's safe, fun, fair
and kids are moving.
So that is number four.
Number five are eliminationgames and that's what I started
(18:12):
to talk about with dodgeball.
So, man, there's some games Ireally really like that I had to
either modify or get rid of,because once you eliminate
students in games, obviouslythey're just sitting there or
standing there and they orthey're frozen for a long period
of time or something wherethey're out, and I've had kids
get really upset, like I meanlike really upset with them
(18:35):
coming out in games, and I don'tlike that at all, especially
younger students.
Or I have students that arethey're on the spectrum for
autism and if they get out, evenin Foursquare, they get upset
and I don't want that to happen.
So I make a you know, I makemodifications for these games
where the kids are not out forlong periods of time or they're
(18:56):
never out, they just get back inline, kind of thing.
So the first game was FreezeDance, and Freeze Dance, you
know I like doing it as awarm-up.
Like you know, we have tolisten, follow directions,
freeze when it's time, and thenwe just have fun with it.
Listen, follow directions,freeze when it's time, and then
we just have fun with it.
But when we have kids sittingout, especially kindergarten
(19:17):
kids sitting out, they get upset, some of them, or they're just
not moving in general.
So that's just not a good thing.
And so when I do freeze dance,no one gets out.
It's just like you know I gotyou or whatever, and just
pretend.
So that was definitely not agood thing.
I've also there's a game oh man,there's a game I really like.
It's called man Overboard andI've seen it called different
(19:37):
things, where a captain,something with a captain, where
you tell him to do differentthings, like I played a real
basic where it's like okay, goto the back of the boat, go to
the side of the boat, go to themiddle of the boat, things like
that.
And there was a parent thatcame out a long time ago.
He's like man, you just haven'trun suicides, we can call them
different names.
I'm like yeah, I guess so, butit's a listening game where they
have to go to a line and stopand not go over the line.
(19:59):
I might try to trick them andsay, okay, go to the back of the
boat.
I'm pointing at the back andI'm actually or have to
eliminate this.
You do have to eliminate in inthis game.
And there's a lot of again,little ones especially.
I don't play with the big kids.
That's like a kindergartenfirst grade game.
(20:20):
There's too many hurt, hurtfeelings and, um, you know, I
still play it once in a while,but I modify it where kids are
never out.
They're just like, okay, youget three chances and whatever,
and uh, we just play the gamefor fun.
So, and there's other games aswell.
As a matter of fact, as I'mthinking about this, our chute
(20:42):
ball tournament and our kickballtournament, both with fifth
graders, teams have to beeliminated in order to find a
winner and you know, ken, thatleads to hurt feelings.
I still do them and I talked.
Know, ken, that leads to hurtfeelings.
I still do them and I talk tothem about that, about how
they're going to be one classthat plays against the teachers
at the end of the year forkickball.
And with the shoot balltournament, you know if we're
(21:03):
going to do a final game wherethere's DJs and we turn the
whole it used to be my cafeteria, but now my new school just the
pavilion and the courts intolike an arena and have DJs and
announcers and halftime shows,like there has to be two teams
and one team has to win and oneteam is going to lose.
So I try not to do that at all,but in those cases I still do.
(21:29):
But anyways, to modify the games, I always give chances to get
back in the games.
So if you're playing a tag game, students can be rescued by
their teammates or freed bydoing an exercise, something
like that, or an activity.
They might have to go off tothe side and do cup stacking,
for you know, do a six stack anddown For free stands.
Again, I don't eliminate Foursquare, I make sure the lines
(21:51):
are very short and even when Iplay gaga ball, like the line's
very short, I put, you know, abunch of kids in and then you
know whatever, a few kids outand it just rotates really fast.
So you know, that's the wholething with elimination games.
If you're going to do it, makesure kids get back in really
fast within 30 seconds to aminute.
So again, that is eliminationgames, and that is number five.
(22:17):
And now it is time for yourcowbell tip of the day.
All right, everybody.
So your tip of the day is tothink about the games you play
and ask do they need a makeover?
This goes for any of the five Italked about today or anything
you play in your class in yourprogram.
(22:38):
Think of games that you knowmaybe they need a little help,
maybe they've.
You know they need to changewith the times, maybe they're
just not appropriate for the agelevel you're playing them at.
You know things like that.
So just take a look at yourprogram, that's all, and see if
this is something that resonateswith you or something that you
(23:00):
know.
Maybe a nerve I hit, I guess.
But you know, when I recordthese things it's about me as
well, like I'm recording thesefor myself as far as reminders
for myself, and it's not to saythat I'm perfect or anything
like that.
It's to remind myself andanybody else that you know we
need to take a close look at thegames we're playing and have a
purpose behind them and, youknow, make sure kids are moving,
(23:23):
learning and having fun.
So that is your cowbell tip ofthe day.
Thank you everybody for tuningin today.
I really do appreciate it.
As always, go tosupersizephysedcom for more
(23:43):
information or check out any ofthe links in the show notes,
where I have lots of freegoodies like free videos, free
PDFs, free e-books and otherthings also for sale at a really
low price if you want tosupport the show.
So with that, pe Nation.
Have a great day, week, weekend, in my case summer whenever you
(24:04):
listen to this, and let's keeppushing our profession forward.
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to the Supersize Fizzhead podcast.
My name is Dave and today Iwant to talk about five PE games
that kind of need a makeover.
They need some littlemodifications here, I think.
So let's get going Withoutfurther ado.
Here we go.
All right, welcome in myfriends from PE Nation.
(00:41):
First, I do want to talk aboutsomething I don't talk about
really ever, just as I'm lookingat the stats.
I'm not trying to brag, I'mtrying to thank everybody.
So my podcast has been listenedto in almost 100 countries,
which is just crazy really.
And yes, united States is thetop country, but I'm in every
(01:06):
continent, I think forAntarctica.
And again, this is not to brag,this is to thank you, because
sometimes I don't just stop andsay you know, thank you and tell
you who I am.
Again, if you don't know me, Ilive in Florida.
It's right off the Gulf ofMexico, it is.
I live in Fort Myers, florida,not too far from Fort Myers
(01:27):
Beach, and I teach in Estero,florida, which is not too far
from there, a little south.
So that's more about me.
I'm from Buffalo, new York, soI'm always rooting for the Bills
.
And again, if you live inanother country or anywhere else
, again, I thank you and it justblows me away.
People from nearby and far awaylisten to the show, so you know
(01:52):
.
Again, thank you, thank you,thank you, and if you want to be
a guest on the show, pleasesign up.
I will put the link in the shownotes.
And again, I don't do a lot ofinterviews, or haven't done a
lot of interviews lately, butI'd like to get back into that
as we go.
So if you want to share yourstory, share your program, share
anything about yourself, Iwould love to hear it,
(02:13):
especially if you could bringanything, even one idea, to our
PE community.
That would be worth it.
So again, thank you for thatand let's get moving here.
And, by the way, my dog iseating in the background.
My dog's name is Peppermint Iguess I never said that.
We call her Peppy and she's aShippu, a toy poodle shih tzu
(02:34):
mix.
She's very cute, she's mostlywhite and she's tiny.
She's like 10 pounds, 11 pounds.
So if you hear her eating inthe background, I apologize.
Okay, let's go on.
So today, again, I want to talkabout five games that might
need a makeover At least Iconsider makeover for PE to make
them better, to modify them toreach more students' needs and
(02:56):
to get more kids active andlearning.
So a little bit about when Igrew up.
I grew up in the 80s, as far asI mean, I was born in the
seventies, but I really grew upin the eighties.
And back then, you know, it wasgym class.
It wasn't even called PE class,it was like gym class and my
parents still call it gym classand some people still do, which
is okay, but I don't even have agym.
(03:16):
So definitely not gym class.
So, and you know, back then we,especially in middle school and
high school, we defined teams byshirts and skins.
We actually had to take off ourshirts, guys, and it was
mortifying really.
It was not great, it wasactually terrible, and
especially if you wereself-conscious or whatever.
(03:37):
They're just bad stuff backthen.
Right, but it was how it was.
In my memory, we playeddodgeball pretty much every day
Now we'll talk about dodgeballin just a little bit and I know
dodgeball is one of those topicsthat can go either way and
people are really passionateeither way, which we'll talk
about in a moment and teams werechosen by captains.
(03:57):
They kept picking until the lastkid wanted to cry.
Basically it was just badmemories for some people, right?
We actually in middle schooland I believe in high school, we
, like, we took showers in frontof each other, so there's no
privacy.
It was just different, right.
And so you know, times havechanged, thankfully.
My dad told us one time andwe're dying laughing that they
(04:22):
had to swim naked with eachother.
The boys swim naked with eachother.
The boys swam naked with eachother.
The girls had some kind ofbathing suit thing there, but it
was all about sterilization andchlorine and I don't know what
it was.
But you know, thankfully timeshave changed, right.
But you know, I think there'ssome games that really could use
a makeover.
As times change, we need tochange and innovate with these
(04:43):
games.
So here are five games thatneed a makeover.
So here's a boomer.
Here we go.
So the first one is thattic-tac-toe relay, and I love
tic-tac-toe.
I mean, who doesn't lovetic-tac-toe, right?
And in this game if you haven'tseen it, I think most of you
(05:03):
probably have students taketurns running down the court and
there's a tic-tac-toe board orhoops on the ground and kids run
down and put a jersey in thehoops, one at a time and try to
get three in a row, that kind ofdeal.
So you know, this goes alongwith really any relay race.
It should be fun and fast andactive, and it is.
Except when I'm looking atthese videos people post, it's
(05:27):
like two kids are running and 10kids are watching and cheering,
and so again, this goes withany relay race.
There should not be 10 kidsjust standing around doing
nothing at a time, I mean.
So you know, that's what I seewhen I see these videos, and
again it applies to any relayrace, let's.
And again it applies to anyrelay race, let's.
(05:49):
Let's change this so that it isless per group, right, and the
games that I play, where it'skind of a relay, where kids are
kind of trying to get likequote-unquote treasure or
something like that in hockey,basketball, whatever, I try to
have groups of like at the mostfour or maybe five if it's K
through one, k through two,maybe especially kindergarten,
because they get tired reallyfast and we're outside in the
heat.
So I'd say four or five pergroup at the most.
(06:12):
But with the younger sorry, theolder students I mean, I make
groups of like two or three.
I'd say three is the sweet spot, three to four, I guess, but it
depends on the grade level andhow many kids you have and that
whole deal.
But try to keep these short,right, these teams shorter.
And so how to modify this gameis just create extra games,
right.
Create, instead of one gamewhere a whole class is playing
(06:35):
one game, make multiple games 10kids on each team on red and
blue or whatever, have threeboards set up and have, you know
, four kids on each team.
And so I mean, really it's lesscheering and standing around
and more movement.
So that's really fortic-tac-toe relay.
That's what I want to see, andthat's number one, all right.
(07:00):
Number two is that Hulu hoop,rock paper scissors and again,
I'm always looking for good rockpaper scissors games so this
game took like the internet bystorm in I don't know nine, not
even nine, 10, 10 years ago,probably like seven or eight
years ago.
So students are hopping andthere's different levels of
hoops everywhere there's likepaths of hoops, everywhere
(07:21):
there's like paths.
And what I've seen was, when Ifirst seen this, I'm like am I
the only one that sees twopeople moving and 10 kids,
actually 20 kids cheering?
And because everybody's like oh, online they're like oh, this
is a great game.
It's a great game, it's awesome.
I want to play it tomorrow.
But there was again.
It's just like the tic-tac-toe.
There was very little movementfrom other students.
(07:42):
So in this game, two peoplefrom opposite ends of the gym or
whatever the courts, they hoptowards each other and they do
rock paper scissors.
Whoever wins keeps hopping andthen the next person in that
line tries to catch them.
Of the, I want to call it thelosing team, so that person goes
down the line if they lose anda new person comes out and the
goal is to make it all the wayacross.
(08:04):
And I haven't had parents andeven my principal reach out to
me like, hey, will you play thisgame?
And I'm like, no, I mean really.
I was like, well, let me modifyit.
So the way obviously and I'veseen people modify this the way
to modify it is to add morepathways, less kids.
It's just like the last gameless kids standing around
(08:26):
cheering and more kids moving.
So again, I did that one time Ithink I played it during a
field day, and that's what wedid.
We modified it with multiplepathways, again, four or five
per path, and they had to meeteach other either separate games
or just separate paths, andthey could all meet up.
So that's a good way to modifythe game.
(08:46):
Again, it's just like the firstone, just any relay race really
just needs to be more kidsmoving, less kids standing
around, and that's number two.
Number three is full class teamsports, and this is one of the
reasons why I left my formerschool.
My principal wanted me to teachmore team sports and less, you
(09:08):
know, skill based fun gameswhere more kids have the ball,
whatever object.
And it was just, you know, notto her standards, which is kind
of funny because she's not a PEteacher and she never was.
So, yes, I'm kind of bitter,but anyways, that's one of the
reasons why I left the school,because that's what she wanted
to see more of.
And I know and I teachelementary school, yes, middle
(09:29):
school, definitely.
More team sports, okay, highschool again, I don't teach high
school, I don't teach middleschool, high school some team
sports, and then, you know, someindividualized pursuits, right?
So, again, team sports aregreat, except what I see a lot
of is 11-on-11 soccer orbaseball or football or hockey,
kickball, where there's justhuge groups.
(09:51):
This goes back to the standingaround, right, I mean, I guess
you see a theme here.
There's a lot of kids standingaround and not a lot of kids
getting the ball or just beinginvolved, and the kids that play
travel soccer.
Let's just stick with soccer.
The kids that play travelsoccer, they don't pass to the
other kids that don't playtravel soccer, or the kids they
don't think are as good as theother, you know, skill wise, and
(10:12):
they, they're ball hogs, right,they don't get, they don't pass
the ball to anybody.
And then you know, the otherkids get very little exercise,
they get very little skilldevelopment, and this goes for
any game, right, that I'mtalking about of these team
sports.
So the way to modify it is thesmall-sided games.
This means teams of four to six, depending on the game space.
(10:33):
Objective we want to getstudents more touches on the
ball and work on basic skills.
So let me go back to soccer fora moment.
So this should be againsmall-sided games, should be
four to five or maybe six perteam.
Smaller fields modify the rules.
So maybe everybody has to touchthe ball before there's an
attempt to score, or the personwho scores.
(10:54):
You know, maybe they can't bethe next person who scores, they
have to set up the next goal,and you can do that in hockey
and football and anything really, but something where it's
smaller games and there'smodified rules, things like that
, where it can't just be thesame person scoring over and
over again.
You know, we even do that inCapture the Flag, where, if we
see the same kids scoring allthe time, a lot of times we play
(11:18):
Capture football where there'sonly one fault, one football and
you know, on each side so theycan only score like twice, so
they have to help set up or playdefense, something like that.
So any of these games where yousee kids ball hogging or you
know, you know I'd go over.
You know.
Talk about famous athletes.
You know, to me wayne gretzky.
(11:39):
I don't think there's anydebate that he's the goat, right
, he's the best in hockey ever.
I know Ovechkin just broke hisgoals record, but Gretzky has
more assists than anybody by farand that's why he has more
points by anybody, you know,compared to anybody, and that's
not gonna be broken.
He just has so many assistsit's unreal.
(12:02):
So he's setting up people toscore and that's one of the
reasons what made him great.
So, you know, talk about thatwith your students, but
definitely modify these teamsports, make them smaller, make
them more accessible to the kidsthat aren't, as you know,
they're not travel soccerplayers, they're not travel
hockey players or whateverInvolve everybody.
And that's what's going to maketeam sports better, these
small-sided games.
(12:28):
And that's number three, allright.
Number four is dodgeball, andyes, I know this is one of those
debates that's going to go onforever.
So, first of all, if you're ina different country, I know you
might have a different set ofrules or regulations and you
know, again, I'm not.
If you play dodgeball, youdon't have to.
I used to do this.
Actually, I used to hide that Iwas playing dodgeball, like for
(12:52):
a while, because I don't wantpeople to judge me.
So I don't judge anybody whoplays dodgeball.
I just try to give you a sideof the debate.
I guess against dodgeball.
So again, I loved dodgeball asa kid.
I've said this a few times, butI remember I'm not.
I mean, really, this is what Iremember At a fourth grade, like
sleepover camp it was for likeI don't know, a few days or a
(13:14):
week.
We played, we had this dodgeballtournament and I was the, and
these were the kickball, likethe red rubber rubber balls, the
ones in the movie dodgeball.
They were thrown at me by thisaggressive adult, really, and I
(13:37):
remember catching the ball.
He whipped at me and our teamwon the championship.
Because of it and in my mind,my fourth grade mind I still
remember being carried off thefield, people cheering for me.
I'm just kidding, that's notwhat happened, but it was
exciting, right, and you knowthat was the eighties.
That's when I grew up.
Right, I said that already.
I grew up in the eighties.
Dodgeball was like, felt like wedid it every day.
(13:58):
And when I started teaching andlike, started teaching PE in
2011, you know I, we playeddodgeball all the time.
I played against my kids, mystudents, me and my parents,
with the you know the Gatorskinballs, and we had fun.
Students enjoyed it.
Um, you know, I'd say no onegot seriously hurt, um, and but
(14:18):
the ball we're outside the ballcurves a lot and you know you
can't be 100% accurate on thosethrows.
You know we say like, oh, noheadshots.
And I still have people in mydistrict saying that, oh, we
play with no headshots.
It's like, well, how do youguarantee that, by the way?
So you know, I didn't know whatI didn't know back then, and
(14:39):
you know, as I started talkingto more teachers from really
around the world speaking of theworld, you know I just came to
realize that maybe it wasn't thebest practice.
So, first of all, our governingbody, shape America, states that
dodgeball is not an appropriateactivity for PE class.
You know school's been suedover dodgeball injuries.
I'm just again telling you thefacts.
(15:00):
It is an elimination game,which we'll talk about in a
minute for the most part, andkids as human targets is not
appropriate, which I'm going tobreak that rule in a moment and
I know I'm going to sound likewhatever.
But so once I noticed this, oronce I kind of thought about
this, I started taking a lookaround what is going on in my
(15:21):
class when I play dodgeball.
So, first of all, kids arecheating.
Kids cheat all the time indodgeball and they cheat all the
time at everything.
It seems like that's a wholeother cultural thing that I'm
saying, building a P culturethat I try to deal with all the
time, about playing fair andthings like that.
But I did notice, you know, thestronger kids were winning in
(15:42):
dodgeball.
They, you know, the not sostrong physically or even maybe
mentally students were scared.
I wrote an article about this,about my wife.
I didn't know this until, Idon't know, 10 years ago and
we've been married almost 20years.
You know she was scared.
She was hiding behind thebasketball pole, things like
(16:04):
that, when they played dodgeballwhen she was younger.
And you know I love dodgeballso much I didn't realize that
that, hey, not everybody lovesdodgeball and it's just the
intensity and the badsportsmanship, so things like
that.
It just, you know, I decided itwas time to phase it out.
So how did I modify this?
Well, again, I phased it out along time ago.
(16:25):
We, you know, we played a lot,then we played like a little bit
, then we played a little bitless and then we just kept.
I kept.
You know, maybe monthly weplayed it Then at the end of the
school year.
This is a long time ago.
At my current school we'venever played dodgeball.
I've been there four years.
It's going to be my fifth yeargoing into it pretty soon.
So, first of all, we play gamesthat you know children enjoy.
(16:48):
They kind of mimic dodgeballelements.
We have pins.
There's a great game I'veplayed for a long time
thephysicaleducatorcom Go tothat.
It's Joey Feith.
His game is called Prairie dogpickoff.
It's basically basically pinsand hoops and kids have to guard
.
Um, that's one of my staplesbecause it's kids aiming at pins
(17:09):
.
There have been times I playeda game called racket ralph I
don't know, we just called itthat because it was popular at
the time where kids build thebucket towers like bucket
pyramids and the fix it felixeshave to fix them when they get
knocked down.
So aiming at different targetsbesides students.
That's how we've modified it,or I've modified it.
Now.
(17:29):
Recently I have been playingGaga Ball.
I got a grant and I'm like,okay, I'll give it a try.
So this goes against the kidsas human targets thing, which I
get, but they do aim for theirfeet or ankles.
So it's not headshots, it's noteven close, and kids are moving
around.
The line moves very fast and,yes, it contradicts my stance a
(17:51):
little bit.
So I did soften my stance alittle bit and again, I'm just
trying to keep with the times.
But I just don't thinkdodgeball's the way to go, or
you know, just modify it andmake sure it's safe, fun, fair
and kids are moving.
So that is number four.
Number five are eliminationgames and that's what I started
(18:12):
to talk about with dodgeball.
So, man, there's some games Ireally really like that I had to
either modify or get rid of,because once you eliminate
students in games, obviouslythey're just sitting there or
standing there and they orthey're frozen for a long period
of time or something wherethey're out, and I've had kids
get really upset, like I meanlike really upset with them
(18:35):
coming out in games, and I don'tlike that at all, especially
younger students.
Or I have students that arethey're on the spectrum for
autism and if they get out, evenin Foursquare, they get upset
and I don't want that to happen.
So I make a you know, I makemodifications for these games
where the kids are not out forlong periods of time or they're
(18:56):
never out, they just get back inline, kind of thing.
So the first game was FreezeDance, and Freeze Dance, you
know I like doing it as awarm-up.
Like you know, we have tolisten, follow directions,
freeze when it's time, and thenwe just have fun with it.
Listen, follow directions,freeze when it's time, and then
we just have fun with it.
But when we have kids sittingout, especially kindergarten
(19:17):
kids sitting out, they get upset, some of them, or they're just
not moving in general.
So that's just not a good thing.
And so when I do freeze dance,no one gets out.
It's just like you know I gotyou or whatever, and just
pretend.
So that was definitely not agood thing.
I've also there's a game oh man,there's a game I really like.
It's called man Overboard andI've seen it called different
(19:37):
things, where a captain,something with a captain, where
you tell him to do differentthings, like I played a real
basic where it's like okay, goto the back of the boat, go to
the side of the boat, go to themiddle of the boat, things like
that.
And there was a parent thatcame out a long time ago.
He's like man, you just haven'trun suicides, we can call them
different names.
I'm like yeah, I guess so, butit's a listening game where they
have to go to a line and stopand not go over the line.
(19:59):
I might try to trick them andsay, okay, go to the back of the
boat.
I'm pointing at the back andI'm actually or have to
eliminate this.
You do have to eliminate in inthis game.
And there's a lot of again,little ones especially.
I don't play with the big kids.
That's like a kindergartenfirst grade game.
(20:20):
There's too many hurt, hurtfeelings and, um, you know, I
still play it once in a while,but I modify it where kids are
never out.
They're just like, okay, youget three chances and whatever,
and uh, we just play the gamefor fun.
So, and there's other games aswell.
As a matter of fact, as I'mthinking about this, our chute
(20:42):
ball tournament and our kickballtournament, both with fifth
graders, teams have to beeliminated in order to find a
winner and you know, ken, thatleads to hurt feelings.
I still do them and I talked.
Know, ken, that leads to hurtfeelings.
I still do them and I talk tothem about that, about how
they're going to be one classthat plays against the teachers
at the end of the year forkickball.
And with the shoot balltournament, you know if we're
(21:03):
going to do a final game wherethere's DJs and we turn the
whole it used to be my cafeteria, but now my new school just the
pavilion and the courts intolike an arena and have DJs and
announcers and halftime shows,like there has to be two teams
and one team has to win and oneteam is going to lose.
So I try not to do that at all,but in those cases I still do.
(21:29):
But anyways, to modify the games, I always give chances to get
back in the games.
So if you're playing a tag game, students can be rescued by
their teammates or freed bydoing an exercise, something
like that, or an activity.
They might have to go off tothe side and do cup stacking,
for you know, do a six stack anddown For free stands.
Again, I don't eliminate Foursquare, I make sure the lines
(21:51):
are very short and even when Iplay gaga ball, like the line's
very short, I put, you know, abunch of kids in and then you
know whatever, a few kids outand it just rotates really fast.
So you know, that's the wholething with elimination games.
If you're going to do it, makesure kids get back in really
fast within 30 seconds to aminute.
So again, that is eliminationgames, and that is number five.
(22:17):
And now it is time for yourcowbell tip of the day.
All right, everybody.
So your tip of the day is tothink about the games you play
and ask do they need a makeover?
This goes for any of the five Italked about today or anything
you play in your class in yourprogram.
(22:38):
Think of games that you knowmaybe they need a little help,
maybe they've.
You know they need to changewith the times, maybe they're
just not appropriate for the agelevel you're playing them at.
You know things like that.
So just take a look at yourprogram, that's all, and see if
this is something that resonateswith you or something that you
(23:00):
know.
Maybe a nerve I hit, I guess.
But you know, when I recordthese things it's about me as
well, like I'm recording thesefor myself as far as reminders
for myself, and it's not to saythat I'm perfect or anything
like that.
It's to remind myself andanybody else that you know we
need to take a close look at thegames we're playing and have a
purpose behind them and, youknow, make sure kids are moving,
(23:23):
learning and having fun.
So that is your cowbell tip ofthe day.
Thank you everybody for tuningin today.
I really do appreciate it.
As always, go tosupersizephysedcom for more
(23:43):
information or check out any ofthe links in the show notes,
where I have lots of freegoodies like free videos, free
PDFs, free e-books and otherthings also for sale at a really
low price if you want tosupport the show.
So with that, pe Nation.
Have a great day, week, weekend, in my case summer whenever you
(24:04):
listen to this, and let's keeppushing our profession forward.
Thank you.
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