Gym Games to Play at School

The Blob

• The Blob is a game that is similar to the classic game of tag, but with a twist. It will get kids running around and keep them on their toes. Depending on the size of the class, choose one or two kids to start out as "The blob." Everyone else is free to run around. The blob is the tagger and anyone he tags becomes part of the blob. They join by holding hands with the tagger and they must now run together to tag the other children. The last child to avoid being tagged is the winner and starts as the next blob. By the time there are only a few children left, it becomes hard for the blob to run quickly because the chain of children holding hands is very long. For this reason, this game should be played in a small room that allows the blob to easily tag the remaining children, as opposed to a very large and open area. This game works well for children in pre-school through eighth grade.

Garbage Ball

• For this game, you will need to start out with a lot of materials, such as balls, socks, small boxes, empty water bottles and any other small item that is not too hard. Divide the students into two teams and position each team on one side of a dividing line. Split the "garbage" evenly between the two teams and at your signal, each team has to try to clear their area of garbage by throwing it into the other teams' boundary. When you tell them to stop, whichever team has less garbage on its side is the winner. The losing team has to collect and clean up all of the items from the ground. This game is appropriate for grades first through eighth.

Huggy Bear

• This is a cute game for little children. All you need to play is music and a group of little kids. When you turn the music on, all of the kids should dance and jump around the room. As soon as you turn the music off (and this should be a surprise), call out a low number, such as "Three!" The kids must scramble to form groups by hugging each other--in this case, in groups of three. Any children that do not find others to form the appropriate number group are out. Once they move to the side, restart the music and stop it again, calling out another number each time until there are only two children left. It is possible that no one will get out during a particular round, such as if you call out "Two" and there are an even number of kids. This is okay and you simply restart the music and try again. If you call out "One," each child must wrap his arms around himself and the last one to do so is out.