Incorporating games into high school gym class won't elicit groans if you can develop legitimate sports skills and have fun at the same time. These physical education games will add variety to basic sports knowledge and are easy to integrate into most curriculums. So, add some skill-building fun to your next high school gym class by incorporating one of these 25 ideas.
Warm-Up
- Yoga Cards - Teach students basic yoga poses then ask them to grab a yoga mat and make three full rows so everyone has room to spread out. Then ask each student to take a card off the deck. Cards contain a moderate to advanced version of a basic yoga pose. The student will need to demonstrate that pose to the class (or just do the basic one). Have students go down the lines and hold the pose for the number of seconds corresponding to the number on their card and then on to the next student — or have them all try their poses at the same time.
- Basketball Circuit - Each student will need a basketball to take with them through the circuits. Create as many stations as you need and divide your class into groups of five. Create a poster on each wall instructing students what is required for each station or a large banner. Ideas include: laying on the floor holding the ball extended overhead and crunching while trying to touch basketball to the ankles, dribbling around a series of cones, ten modified plank push-ups with basketball under alternating hands, five chest passes to a target, make a layup, or make baskets from the free-throw line.
- Tootsie Transfer - This is a good warm-up for the legs. Have students lay along the long length of the gym wall on their backs with legs up the wall. Have a large exercise ball that you put onto the feet of the first student. The challenge is to pass the ball using their feet and the wall. The ball must travel down the line and back, maybe two or three times. For added action have students, once they have passed the ball, get up and run to the end of the line to keep it moving around the gym.
- Ball Haul - Four to eight teams are spaced around the gym with one hula hoop per team. In the middle of the play area is a pile of balls (soccer, volleyball, basketballs and footballs). On go, one player from each team runs to the middle and gets a ball back to their hula hoop in the required fashion. Footballs can be thrown back to the team, basketballs must be dribbled, soccer balls must be dribbled along the ground, volleyballs bumped back to self, etc. After a designated amount of time, the team with the most balls is the winner.
