Resources and Information on Games, Contests, and Relays

http://www.funandgames.org/games/GameHomePage.htm

This website offers several ideas of games and activities for children, teens, and even adults. The website has game ideas for almost any situation. There are ideas for ball games, active team games, relay race games, and quieter games. One example of a game I thought was interesting was called Mummy! The goal of this game is to wrap one of your team members with toilet paper so they look like an egyptian mummy. Points are awarded to the best looking mummy. I think this game could be incorporated in a relay race, which would make it so much more fun!

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/pe/contents_games.htm

This website offers a great deal of information for instructors or leaders working in a gymnasium. It offers several games that can be used with a variety of sports equipment. Games such as capture the flag, bean bag scrabble, balloon soccer, and dodgeball skittles are just some of the games this website provides information for. A game I thought could be very beneficial to playing with young children is called the Passing Skills game. This simple activity involves passing a ball from one line of children to the next. To make this activity more challenging you could move the two lines further aport increasing the distance between the two lines. Every child must have the chance to throw and catch the ball. This activity would teach children how to properly throw a ball and also encourage them for the adjust there force of throwing the ball. So for example how hard the children need to throw the ball for it to each the other side. 

http://spoonful.com/family-fun/sports-athletic-games/relays-races

This website offers ideas of games and relays for preschool and school aged children. You are able to find resources and information on games for the holidays, for the type of game, for the number of players, and even themed games and relays. A game that I found very interesting is called Penny Spoon Race. All you need is a bowl of pennies and large spoons. Each player gets a spoon full of pennies. Once the players are told "go" they race towards the finish line. If any pennies fall they must stop and pick them up. This game may sound simple but it's a test of grace and speed. 

Self-Direction Game Inventing

On Monday we were shown examples on how self-direction can be incorporated into playing games and activities. Our task was to invent games at six different stations. The first game my group invented was a beanbag tossing activity. The equipment available was about six cones, a bucket of beanbags, and a bucket of elastic straps. Right away my group knew exactly what to do with the beanbags and cones, but it took some extra thought into how we were going to incorporate the elastic straps. The beanbag tossing activity was a little more challenging then your normal beanbag toss. What we did was tie some of the elastic straps around 3 cones to make a triangle target, and tied some elastic straps around 2 cones. The 2 cones made a very tight and thin rectangle as a target. The rectangle was the hardest target to get a beanbag into. I would say that the appropriate age group intended for this activity would be 6 to 11 year olds. The rules were that you needed to make sure that you were throwing behind the designated line, and you were not permitted to cross the line until all of the participants have thrown all of their beanbags. This rule is very important because that way no child will get hit. You may play this game as long as you would like. There is no official stoppage of the game but it is good to remember to set a goal of maybe how many times you actually get a beanbag in a target. The rules of the game were very simple, which I feel is best when dealing with young children. Some modifications that have come to mind since would be to change the levels of where you throw. You could designate 4 different levels instead of just having one level to throw from. This adds a little bit more of a challenge to the game. You could also modify how you are supposed to throw the beanbags. Instead of throwing normally you could throw backwards or throw from under your legs. This makes the game goofier and adds more fun! Skill wise the children would be working on several types of skills. They would be working on their hand-eye coordination, throwing, aiming, adjusting force for how far they needed to throw the bean bags, and respect. My group and I worked pretty well together when it came to deciding on the type of game we were going to invent. It was awesome that we were all on the same page with the beanbag idea. 

The second game my group invented was a miniature floor hockey game. The equipment available was 6 floor hockey sticks, 1 floor hockey ball, and 6 hula-hoops. My group decided to use the hula-hoops as goal posts for the nets, and then use the sticks normally for a miniature floor hockey game. We broke up into two teams, and each team had three players. The appropriate age group intended for this game I think would be 6 to 9 year olds. The rule of the game was that you had to walk the ball through the net instead of shooting into the net. This rule was very important so that no one could get hurt and it was fair for both teams. A modification that we could do to this game is to make a rule that all the players must touch the ball before you can score. This modification would allow all the participants to be involved. The skills that this activity works on are teamwork, leadership, and respect. For this station the only thing that I disliked about our game invention was that we didn’t really think outside the box but this game was a bit more competitive then the other games we had invented on Monday, which I really liked.