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Objective: Adapted from the game In the Zone (Hughes, J. 2002. No Standing Around in My Gym. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics), Catch Me if You Can emphasizes teamwork and strategy through a high-energy passing and catching manipulative game. -
From my book PE2theMax II: Stepping up the “Game” in Physical Education, the game of Action Packed provides a great way to introduce and/or integrate multiple fitness and social activities that will allow students to demonstrate competency in fitness skills, in the attempts to also enhance persistence, team- work, and camaraderie. -
Objective: To reinforce spatial awareness, fleeing and dodging, throwing for accuracy, and hula hoop manipulatives in the wacky, action-packed game of Hooper’s Hulas. -
From my book PE2theMax II: Stepping up the “Game” in Physical Education, in the game of Going Cuckoo, students must cooperatively and quickly work together to get all of the misplaced Cuckoo eggs safely to their mother’s nest, while reinforcing throwing, catching, hand-eye coordination, and cardiovascular fitness. Scenario: There are two common kinds of cuckoos in North America, the blue-billed cuckoo and the red-billed cuckoo. Bird watchers have observed and learned that cuckoos do not like to care for their young. The sad truth is that cuckoos actually lay their eggs in another bird’s nest and leave them to be hatched and cared for by another bird. To avoid the risk of extinc- tion, a group of bird watchers have decided to team up and find the misplaced cuckoo eggs and safely transfer all the fragile eggs to their natural mother’s nest. -
Objective: to provide students various ways to develop and improve aim and accuracy while learning to manipulate various throwing objects. -
Objective: This is a fast-paced aerobic game that focuses on the movement competencies of dodging and fleeing. -
Objective: A strategy-based game where teamwork, decisiveness, and communication skills are critical to win it ALL or walk away with NOTHING (accept having fun with your friends and getting active)! -
Objective: This game improves bowling for accuracy while placing students in nonstop defensive situations. -
Objective: Students will practice and improve bouncing for accuracy, spatial awareness, defensive strategy, and cardiovascular endurance in the high- energy game of A Drop in the Bucket. -
This is an excerpt from my book PE²: Double the Physical + Double the Education = Double the Fun. Included are some additional teaching tips to assist you in time management and grouping strategies. These strategies are especially helpful if you teach large classes of 50+. -
Each class that arrives to physical education must enter the gym, get into personal space, and await the teacher’s instructions. A student “caught being ready” (sitting still, listening, etc.) is chosen every class to go to the stage to be the Stretch Captain. Variation/Option: since most students want to be chosen, I’ve added a new stipulation in order to be selected as the Stretch Captain. In this variation I ask “who knows their multiples of 4 or 6 or 8, etc. This limits the number of students who raise their hands and challenges those students who do not know their multiples to learn them so that they may be chosen for a future class. The Stretch Captain will read and lead each stretch from the list of stretches, while counting to 10 or whatever multiple is chosen times 10. Upon completion, the Stretch Captain will roll the fitness die to determine what fitness activity all students must perform. Note: the teacher can supplement any fitness activity if a fitness die is not available. This is a great incentive for entering the gym correctly because EVERYONE wants to be the Stretch Captain! -
OBJECTIVE: EcSTATIC Bowling is the advanced and more competitive version from the original game of EcSTATIC. Teams will race to complete the cooperative bowling and static balance challenges. AND as a bonus, holding static poses is great for building core strength! -
Helpers of the Month Here is a fun incentive I use with my 5th graders who excel and demonstrate great attitudes in physical education. Helpers of the Month assist me in promoting behavior expectations to other students. This incentive utilizes 5th graders as physical education helpers in daily setup, cleanup, errands, and other classroom management needs. 5th Grade Student Teachers Here is a fun incentive I use with fifth graders who excel and demonstrate great attitudes in physical education. This program utilizes fifth graders as student teachers at various physical education stations for kindergarteners. -
For decades, there has been a search for PE activities that blend academic and physical elements. With time being a huge factor, a balance must be achieved; physical intensity must not be diminished by time spent on verbal instruction. Could the answer to this balance be easy? Easy as PIE? INNOVATIVE WAY YOUR P.E. PROGRAM CAN: •Promote reading and math •Reinforce classroom content •Challenge students physically and mentally PHYSICAL: Students use lots of high energy locomotor skills, running, skipping, leaping etc, to find assigned letters and in the span of a few seconds use fine motor skills to place the ball on the word building tray. Correct throwing form and proper basketball shooting technique may be practiced as students must throw balls into the unique mixer goal. ACADEMIC: Beginning readers get extra practice in letter recognition, spelling high frequency sight words and word building. Established readers use subject specific task cards to reinforce classroom concepts in areas of English, science, nutrition, health, etc. The math concept of fractions is utilized as “just keeping score in a game.” COLLABORATIVE: Students work in teams and every team member has a role to play. Each team has a captain, a point guard and several letter “ninjas”. Teams compete for points by spelling words quickly and must work together. The elements of cooperation and competition are extremely effective in keeping students motivated and on task. The inventor of the game, Carol Cranford is a retired physical education specialist from Alabama. "Thank you for checking out this game. It is now a staple item in my physical education curriculum because my students love it". JD Hughes -
Objective: To elevate dance appreciation through unique, fun, and exciting rhythmic dance skills with the attempt to alleviating any preconceived negative feelings concerning dance. -
These are a few hands-on tools I use to engage students in the learning process. I simply tie them into a lesson/game that fits well with the tool I'm using. Although there is a small investment involved to add these products to your equipment, it's interesting to see how captivated students are when they can actually see and feel the effects of an occluded artery, or how much sugar and fat are in the foods they eat. Students also are amazed at the fat chunk and that although it weighs the same as muscle, it takes up twice the space, plus it is gross to feel. The Pack of Toxic Tar Display contains two removable cigarettes filled with gooey "tar." The tar in these two cigarettes represents the amount of toxic tar that a smoker receives from smoking one pack of cigarettes. -
Nonverbal cues are a great time management tool I often times implement in physical education to avoid disrupting the flow of learning when instruction is being given. Implementing the nonverbal cues allows me to quickly address and alleviate many problems instead of stopping the class, addressing the problem, and re-starting the class. For example, I’m demonstrating a skill and I notice a student who is talking to a friend; instead of calling them out and disrupting class, I simply make eye contact with that student and do the “cut it out” cue without hindering my demonstration. -
Virtual Field Day
The Virtual Field Day is an online, alternative Pre-K through 8th grade field day that contains 12 Minute to Win it Challenges. These movement-based activities will provide your students with a fun, yet challenging opportunity to participate in a new type of field day experience. This resource offers a Virtual Field Day document, 12 challenge activities, student rules and video submission information, along with equipment needs, teacher notes and scoring suggestions for each challenge. You can simply show my videos and use my scores or recreate your own videos and scoring. You can download it in a Word document so that you can modify, cut and paste, and basically do what you need to fit your program's needs. Minute to Win it Challenges: A video will be posted to provide you with the rules, equipment needed and a demonstration of how to perform each challenge- Tennis Racket Challenge
- Rope Jump Challenge
- Frisbee Throw Challenge
- Rundown Challenge
- Basketball Shooting Challenge
- Marshmallow Move Challenge
- Penny Tower Challenge
- Bottle Flip Challenge
- Hoop in and out Challenge
- Wall Ball Challenge
- Grocery Bag Juggle Challenge
- Cartwheel Challenge
- Bonus: badges for every event that can be emailed
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To elevate dance appreciation through unique, fun, and exciting rhythmic dance skills with the attempt to alleviating any preconceived negative feelings concerning dance. -
Download this free 6 page pdf to provide you with the Lesson Plan Scope I use for My Physical Education Program. This Scope includes the Skills Development/area of focus of the game, it's recommended grade level along with what book you can find it in and the page number. Due to length of my school year, the Lesson Plan Scope does not include every game or activity that I've ever written in all 7 books. I've basically selected all of my favorite games and lessons that I can fit into my calendar year. Thanks for checking it out ;) -
OBJECTIVE: Grinchmas will be one of your go-to favorites to get your students into the holiday spirit. Co-authored with my great friend and colleague Butch Soles, Grinchmas was birthed out of the games Stack Attack and Blockheads from PE²: Double the Physical + Double the Education = Double the Fun (2011), Grinchmas is an ideal game to help students practice and improve throwing and bowling for accuracy, and offensive and defensive strategy. Grinchmas combines the art of cup/bucket stacking, the strategy, and tactics incorporated in offense and defense, the skill of throwing and bowling to hit various targets, along with the “never give up” attitude it takes to be successful. SCENARIO: The grumpy, old Mr. Grinch and his Grinch relatives are back at it once again to try and take away the joy of Christmas by stealing the children’s presents and destroying all of the Christmas trees! It is up to the children of Arborville to save Christmas by sending all of the Christmas presents back down the chimney and returning the Christmas trees to all of the families of Arborville. -
Hula Hut Throw Down combines the art of hula hut building, the strategical tactics incorporated in offense and defense, the skills of hitting various targets, along with the “never give up” attitude it takes to be successful. -
Students will practice and improve kicking and soccer-style dribbling, defensive and offensive strategy, and cardiovascular endurance in the throwback, Pac Man-like game of Gobble, Gobble. -
To elevate dance appreciation through unique, fun, and exciting rhythmic dance skills with the attempt to alleviating any preconceived negative feelings concerning dance. -
Objective: This is a fast-paced game where teamwork, decisiveness, and communication skills are critical to wheel ’n deal teams to success. -
OBJECTIVE: It’s sometimes “Risky Business” trying to make money in today’s society, but with some hard work and some potential low or high risk investments, you can really make it big! The game of Risky Business is a cooperative challenge that provides a great way to introduce money recognition and counting money, while integrating running and fitness in the attempt to enhance persistence, teamwork, and camaraderie. -
Objective: The dice game of Blockheads provides a fun, high-energy outlet for students to reinforce fitness skills and practice number recognition, number comparisons, and be able to create and solve various subtraction problems. -
Pokémon Go Get ‘em is a cooperative game that will allow students the opportunity to explore various ways to develop and improve ball manipulation, slingshot skills of force and accuracy, while helping to improve each student’s cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, and muscular endurance. -
What you get with your purchase of my eBook flash drive: A flash drive full of what I have created over the last 32+ years as an elementary physical education teacher…
- No Standing Around in My Gym: Lesson Plans, Games, & Tips for Physical Education eBook (151 pages)
- PE2theMax: Maximize Skills, Participation, Teamwork, and Fun eBook (100 pages)
- Pe2theMax II: Stepping up the “Game” in Physical Education eBook (93 pages)
- PE²: Double the Physical + Double the Education = Double the Fun eBook (95 pages)
- HyPEd Up! Taking Physical Education Games to the Next Level! eBook (120 pages)
- HyPEd Up II! Physical Education Games to the Max! eBook (120 pages)
- PE2theMax’s Greatest Hits: Games Created to Maximize Skills, Participation, Teamwork, and Fun eBook (145 pages)
- 75 printable essential questions and word wall signs
- K-5 Lesson Plan Scope
- Color artwork templates in pdf format to use and/or post on the wall of many of my most popular games:
- Stay Composed Posters
- cooPEration Challenges
- Crack the Code Templates
- Dice Daze
- Dynamic Duo Challenges
- EcSTATIC Poses A & B
- Guess Who Pirates & Monsters
- NBAced It
- PaceMaker II Art
- Trick of Treasure
- What’s in Your Piggy Bank Coins and Money art
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Objective: This mind-boggling game improves problem solving, teamwork, strategy, and accuracy as each level challenges teams to make “the great escape.” -
Objective: This game requires teamwork and critical thinking in a race to build the tallest building. The idea of building blocks may also be used to introduce and reinforce the FITT principle of exercise (Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type). -
Scooter Scavenger is an invigorating Scooter board game that improves teamwork, strategy, and counting skills. There are many exciting variations in this fast-paced scooter game! -
A 4-Game bundle of some really cool, unique slingshot games to reinforce cooperation, teamwork, strategy, and fitness. -
Objective: Each student will demonstrate competency in fitness skills while being challenged to crack the mysterious codes in order to reveal their hidden words. -
Objective: This is a game where pandemonium, throwing and bowling for accuracy, and teamwork can actually coexist. -
Objective: to help students perform/practice kicking, trapping, dribbling, and passing skills through soccer stations to prepare them for a game-type situations. -
Students will develop and improve Frisbee manipulation skills of visual tracking, accuracy, control, throwing, and catching. Frisbee Smack Down utilizes various positions to provide teammates multiple opportunities to communicate and elicit teamwork and strategy to become team champions. -
This bundle contains 69 Physical Education essential questions and 26 Vocabulary Words to be posted on my word wall in the gymnasium. Each EQ and Word Wall (WW) will be discussed and/or illustrated at some point during the physical education year. I felt that each of these EQs and vocabulary words should be incorporated into my curriculum and covered to ensure a balance of learning in my physical education class. I believe these EQs and words will make a significant difference in building students’ background knowledge and comprehension. Each EQ and Vocabulary Word has been typed up on its on page. All you have to do is print them out. -
Objective: to utilize gymnastic mats and scooters to reinforce teamwork, offensive and defensive strategy, and aerobic fitness. The object of the game is to travel around on your scooter to try and destroy all of the other team's force fields (gymnastic mats) by knocking them down with the BIG ball. -
Objective: Students will practice and reinforce number recognition, number comparisons, and be able to recognize the differences between greater than, less than, more, less, high, low, and equal to through the thrilling game of Roll with It. -
Objective: a great cardiovascular game that not only improves hand-eye coordination, throwing, catching, and aiming skills, but also introduces and reinforces young children to teamwork, cooperative, and strategizing skills. This game comes from my first book, No Standing Around in My Gym. -
Objective: This is an invigorating fitness game where teamwork and strategy can easily be confused with “C.H.A.O.S.” -
Bowling Bombs II challenges each student’s bowling accuracy, offensive and defensive strategy, and cardiovascular fitness, while encouraging spatial awareness. -
Students will practice and reinforce number recognition, number comparisons, and teamwork in the fast-paced, high-energy, cardiovascular game of Dice Dash. -
I designed Scoot N' Shoot to help reinforce the basketball skills of dribbling, passing, and shooting, while on a scooter. Your students will love this unique way to exercise them on scooters while getting to play basketball. -
To elevate dance appreciation through unique, fun, and exciting rhythmic dance skills with the attempt to alleviating any preconceived negative feelings concerning dance. -
OBJECTIVE: Students will play various noodle games to improve accuracy, spatial awareness, and creativity while exploring ways to manipulate various sized foam noodles. -
I've bundled 4 of my latest and greatest games that have not made their way to a future book just yet. They are fitness-based games that will teach and reinforce money concepts in a fun and energetic way. Cold Hard Cash (2-8) OBJECTIVE: The game of Cold Hard Cash is a cooperative challenge that provides a great way to introduce counting money, while integrating multiple fitness activities in the attempt to enhance persistence, teamwork, and comradery. Risky Business (2-8) OBJECTIVE: It’s sometimes “Risky Business” trying to make money in today’s society, but with some hard work and some potential low or high risk investments, you can really make it big! The game of Risky Business is a cooperative challenge that provides a great way to introduce money recognition and counting money, while integrating running and fitness in the attempt to enhance persistence, teamwork, and comradery. What’s in Your Piggy Bank? (K-5) OBJECTIVE: What’s in Your Piggy Bank? is a great prerequisite to all of the money-based games in this book. The game was basically designed to reinforce fitness while introducing and/or reinforcing money recognition and money values. What’s in Your Wallet? (3-8) OBJECTIVE: What’s in Your Wallet? will reinforce and provide multiple practice opportunities to deepen student comprehension of basic mathematical and money concepts. The combination of money and math fundamentals, fitness, and teamwork forces teammates to strategize and think while constantly exercising to solve 10 money word problems quicker than the opposing teams. -
The objective of Outbreak is to maximize participation, teamwork, and aerobic fitness in a Zombie-like tag game. Players are trying to collect enough medicine to survive the deadly Outbreak! -
Objective: Students will explore the various ways to develop and improve manipulation skills such as visual tracking, accuracy, control, throwing, catching, right- and left-handed manipulation, and socialization skills through the use of juggling scarves. -
OBJECTIVE: Derived from the original game of Pace Maker (PE2theMax by J.D. Hughes, 2005), the outrageously aerobic game of Pace Maker II reinforces the concept of pacing and its importance in physical activity, while introducing and reinforcing various locomotor skills. -
OBJECTIVE: Derived from the classic game of Connect Four (by Milton Bradley), the teamwork game of Connect 4-Fun will get everyone active and hyped about whose team is going to demonstrate the best communication and strategy. -
OBJECTIVE: Adapted from the game Cold Hard Cash (HyPEd Up, 2017), We’re on Lockdown is a high energy, non-stop fitness game where teamwork and perseverance are crucial to find the hidden keys. The hidden keys will then be used to unlock each safe to expose the mystery code to escape the lockdown. -
OBJECTIVE: Adapted from the game Hula Hut Throw Down (PE2theMax II, 2011), Volleyblaster is an awesome follow up game to reinforce the skills of volleyball. Volleyblaster combines the art of hula hut building, the tactics incorporated in offense and defense, the serving skills of volleyball and hitting various targets, along with the “never give up” attitude it takes to be successful. -
Watch student teams “Launch It” in a cooperative game that will allow students the opportunity to explore various ways to develop and improve ball manipulation, and slingshot skills of trajectory, force, and accuracy. The game of Launch It is a great prerequisite to the games of Slingshot and Slingshot Golf. -
Objective: The fast-paced, chaotic game of Mêlée emphasizes the skills of listening and teamwork, while reinforcing gross motor and fine motor skill movements and ball control. -
Objective: Treasure Quest is an exciting scooter activity that can accompany your scooter unit. It guarantees participation, teamwork, and most importantly, an aerobic workout. -
Objective: Each 3-player team will incorporate teamwork, communication, and improve throwing, catching, and visual tracking skills, while learning how to share three different positions by trading places each time a point is earn. -
All students will form groups of at least 4-8. Explain that each group will be allowed 1-2 days to create their own dance routine. Each routine must include combinations of at least six different skills/moves learned during the dance unit. Skills can be chosen from the previously learned line dances and/or freestyle dances. Students will be given additional time to practice the day of the dance routine performances. Each group will perform their routine for the class during the last half of class.
