Catch Me If You Can – Elementary PE Activity

catch me if you can PE activity

I’m Chrissy Mason and I teach health and physical education at Linkhorn Park ES in Virginia Beach. We have large group sizes and aim for activities that keep our kids moving. Catch Me If You Can works on manipulative skills and cardiorespiratory endurance. I wanted to incorporate throwing at a moving target for an added challenge. We played this game with grades 1-5.

Equipment:

Set-up:

Scatter the balls throughout the gym. We split off into 3 teams since we had 3 different color bins.

Video:

Directions:

Each of the 3 teams are assigned a color. (We had 2 green, 2 blue, and 2 purple bins.) Two players on each team are selected to wear the bins on their backs, using the arm straps. They become the moving targets. Opposing team members attempt to throw the balls in their bins. On the signal, all students may run around the playing area. Players may pick up one ball at a time and toss it into an opponents’ bin. They are not allowed to dunk the ball and may not touch the bins. The target players may run around to avoid having a ball land in their bin. Once a ball is in, students may not shake it out. All players must stay on their feet. The goal is to have the fewest number of balls in your team’s bin at the end of the round. Teams count their total at the end and we choose new students for the next round. We play several short rounds of a few minutes. We also emphasize safety and watching where you are going and the students did well with that.

Variations/ Alterations:

For Catch Me If You Can, you could also use collapsible laundry hampers if you already have them, but you may have to sew thick ribbon as the straps. You could also make the targets using a variety of baskets as well and just use rope as straps. We separated the group into 3 teams since we had 3 color hampers, but the number of teams could be changed.

You may also want to consider having a rule that students cannot travel once they pick up a ball. This will add more of a throwing challenge and prevent students from getting so close to dunk.

About the Author:

chrissy mason pe teacherChrissy Mason (@LPESVB) is beginning her 2nd year as a teacher at Linkhorn Park Elementary in Virginia Beach, VA. She received a Bachelor of Science from Old Dominion University. Chrissy wants to teach her students how much fun it is to be physically active. Chrissy loves being a part of the Phys. Ed. community and how willing veteran teachers are to help other teachers so we can all do our best for the kids.

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