Bear crawl races are a fun way to get students moving and building core strength. They also build balance and coordination.

Play this classic game with kids to improve their listening skills. Students work together to find their friends while linking arms or holding hands. If they bump into another pair of players, the two teams must continue searching.

Noodle Jump

This PE game is great for elementary students and can be played in the classroom or gym. Have students stand up and extend one thumb upwards. The teacher secretly chooses one person as “It.” The student must touch the thumbs of six other people without being tagged. If the student is tagged, he or she must sit down. The first student to touch all six people wins the game.

Try this fun version of ping pong with pool noodles. Divide the class into two teams and have them compete to see which team can get their noodle through a hula hoop. This is a great way to practice throwing skills while having a blast with the popular Baby Shark song!

For a more challenging version of this classic, give students a bean bag and have them balance it on different parts of their body. They can link arms or hold hands with another player to form a blob. If the blob touches a head, shoulder, knee, or cone, it’s out.

Line your students up at the end of the playing area. Call out an animal and have the kids race to the other end of the gym, running like that animal. If a student is tagged by the zookeeper or monkey, they must return to their cage and can only be freed by the other player.

Egg on the Spoon

Students can run this classic kids game on their own or in teams. Divide the class into two equal teams and give each player a spoon and an egg (hard-boiled or plastic) that they will carry on their spoon from a starting line to a finish line and back again without touching the egg with their hands. If the egg drops, they must stop and pick it up with their hand before continuing. The team that finishes first wins the game.

To make the game more challenging, try playing this outdoors or inside a large room with a clear starting and finishing line. To add an extra challenge, you can have the teacher call out different movements, such as jumping and landing on one foot, galloping, hopping on one foot twice, etc. The student who successfully carries the egg on their spoon through all of these movements and returns to the start line without dropping the egg is the winner.

This PE game is perfect for working on several riding skills at once, including:

Sharks and Minnows

A fun tag game that requires both agility and a bit of strategy, Sharks and Minnows can be played in a pool or on dry land. The game can be modified for different skill levels, but ideally you’ll want to play in a space that’s large enough to allow students to move around without running into one another. To set up the game, designate a playing area and use markers or cones to create boundaries. Select a player to be the Shark and the rest of the players to be Minnows.

To start the game, the Shark closes their eyes and chants “Here fishy, fishy. Come and play.” When the Minnows hear that chant, they run towards the Shark and attempt to tag them. If a Minnow gets tagged, they become the Shark for the next round and work to tag other players. The game ends when there are only a few Sharks and Minnows left.

To make the game more challenging, encourage the Sharks to use their chants and movement skills to scare away the Minnows and eliminate them. This helps develop both agility and endurance as well as the ability to follow commands. If you play this game repeatedly, it’s a great way to strengthen the core, shoulders, and glutes while building cardiovascular endurance. To make it easier for younger kids to participate, you can have them line up on the wall and then run back and forth in straight lines (their own lane) instead of sprinting back and forth.