The Importance Of Play For Children, Adolescence And Young Adults

There are always times when teachers are looking for activities to do with their students.  Specific physical education activities can be helpful for classroom teachers as well as for the physical education teachers.  Playtime during the course of a school day is important.  Sometimes with all the emphasis on testing, its easy to forget that kids still need playtime.  

So I have taken it upon myself to put some activities out there that are easy to implement for classroom teachers, aides, monitors, elementary PE teachers, Middle School PE teacher, HS PE teachers and just about anyone in the school who may need an activity to fill up a day or an event.  By coming to my blog you will be able to look and find activities that are quick set up or no set up, warm-up, low organization and short or full period activities.

I like pictures to illustrate some of the activities.  In some cases, I may even use video to show games, stations, or fun lessons.  

The importance of play for children, adolescence and young adults and even for grown adults is so important and sometimes overlooked.  And with the age of cell phones, Ipads, computers and video games, physical activity and play is becoming less and less important to children too.  They are growing up in a time where they may think that they are playing but it's on a screen.  They aren't actually doing the playing.  I've been to several workshops as an adult where we are required to sit and listen and it is not easy.  Even adults want to get up and move and when put into activities where they are moving and  mingling, smiles return to their faces.  It's the same for all age groups.

The physical activities I will write about in my blog posts will vary between simple activities to harder and more complex.  The posts will be directed toward a variety of age groups but many can be modified to be used with almost any age group.  Believe it or not, High School students and adults still like to play elementary aged games.  Why, because they are fun.

Here's an activity that can be done starting in about 4th grade and is enjoyed by people of any age.  The only skill needed is to be able to throw and an catch a ball.

Participants stand in a circle, seven people per circle.  Start with one ball in the hands of one person but have two or three more balls ready.  The first person throws the ball to a person across from them but must be the third person away from them so in other words they don' throw it to the person beside them or the next person in the circle, its the third person away from them. Then that person throws it to a person across and the third person away from them.  Continue until everyone has thrown to a person across from them.  You now have a pattern and continue throwing and receiving in this pattern.  When the throwing pattern is accomplished, another ball is added, always throwing and receiving from the same person but now there are two balls going.  When that is mastered add a third ball and see how many balls your team can get going.

It is a simple activity, but one that requires a a little bit of physical ability and a little bit of thinking and remembering.  It's fun for almost all ages.