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Name of Activity: Fire and Ice
Purpose of Activity: To engage students in vigorous physical activity.
Prerequisites: Students must have already learned the concept of moving to open space and "using good eyes".
Suggested Grade Level: 2-3
Materials Needed: 2 soft red balls and 3 soft blue balls (4- to 5-inch "Gator skin" type balls work great); upbeat music; a large open space with boundaries marked.
Description of Idea Explain how the game works as follows: Three students have blue balls (which represent ice) and two students have red balls (which represent fire). Everyone else is "free" and can run wherever they want. The game begins when the music is turned on. The "ice people" try to freeze the "free people" by tagging them with their blue ball. When a student gets tagged by an ice person he/she becomes frozen (standing still with both hands on head). The fire people (who cannot be tagged by the ice people) try to then free all of their frozen teammates. They do this by handing the fireball to a frozen person. The person receiving the fireball must say “Thank you”. If he or she doesn’t, they stay frozen and the fire person then goes to free someone else. If the person does say “thank you” they then take the ball and become a new fire person; the person who unfroze him or her becomes a "free person". The fireballs keep getting passed on and on, but the ice people stay ice people until you stop the music, which means the game is over.
Assessment Ideas: Can students keep on playing without having to sit down a take a rest?
If your school has heart monitors, they can be used to help students to see how their heart rate goes up when they are active and be challenged to keep their heart rate at a high level during the class time.
Teaching Suggestions: It is important to make sure that each child has the opportunity to become an "ice person".
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