Game Skills:

• Contribute to growth and development
• Children experience success and accomplishment
• Laboratory where children apply physical skills in game setting
• Develop large-muscle groups
• Apply strategy and rules
• Games can be modified to match your program

Games allow students an opportunity to display appropriate interactive skills:

• Leading
• Following
• Making decisions

Cooperative skills necessary for reaching common goals:

• Following directions
• Accepting individual differences

Evaluating games

• Examine worth of games by determining:
  • Physical skills required
  • Number of participants
  • Complexity of rules
  • Amount of strategy involved
• Children must have learned requisite skills
• Cooperation is necessary
• Move from partner, to small group, to team games

Creating or modifying games that can prompt youngsters to think:

• Change the distance to be run
• Change the means of locomotion
• Play game with one or more partners
• Change method of tagging
• Vary goals or restricted areas
• Vary the boundaries of the game
• Change game formations
• Change scoring requirements
• Increase number of players
• Change rules or penalties of the game

Cooperation and Competition

• If participants refuse to follow the rules, games are impossible.
• Cooperation involves two or more children working to gather to achieve a common goal.
• Competition involves opponents working against each other.
• Cooperation precedes competition and is more difficult for youngsters to learn.
• In game activity, the emphasis should be placed on cooperation.
• Emphasizing cooperation requires the teacher to:
  • Develop a spirit of working together
  • Achieve a balance between offense and defense in games
  • Form equal teams
  • Rotate students regularly on teams

Safety

• Primary consideration in game situations is safety.
• Check play area fro dangerous objects and hazards.
• Any apparatus can become dangerous when a game is under way.
• Children should learn to stop play on a specific signal.

Teaching games effectively:

• Put children in formation prior to presenting a new game
• Use trial period (no scoring) during first stages of learning a new game
• Don not use games that isolate one child
• Develop a rotation plan to allow all children equal turns
• Plan before attempting a new game
• Avoid using out of bounds rule with low-organized and sport lead-up games
• Change the makeup of the teams often and play relatively short games
• Use a system to identify teams (armbands, belts, jerseys)
• Use games to teach social skills
• Convey that learning to perform skills correctly is more important than game outcome
• Use the "rule of three" as a way of simplifying rules

Selection of Games:

• Analyze the skills children must practice before playing.
• Games are sorted by difficulty level in the categories below.

Developmental Level I

• Games in this level do not require competency in sport skills.
• Examples of specific activities for this level are listed and explained on pages 541-554.
• Appropriate games for this level include:
  • Individual games
  • Creative play
  • Tag games
  • Low-organized games

Developmental Level II

• Games in this level require specialized sports skills.
• Examples of specific activities for this level are listed and explained on pages 554-564.
• Appropriate games for this level (and level III) include:
  • Sport lead-up games
  • Low-organized games

Developmental III

• Games in this level become more complex and organized.
• Examples of specific activities for this level are listed and explained on pages 564-571.

Miscellaneous Playground Games

• Games children enjoy but are useful only for small groups.
• Examples of specific activities in this category are listed and explained on pages 571-575.