Getting active with others, whether it’s a friend, family member, colleague or exercise group, has a multitude of benefits including:
- Catching up while getting your daily movement in
- You’re more likely to stick to your exercise commitment, thanks to the accountability factor
- Exploring more movement options (e.g. a game of tennis or squash)
- Discovering new movement ideas
- Saving money (e.g. splitting the cost of exercise equipment or carpooling to the park, pool etc.)
If you’re looking for some inspiration on ways to get active with others, you’ve come to the right place. This blog covers 10 Bluearth partner and group activities, including the skills they help develop.
Enjoy, and we hope you find them useful!
Partner Activities
1. Circus Balances
Equipment Required: Nil
Abilities Involved: Balance, Focus, Strength, Communication, Trust
Balance 1; Stand facing each other with toes touching and holding hands or wrists, both partners slowly lean back until balance is found. Arms are fully extended, maintaining straight bodies and straight arms without moving feet. Progression to squat and return to standing neutral position.
Balance 2; Stand shoulder to shoulder with feet together and touching partners feet, hook elbows and lean out until fully extended maintaining straight bodies without moving feet. Progression to holding wrists/hands and leaning until arms are fully extended. Always aim to return to standing neutral position smoothly and cooperatively. Try facing in opposite directions.
2. Sitting back-to-back
Equipment Required: Nil
Abilities Involved: Cooperation, Coordination, Balance
Students sit in pairs back-to-back on the floor with arms interlocked. Stand up and sit down three times keeping their feet planted on the ground.
3. Gladiators
Equipment Required: Balls or Hoops
Abilities Involved: Balance, Agility, Awareness
Students work in pairs and place a ball or hoop between them. They then hold each other’s hands and begin to hop on one leg. By pushing and pulling, the aim is to make the partner touch the ball or step into the hoop.
4. Run and Touch
Equipment: Basketball
Abilities Involved: Cooperation, Coordination
One half of each pair stands on the sideline of a basketball court. Their partner lies prone on the ground approximately 2m in front of them and facing them. The standing student rolls the ball to their partner who receives the ball, stands up and dribbles the ball across the width of the court, and then throws the ball back to their partner. They then return to their starting position and repeat. Repeat 5 times and then change over.
Lower: Run over a shorter distance and decrease repetitions.
5. Bridge Jumping
Equipment: Nil
Abilities Involved: Jumping, Ball Handling
Student 1 gets into a crouch position on the ground. Student 2 then performs a standing jump over student 1 and lands on the other side of student 1’s body. Student 1 then forms a bridge and student 2 crawls under the “bridge”. Repeat this process 5-8 times and change positions.
Greater Challenge: Hold a basketball and when crawling under the “bridge”, dribble the ball with you.
Group Activities
6. Boulders and Bulldozers
Equipment Required: Cones (at least one per person)
Abilities Involved: Agility
Split the group in half. One group are “builders” and the other are “bulldozers”. Spread out the cones around the area with some up and some tipped over. The builders’ job is to stand the cones up, and the bulldozers’ job is to tip them over. The teacher / Coach can provide guidelines as to how students are to “build” or “bulldoze” (e.g. with left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot, with partner, etc.). The group can switch jobs and repeat the game.
7. Capture the Flag
Equipment Required: Cones, “Flag” – use a ball or any other suitable object
Abilities Involved: Speed, Agility
Divide students into two teams. Each uses one half of the court as home base.
The aim of the game is to get into the other team’s half and capture the “flag”. The flags placed two metres short of the end of the court (the flag is surrounded by cones designating a ‘NO GO’ area for defenders).
Once a student crosses into the other team’s territory, the student can be tagged by opposing team members. When tagged, the tagger will walk the “captured” student to prison where the new prisoner must put their hands on their head. Each team has a prison represented by the area just behind their home base.
To be freed from prison, a fellow team member must make it past the opposition to the prison area without getting tagged. The team member is then able to walk the prisoner back into their own half. Whilst escorting a team-mate back, both students are immune from being tagged. Once back in their own half, they are free to resume playing.
The game ends when a player captures the other team’s flag and raises it in the air.
Variation: Players wear tails and they only go to prison if their tail is removed by an opposing player.
8. Frisbee Football
Equipment Required: Fribee/Squidgee disc, cones, colour bands
Abilities Involved: Agility, Speed, Throwing, Cooperation
Each team starts at the opposite end of the playing area. A score is achieved when the frisbee is passed to, and caught on the full by, a team member who is within the opposition’s end zone.
Players may not move when they have the frisbee. If the frisbee is dropped, thrown to the ground or thrown outside the playing area during the course of the game, the opposition is given possession of the frisbee.
The game is started by one team throwing the frisbee into play from the end zone. When a team scores, the scoring team throws the Frisbee in from the end zone where they just scored and the opposition gets first possession.
Try using a ball (eg. tennis ball/euro/gator skin) or bean bag as the object to be thrown.
To score, a team must pass the frisbee through the goals and have it caught on the full by a team member.
9. Keep the Basket Full
Equipment Required: Tennis Balls, Beanbags or Frisbees, a Storage Bin or Hoop
Abilities Involved: Ball Handling, Speed, Agility
Choose two students to be the “throwers” and the rest of the children are the “retrievers”, who are scattered around the area.
All the balls begin in the bin or hoop. On the signal, the throwers have to try and empty the bin of balls by throwing them out as quickly as possible, one at a time.
The retrievers quickly fetch the balls that are thrown out of the bin, returning them to the bin/ hoop with the aim of getting them back into the bin before it is empty. The balls must be placed into the bin. The game ends when the bin is emptied or time has expired. Change throwers and play again. To reduce risk of ‘throwers’ hitting ‘retrievers’, set up ‘gates’ that retrievers must return through out of the throwing arc.
Variation: Blindfold some of the throwers to increase cooperation.
10. Wasps
Equipment: Bean Bags, Cones
Abilities Involved: Speed, Agility, Throwing
Within the designated area, three students are chosen as “wasps” and attempt to “sting” the other students. They do so by throwing the bean bag at them and aiming to hit them anywhere below the waist. When stung by a wasp, the student hit must pick up the bean bag and become the wasp.
Variation: Designate a certain throwing action e.g. underarm. Tag made with bean bag still in hand i.e. not thrown. Use squidgee disks or gators.