Great Games In Four - Standard based games with only four instructions.

What Did I Do? - Ages 5 - 8. Standards 1, 5, 6. Equipment - music

1. Find personal or self-space. Choose one student to move.
2. When the music begins, that child moves. Change the music three times. The child must change his movement each time.
3. The class tries to remember each movement and sequence.
4. When the music begins again (change the music the same three times), the class moves in the same sequence the initial child moved. Repeat with new leaders.

Variations: use verbal skills "go" and "stop" instead of music. Vary the number of sequential movements depending on ability and age. Add a piece of equipment such as a tennis ball for each student. Special Needs Students: Substitute any locomotor skill they feel comfortable with as long as they also change their movement three times.

Tennis Fitness: Ages 7 and up. Standards: 1, 4, 5, 6. Equipment: one tennis ball for each student.

1. Find personal space with your tennis ball.
2. Choose one exercise from the following: push-ups, curl-ups, jogging, jumping jacks.
3. When the music begins: push-up students assume the push-up positions and roll the tennis ball back and forth from one hand to the other; curl-up students toss and catch their ball as they are curling up; jogging students toss and catch their ball while jogging slowly throughout the play area; jumping jack students bounce and catch their ball with each jumping jack.
4. Each student changes exercise when the music stops until all four exercises are completed.

Variations: Change exercises or skills that go with each exercise. Ask students to count consecutive catches, bounces or rolls. Give them another chance and see if they can do better. Special Needs Students: Allow them to choose their own exercise and type of equipment.

Basketball Triangle Pass: Ages 8 and up. Standards: 1, 2, 5, 6. Equipment: one basketball or playground ball for each group of three.

1. Divide the class into groups of three and give one ball to each group. Leftover students may form groups of four.
2. Each group finds space in the play area and decides how far to stand from one another in a triangle or square formation.
3. When the music begins, use a basketball pass to move the ball quickly from one group member to another.
4. Time each round for 20 seconds. See how many successful passes (defined as proper technique and not dropped) were made in 20 seconds. Repeat and try to better this total with each new round.

Variations: Change the amount of time in each round. Change the number of successful passes made in each round to consecutive successful passes. Change the kind of basketball pass. Give each group a choice of several passes. Allow groups to vary the distance group members stand from one another. Add two or three disrupters -these are students who move quickly from group to group trying to intercept passes. Special Needs Students: Use a soft ball, allow them to catch on more than one bounce.

Movement Tag: Ages 7 and up. Standards: 1, 4, 5, 6, Equipment: music.

1. Assign each student a locomotor skill. Choose from walking, galloping, skipping, and sliding.
2. Students find personal space.
3. When the music begins, students move according to their assigned skill, trying to tag any other student lightly on the shoulder who is not performing the same locomotor skill as them.
4. When tagged, that student must change his or her locomotor skill to the student's skill who tagged him or her. When the music stops, count the number of times you had to change your skill. Try to do lower your total in the next round.

Variations: For older students, give each a piece of equipment to manipulate. Instead of counting the number of times you were tagged, count the number of times you tagged someone else. Change the amount of time for each round - increase the time of each round slightly to build endurance. Special Needs Students: Eliminate skipping from the mix.