Fool Ball

Players stand in a large circle facing in with the leader in the middle. Players circle around him/her. The leader tells which players will have the first turn and which direction play will go around the circle. Then the leader explains the he/she will make a motion of throwing the ball to each player, trying to fool them into thinking he/she will actually throw it. Players must stand motionless without moving their arms unless the leader really throws the ball. If the ball is thrown players must catch it. If a player is fooled into moving his arms or fails to catch the ball he/she is expelled from the game. He/she remains in the circle but must sit down. The last player left standing is the fooler for the next game.

Bean Race Relay

Distribute one straw and two or three beans to each player. Place the cans on chairs about 20 feet in front of each group. The game is played in relay race style. The first person in line begins by sucking a bean up on the end of a straw. He/she then walks or runs to the can and lets the bean drop into the can. As soon as he/she returns to the line, the next person goes. Each person in line gets 2-3 chances to go. The person with the most beans in the can wins. To make it more difficult put a balloon or orange between their legs.

Name Game Toss

Form a circle and find a fun squishy ball to toss around the circle. Have a each child state their name and 1 special thing about themselves and then toss the ball to someone else in the circle who has not played yet.

Category Hopscotch

Category Hopscotch is a challenging after-school activity that will teach your child to think (and hop) fast.

Humans categorize pretty much everything we see in order to make sense of the world around us. We separate healthful things to eat, like vegetables and fish, from junk foods like candy bars and chips. And there are so many animals in the world, we categorize them into their species (i.e., reptile, mammal) in order to communicate with each other about these animals more easily.

Help your child explore this variation on the classic hopscotch game and encourage him or her to explore the ways humans categorize our world.

What You’ll Need:

• Hard surface
• Chalk
• Rocks or other markers
• Small bouncing ball

Mark off a court in the style of a hopscotch court. In each square, write the name of a category — for example, cars, fruits, and birds.

Players place their markers in the first square. Each player in turn walks or hops through the squares, bouncing the ball and naming something from the first category for each step in each square. Ball, foot, and word must arrive at the same time. No word can be used twice in any one run of the court.

Players who finish the court place their markers in the next square and must name things from that category. The first player to finish all categories wins and chooses the categories for the next game.

An alphabet variation: Each time a player steps in a square, he or she must name something from the category in that square, all items named starting with the same letter. A player faced with the categories of cars, fruits, and birds might say, “Buick, blackberry, blue jay.”