Keep Playing Week 29
Game of the Week: Birds Nest
This week Playworks is featuring a fun, interactive game that will challenge kids to cooperate in order to achieve success.
Skill Focus:
Cooperation: When two or more people work together to complete a goal. For cooperation to work, everyone should participate and be an active member of the team.
Play In-Person
Play Virtually
Simplified Game Instructions
# of people to play: 8+
Best for ages: 6+
Setup/Teaching Time: 5 minutes
Equipment needed: 3 hula hoops, 10-12 bean bags
Goal: To work collaboratively with teammates and assist them in achieving a common goal.
Before You Start:
- Review appropriate movement and boundaries.
- Arrange hula hoops (birds nests) in a triangle. Place bean bags into the center hula hoop (nest).
- Divide students into even teams and have them line up behind their birds’ nest (hula hoop).
How to Play:
- The goal is for teams to get all eggs into their team’s nest as quickly as possible.
- When told to start, the first player from each team runs to the center nest to take an egg (one egg per player).
- The player returns to their line with the egg, drops the egg in their team’s nest, and moves to the end of the line.
- When the player ahead returns with the egg, the next player in line runs to the center nest to get another egg.
- Players keep taking turns until the center nest is empty; when this happens, players may then take eggs from the other teams’ nests (one player and one egg at a time).
- The game ends when one team has all of the eggs in their nest.
Game Debrief
- In what ways did you help a teammate in this game?
- How did you work with your teammates to achieve your goal?
- Were your teammates supportive when it was your turn? How did it feel?
- How did it feel to know you had help / support from your teammates and other classmates?
Game Modifications
Academic Application
- Turn it into a memory game. Instead of bean bags, mix up 3-6 playing cards of each suit and place them face down inside the nest. Assign each team a suit (hearts, diamonds, spades or clubs).
- At the start signal, the first player on each team heads to the nest and turns over one card. If it is their suit, they bring it back to their nest, if it is not, they turn it back over and return to their nest without it. The game ends when one team has successfully collected all of their cards.
- Encourage team members to help each other remember which cards have been turned over and which have not.
Another Way to Play
- Assign each team a specific color of bean bag or type of object (eggs). Instead of placing all eggs in the center hula hoop (nest) to start, mix them up and place them in the outer hula hoops (nests).
- To play, each team must try to get all of their own color or type of object into the nest, one player and one egg at a time.
- Players may go to any nest and either bring one of their own eggs to their nest OR may take one of another team’s eggs out of the center nest and bring it to their own nest.
- The game ends when one team has all of their cookies in their nest.
Age Group Modification
- For younger students: choose a number of bean bags that must make it in the birds nest for the game to end (instead of all) and turn the game into a race.
- For older students: Switch up the type of movement students use to get to and from the birds nest. Ex – walk heel-to-toe, crab walk, move backwards, etc.
Brain Break: Telephone
Before You Start
- Divide class into 2 teams.
- Choose one person from each team to meet together and create a secret message.
How to Play
- At the signal, the first person on each team will whisper the secret message to the next person on their team.
- That person will whisper the message to the next person and so on.
- The message can not be repeated a second time. This is a relay-type game, so players will just pass on what they’ve heard.
- The last person to receive the secret message must run to the chalkboard and write the message. The team that is closest to the correct message gets a point.
- Choose new players to create the next secret message, and play again!
Additional Resources
Sample School Community Announcement
For the month of April we are continuing to focus on the theme of relationship skills. Relationship skills help you build connections with others and find ways to relate to one another.
This week’s focus is cooperation. Cooperation is when two or more people work together to complete a goal. For cooperation to work, everyone involved needs to participate. Sometimes this can feel difficult, so it is a good idea to find fun ways to practice. One way to exercise your cooperation skills is to play our featured game of the week, Birds Nest, where you have to work with a team to collect all of your eggs.
Teach students to play in class, and then empower them to lead the game and teach others.
Core Recess Game
In addition to our Keep Playing Game of the Week, we’re sharing bi-weekly Core Recess Games that will help kids be active, practice leadership, maximize recess time, and have fun.
This week, learn and play SPROUT BALL!
Return to the Keep Playing Homepage for archives of past weeks and other helpful resources.