Keep Playing Week 30
Game of the Week: Iron Lungs
This week Playworks is featuring a fun game that will get students moving and acting silly, while working together to achieve a goal as a class.
Skill Focus:
Offering Help: Providing support to someone when you notice they need help.
Play In-Person
Play Virtually
Simplified Game Instructions
# of people to play: 3+
Best for ages: 6+
Setup/Teaching Time: 5 minutes
Equipment needed: Cones, chalk, or some way to mark a boundary line
Goal: To work as a team to keep a consistent sound going while crossing a large space.
Before You Start:
- Have all players line up with their toes on a boundary line (example: line of cones, chalked line, painted line, etc)
- Have all players take a few deep breaths, blowing them out slowly as a group.
- Remind everyone to be aware of one another while running and be careful not to touch others.
- Due to the loud nature of this game, it may be best played outdoors
How to Play:
- Take turns having all players run while they yell, as described:
- Have a player take a deep breath and then yell/scream. As they are yelling, they run toward the other side of the play space. When they are out of breath, they must freeze and stop where they are.
- Once everyone takes a turn, take time as a group to notice how far across the playspace each player was able to make it on their own. Then give players an opportunity to create a strategy for ensuring their whole group is able to make it across the playspace without there being a break in the sound.
- This could be done as a whole group, or could be done by dividing into smaller teams.
- Once the group has a strategy, let them try it out. Continue letting the group plan and test until everyone has successfully made it across the playspace without there being a break in the sound.
Game Debrief
- What did you do to make sure everyone had a role in the game?
- How does it feel to know others rely on you in order to be successful?
- What can you do moving forward to be an active member of your “team” during class this week?
Game Modifications
Age Group Modification
Choose a different word and movement for players to say and do.
- For younger students: Run across the space, yelling, as a whole group and encourage students to count how many times they need to take a breath to keep their sound going. Then try running back making a quieter sound, and counting their breaths. Did the sound level make a difference?
- For older students: Challenge students to see how long they can collectively keep the sound going. Have students spread out around the play space and select one player to go first. That person must yell on a single breath and run to high 5 another player. Once the second player receives a high 5 they begin yelling and run to the next player. Keep going until there is a break in the sound.
Another Way to Play
Kabadi (adapted), national sport of Bangladesh
- Divide the group into two teams and set up a play space where players can safely run around.
- Designate one half of the space for each team, and decide which team will be “it” first.
- To play, one person from the “it” team crosses onto the other team’s side to try and tag as many of players as possible.
- They must be yelling “Kabadi” the entire time they are on the other team’s side.
- The number of players tagged becomes the number of points scored.
- If the player stops yelling before crossing back onto their side, no points are scored
- Once the player has crossed back to their side, the opposite team becomes “it” and can send a player over at any time.
- The game continues until all players have had a chance to be the tagger.
Academic Applications
- Players take turns completing a task as a team (ex. writing a story, solving a series of math problems, drawing a diagram, etc.) while simultaneously saying the word “play” as they exhale.
- When they think they will be out of breath soon, they should signal to their teammates (for example by waving their hands or giving a thumbs up) that they need the next person in line to take over before their voice breaks and there’s silence.
- If a player runs out of breath and the next player does not jump in before they run out of air, players restart the task, and try again.
Brain Break: Running Through the Forest
Before You Start
- Designate a narrator.
- Choose a location or topography (jungle, desert, tundra, etc.).
- Arrange players so that everyone can see and hear the narrator with enough space to move around.
How to Play
- This is an imagination-based narrative game. The goal is to follow along with the story, acting out movements and reactions in real time.
- The narrator will describe a trek through the chosen topography with specific elements that players can interact with (ducking under low branches, pushing aside large plants, jumping over fallen logs, etc.).
- The narrator should vary the speed and intensity of the story, including many different interactive elements to promote movement and keep students engaged.
- Variation: different players can take turns narrating, periodically passing to one another to create an ongoing story.
Additional Resources
Sample School Community Announcement
For the month of April we are continuing to focus on the theme of relationship skills. We use relationship skills in order to help us learn how to relate to others and building connections.
This week, our focus will be on offering help, which means providing support to someone when you notice they need help. Being able to offer help to others is an important skill that can help us develop our leadership, communication and creative thinking abilities, and it’s essential to our game of the week, Iron Lungs! Offering help and Iron Lungs can both be challenging at first, just remember to keep playing and supporting each other towards success.
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, play a game of SPROUT BALL!
Return to the Keep Playing Homepage for archives of past weeks and other helpful resources.