Keep Playing Sample

Game of the Week: Popcorn

This week Playworks is featuring an individual challenge that’s all about helping participants believe in themselves.

Social-Emotional Focus: 

Self-confidence – Feeling good, being proud of the things you can do, and believing in yourself, even when you don’t do well at first.

Play In-Person

Play Virtually

Simplified Game Instructions

# of people to play: 1+
Best for ages: 5+
Setup/Teaching Time: 1-2 minutes
Equipment needed: A ball, or a small, tossable object (rolled up socks work well!)
Goal: To toss the ball in the air and clap as many times as possible before catching it again.

How to Play:

  • Begin the game on Level One by throwing the item in the air, clapping one time, and then catching the ball.
  • If you successfully clapped and caught the item, move up to Level Two. If you were unsuccessful, stay on Level One and try again. 
  • In Level Two you’ll try to clap two times before catching the item. Level Three is three claps, Level Four is four claps, and so on. 
  • If you drop the item or don’t clap the correct number of times, that’s okay. Repeat the level until you succeed.
  • On the game leader’s signal, have everyone begin on Level One and see who can reach the highest level in 1-two minutes. Ask students to share what level they reached.
  • Additional Challenge: Set a timer for 60 seconds. See how many claps students can get total in that time. Participants can choose to play this round at any level (one clap at a time, 3 claps, or even 5). However, anytime a participant drops their item, they must start their count over from the beginning.

SEL Game Debrief

  • When did you feel proud of yourself in this game?
  • What did you do, say or think to encourage yourself when you didn’t catch the ball?
  • When else during school do you find that you need to believe in yourself, even when you don’t think you did well at first?

Game Modifications

Age Group Modifications
  • For younger students: use a lighter object, like a scarf, plastic bag, or balloon to give students more time to clap before they need to catch.
  • For older students: Add challenges to the game such as other actions to perform before catching the object, reaching a target number of claps in a set amount of time, or while racing against others.
Challenge Idea
  • Stand in a line, the first person throws it up and claps and moves out of the way.
  • The person behind them claps and moves out of the way.
  • The goal is to try and get through the whole line before someone needs to catch the ball.
Academic Application
  • Name items in a category for the number of claps the person ahead of you attained.
    • Ex. If someone claps five times the next person has to name five mammals.  
  • Practice counting in a different language.

Brain Break: Up, Down, Stop, Go

Set Up: Have all players stand around the room and designate a caller.
Before You Start
  • Demonstrate the appropriate actions for “up,” “down,” “stop,” and “go.” In this game, the actions are opposite of the command word.
    • “Up” – Players squat down
    • “Down” – Players jump, or stretch up as high as possible
    • “Stop” – Players move around the play area in a specific movement (walking, jogging, running, hopping, etc.)
    • “Go” – Players freeze
    • Explain that players who make a mistake should complete a task (ex: 5 jumping jacks) before returning to the game.
  • Do a practice round first so that all players understand the commands, corresponding movements, and what to do if they make a mistake!
How to Play
  • Caller calls out the commands “up,” “down,” “stop,” or “go” one at a time. Players perform the opposite action.
  • For the first few minutes, the caller watches the group and stops the game when a player makes a mistake, giving them time to complete their task (for example, 5 jumping jacks) and join back in. 
  • After a few minutes, the caller should not need to stop for mistakes and should continue calling while players who made a mistake complete their task. Those players should join back in as the game continues!

Additional Resources

Sample School Community Announcement

For the month of September we are focusing on the theme of self awareness. Self awareness helps you tune into your own feelings, as well as the behaviors and feelings of others.

Within that theme, our weekly social-emotional focus will be self confidence. Self confidence means embracing your whole self – being proud of the current you, your past accomplishments, and the future you can build. People with self confidence believe in themselves, especially when times get tough, and their ability to resurface as a better person. We can build up our self confidence by, first and foremost, understanding how we react to successful and unsuccesful moments. The featured game of the week, Popcorn, teaches just that – that, regardless of the outcome, we tell ourselves that “I’ve got this!” throughout the experience of the game.

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, try playing SWITCH!

Learn how to play