Active Monopoly: Buy Zones and Charge Tolls

The field's perimeter is split into twelve squares that teams can buy with coins earned by running; when an opposing team lands on a purchased square, it pays a toll in coins or in effort by doing the exercise marked on the square. It blends continuous endurance work with investment and risk decisions.

How to play

1. Mark twelve squares around the field with colored cones; each square has a price (3 to 6 coins) and a written toll exercise (3 min).
2. Four teams of 7 with a banker, an investor and the rest runners; each team starts with 10 coins (2 min).
3. Turns: a runner rolls the die, jogs that many squares around the perimeter and the investor decides whether to buy the free square; on an opponent's square, the team chooses to pay the toll in coins or have the runner do that square's exercise (15 min).
4. Each full lap of the perimeter earns the team 2 coins; a runner can double that by running an extra timed lap under 90 seconds; keep playing turns with this bonus (4 min).
5. Count up: squares owned, coins and exercises done (2 min).
6. Analysis: whether it paid to invest early or to save, and how each runner's effort changed on the Borg scale (4 min).

Rules

• All four teams play at once on the perimeter, always running in the same direction.
• Toll exercises (squats, planks, mimed rope jumps) are done with good form and never as a race.
• Runners go in turn: nobody repeats until everyone has gone.
• The banker only pays out after a referee confirms the square.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: act as banker or investor and move by walking or wheelchair around a shorter inner perimeter.
• Overweight or asthma: choose lower-impact toll exercises (box squat or high plank).
• Autism: keep a card with square prices and exercises handy.

Learning goals

• Sustain prolonged aerobic effort with self-regulation.
• Make investment decisions with calculated risk.
• Relate perceived exertion to the actual workload.

Equipment for a class of 25

• cones: 24
• cards: 150
• dice: 4
• pinnies: 28
• stopwatch: 1

Teacher tip

Use two sizes of tokens for 1- and 5-coin values. With four teams playing at once, you need at least two dice and two referees.

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