Ballgame Detectives: Schoolyard Clues and a Timeline

A team hunt for clue cards hidden under cones to rebuild the history of several ball games: the Mesoamerican ballgame and ulama, Basque pelota, Valencian pelota and pelota mixteca. Each team builds a timeline with rope and clothespins and defends it with reasons.

How to play

1. Intro: under 30 cones spread across the schoolyard are cards with facts, photos and some false information. Each team of five is assigned a color (3 min).
2. Relay hunt: one member runs out, lifts cones until they find a card in their color, comes back and hands it in; then the next goes (10 min).
3. Timeline: the team clips its cards on its rope in chronological order and sets aside the ones it thinks are false (8 min).
4. Defense: each team explains its timeline in two minutes and justifies which cards it threw out and why (6 min).
5. Group check: the teacher reveals the false cards and the origin of each game (3 min).

Rules

• Lift one cone at a time and put it back exactly as it was.
• Only take cards in your team's color.
• Run looking ahead and don't cut in front of other relays.
• At least half the team speaks during the defense.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: the student is the team archivist, receiving, reading and ordering the cards.
• Visual impairment: large-print cards or read aloud by a partner, and cones with a bell to find them.
• Reading difficulties: cards with a picture and one short sentence.

Learning goals

• Put historical facts about different ball games in order.
• Tell reliable information from myths and common mistakes.
• Cooperate and argue as a team.

Equipment for a class of 25

• clue cards: 30
• cones: 30
• ropes: 5
• clothespins: 30

Teacher tip

Include classic trap cards such as 'pelota mixteca is the Maya ballgame' or 'the loser was always sacrificed'. Laminate the cards or use sheet protectors so you can reuse them.

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