Fitness Market: Earn and Spend
Teams earn coins, which are bottle caps, by completing fitness challenges at work stations, and then spend them at the market buying pieces for their team crest. Students build fitness, practice money math and plan how to invest their effort.
How to play
- Make 5 teams of 5, each with a bucket as its bank. Set up 6 stations with a challenge card and its pay: 20 squats, 2 coins; a lap of the area, 5; 30 jumping jacks, 4 (3 min).
- The market is in the middle, with prices for crest pieces: crown, 10 coins; star, 6; stripe, 4.
- Work phase: teams move together to any station, complete the challenge, and the banker, the teacher or a student, pays them (10 min).
- Market phase: the team decides what to buy, works out its change, pays and draws the piece on its cardstock crest (3 min).
- Second work phase with new prices: short challenges pay less and long ones more, so teams rethink their plan (6 min).
- Final market: each team shows its crest and explains what it earned and how it spent it (3 min).
Rules
- Every team member does the challenge.
- Sloppy reps don't get paid: squats count only when you bend to knee height.
- Coins are never thrown or traded between teams.
- Anyone who feels sick stops and rests, and the team picks an easier station.
Variations
Easier
Round prices of 1, 2 and 5 coins and challenges with fewer reps.
Standard
Six stations with different pay, two work phases and a shopping list.
Harder
A team that saves 10 coins through the first market earns 2 coins of interest, and some pieces are discounted as a set.
Adaptations
- Limited mobility: throwing or upper-body stations pay the same, and the student can be the team accountant.
- Shyness: the student serves as banker with the teacher, joining in with little talking at first.
- Fitness level: each challenge has two versions with the same pay, such as knee or full push-ups.
Learning goals
- Sustain moderate physical effort across several stations.
- Add, subtract and make change with coins in real situations.
- Plan as a team how to reach a goal with limited resources.
Equipment for a class of 25
- bottle caps: 200
- challenge cards: 6
- buckets: 6
- cones: 12
- cardstock: 5
- markers: 5
Teacher tip
Start each bank with 2 coins so teams can buy right away. If a team keeps repeating the best-paying challenge, close that station for a while.
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