Pretend Sports Day

Children mime the moves of different sports while moving around with no equipment: swimming, cycling, skiing, hurdles and shooting hoops. It warms up the whole body with big movements and introduces familiar sports.

How to play

1. Swimmers: we walk all over the space doing front crawl and then breaststroke arms, blowing bubbles (1 min).
2. Cyclists: we jog with hands on the handlebars, ringing the bell and pedaling slowly up a big hill (1 min).
3. Skiers: with feet together we zigzag with our pretend poles (1 min).
4. Runners: we jog and leap over pretend hurdles the teacher sets up with their hands (1 min).
5. Basketball players: we dribble an invisible ball and jump to shoot at a hoop on the ceiling (1 min).
6. We all step up onto the winners' podium together, raise our arms and cheer for ourselves (1 min).

Rules

• I do the sport the teacher calls.
• I move all over the space without bumping.
• No one wins here: we all get on the podium.
• If I get tired, I keep doing the move while walking.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: does the arm movements (swimming, rowing, shooting) in place or in their wheelchair.
• Hearing loss: the teacher shows a picture card for each sport while saying it.
• Less skilled children: on the hurdles they just lift their knees high while jogging, no leaping.

Learning goals

• Warm up with traveling and big movements.
• Imitate the basic moves of several sports.
• Enjoy being active without competing.

Teacher tip

Before starting, ask which sports they know and add whatever comes up. Watch the pretend dribble: kids tend to bounce with both hands at once, so model it with one.

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