After conducting a survey last year, I wasn’t surprised to find 5 A Day was one of the top favorites. This capture the flag type game reinforces eating five colors of fruits and vegetables each day.
5 A Day
Gym Set Up: Divide the gym into 4 quadrants. Each quadrant is a color. In each quadrant are two matching hula-hoops. One hula-hoop is set up near their outer corner this hula-hoop contains 4 matching bean bags. This hula hoop is their plate. There are an additional 4 orange bean bags in the center of the gym to start the game. The other hula-hoop is about 10 feet outside the center of the gym (this hoop is the jail). This is a game similar to capture the flag. The goal of the game is for each team to collect five colors on their plate (hula hoop).
- Four colors of jerseys,
- Two hula hoops of each color: red, blue, green yellow
- Four bean bags of each color: red, blue, green yellow and orange.
- When a player is in another team’s quadrant they can be tagged.
- Tagged players go to jail.
- If the tagged player has a beanbag, they have to give it up to the tagging team.
- They all need to agree to play by this statement: “if the tagger says they got you, you’re tagged, you don’t get to argue.”
- They may only pick up one bean bag at a time
- They may not throw the bean bags
- Sometimes an entire team will get put in jail, then we start over.
- To get out of jail, one of their teammates has to get to them, without being tagged themselves, and they hold hands to cross back into their own territory. They may only release one player at a time, they may not hold hands to go get a beanbag for free.
**During game play if I notice one student has been in jail for a few minutes, I ask them an EXIT QUESTION like why do we want to eat a variety of colors when we eat fruit and vegetables? Or name 3 ways to keep your heart healthy….. After we discuss question I let them out of jail. This keeps students’ frustration levels low. During the game we stop for a few minutes for teams to discuss: why is it healthy to eat at least 5 colors of fruits and vegetables? Then at the end of class students fill out an exit slip answering the same question.