One of my favorite things to do as a coach is disguise work as fun. My new favorite game is called “Here, There and Everywhere”. We played this with a group of 25 gymnasts on a standard gymnastics floor and not only did they break a sweat, they kept asking to play it over and over! Here’s the run down on how to play.
What you need:
- A group of kids of any age – the game can be played with 1-100 kids
- An adult or older child to act as the “caller”
- A large enough area for kids to move – obviously the larger the group the larger the space you need. Can be played outdoors, on a sports court, gymnastics floor or even in the pool.
How to play:
- Define your play space and then identify 3 landmarks (a tree, a cone, a tape line, or any other visual) – name them “Here”, “There” and “Everywhere”
- Start all the kids on “Here”
- Then the caller gets creative! Caller says “Go there” and all the kids go to the spot identified as “There” – anyone who goes to the wrong place is out. The next command gets called – “Skip everywhere” and anyone who goes to the wrong place is out. Keep repeating with new ways to get here, there and everywhere until you declare a winner or everyone has had enough.
Command ideas:
- Go here
- Skip there
- Sit everywhere
- Stand everywhere
- Jump here
- Hop there
- Swim everywhere
- Spin here
- Bounce there
- Crawl everywhere
This game is guaranteed to make kids move and have fun doing it.
Rick at Gymnastics Coaching recently posted about a great resource for games like this one – the book, called No Standing Around in My Gym, is by J.D. Hughes and features more than 70 games plus variations that will keep even large groups of kids moving and having fun.
I have a few more games that are popular with the kids at our gym. I will try to write them up soon and share them here.
This sounds like a great game to play! I’ll be trying it out at home with my three kids tonight. If it works well (I’m sure it will), then I’ll be implementing it into our practices for soccer in fall for the team I coach (I coach my son, my wife coaches our daughter). Thanks for the great idea!
Thanks for stopping in Lance. This game is perfect for a soccer team – let me know how they like it!
Laura Figueroa says
Hey…I love all the tips and news you give for athletes…well I found a very inspiring video on youtube for Beijing 2008, and I think you will like it as well….here is the link and I hope you can share it here!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=540C2DSL5Gs
XOXO,
Laura
Stacy says
Good game idea! Thanks for sharing. It reminds me of another game called “Museum”, in which there’s one person with his/her back turned toward the kids. He/she says a theme (like “Dinosaurs”), counts 5 seconds, and turns around. The rest of the kids need to act out the theme and freeze. If anyone moves, then the kid is out of the game. You can also find more group games at http://www.greatgroupgames.com. Have an awesome day!