Traitors: A Card Game for Rainy PE Days

Welcome PE Nation!

I want to share a fun card game based on the TV show "Traitors" that I've adapted for my PE classes as a rainy day activity. This engaging game of deduction and strategy has been a hit with my students and offers a great alternative when outdoor activities aren't possible.

• Uses a standard deck of cards with jokers as "traitors" and aces as "detectives"
• Works best with 2 traitors and 2 detectives for a class of 25 students
• Players are eliminated at night by traitos, while detectives try to identify the traders
• Group discussions lead to voting someone out, continuing until faithfuls or traitors win
• Perfect for grades 3-5 during indoor days, picture day disruptions, or extreme weather
• Pairs well with other indoor activities like BrainPop videos on health, cup stacking, and Kahoots
• Requires some management to keep eliminated students quiet and discussions moving efficiently

Give it a try!

Dave

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Traders Card Game
• 1:36 Rules and Setup Explained
• 3:59 Game Mechanics: Traders and Detectives
• 5:50 Discussion and Voting Process
• 8:17 Game Outcomes and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Supersize Phys Ed podcast. My name is Dave and today I want to talk about a kind of a funny card game I played with my students. It's not funny exactly, but we had fun and it's based on the show called Traders and it was a great rainy day activity or just a free day activity and, yeah, we had a lot of fun with it. So let me explain it after this little break. So here we go. Welcome in pe nation. So I don't know if any of you like this show called traitors, but I love it. It's so cool and it reminds me of the, also the show um called the mole, where there's somebody trying to sabotage the missions, things like that, but in this game, traders, and also reminds me of there's other games, shows or games like it, like uh, the. The game among us is kind of like this, and so I kind of want to change things around or trying to mix things to make it work for my students. As a matter of fact, honestly, if you look up the game on YouTube called Mafia, if you've ever played Mafia on uh or with a deck of cards with your friends or whatever, it's pretty much just like that, except I didn't want to use words like mafia and murder and things like that. So I want to make it kid friendly, but also something they really enjoy. So here's how we play I take a deck of cards and I count the number of students. And, by the way, I don't just play. I want to tell you just straight up when we have rainy days, I do things like cup stacking, I do brain pop, juniors, where we're talking about nutrition and different health parts of the body, the heart. We talk about bike safety, water safety, all sorts of stuff, setting goals, all sorts of things. But I decided, you know what, after the BrainPop, and I do a lot of kahoots, gym kits, things like that. So again, it's not just like, hey, let's go play a game, but I decided you know what, I want to try something different. So after the brain pop, after we talked about the heart and just did a quiz on that, I'm like, well, let's just play a game. And I've been sketching this out for a couple of weeks because I love the show traders. It's on Peacock, if you want to watch it. It's pretty cool. And I'm the show traders. It's on peacock, if you want to watch it. It's pretty cool and I'm one of those people that loves big brother and amazing race and stuff like that. So there's people not from amazing race but the people from big brother on there and the challenge. My wife actually likes that, but I've never really seen it, things like that.

Speaker 1: 2:58

So the show, uh, has a couple traders and the host picks traders by walking around the room and everybody's got blindfolds on and he kind of taps on them and that's how he picks the traitors and then the faithfuls try to get them out. So in the middle of the night the traitors will quote, unquote murder someone and they'll be out of the game. And the next morning people are trying to figure out who it is. And then they go to like a round table discussion and they vote somebody out, so they banish somebody. So somebody gets murdered at night and then somebody gets banished during the day, I guess, or afternoon, and it continues until they try to get all the traitors out or if the traitors win at the end. You know the faithfuls versus the traitors, but again, I don't want to use words like murder and you know things like that.

Speaker 1: 3:48

So I took the card game Mafia Again, if you want to look that up or I can put that up. Actually, I might link that in the show notes, just so you have it or so you can see what I'm talking about. I modified it though In my game. I took let's say there's. I'll make it real simple. Let's say there's 25 students, so I'll take. You know.

Speaker 1: 4:08

By the way, I messed up the first time. I did this with fourth grade, then third grade, and I had too many traders in the beginning, because of what I'll tell you is like oh, if you have like 20 or 30 people, you should have like four traders. Well, they couldn't agree on anything. So I just did two traders and two detectives. So it's not exactly like the game show, I guess. So you could do whatever you want. You have two jokers in there that could be the traders, and then two whatever aces can be the detectives, and the rest are just faithful, so just the regular people. And so you know, if you have 25 people, you have two jokers, two aces and the rest I try to do two through 10.

Speaker 1: 4:56

Because what happened was some kids thought that a jack was a joker or something like that, or you know, I mean like, or what does a queen mean? And I'm like don't tell anybody. You know, or did they try to show me? I'm like, no, don't do that. So again, nobody should be showing anybody their cards. I tell them they got to keep it completely secretive. Um, even you know, don't people be looking behind your, you know, over your? Like, make sure they cannot see your card.

Speaker 1: 5:22

So I tell everybody to go to sleep and I say okay, traders wake up and the first time they don't even know who the traders are and they do it really quietly, because if people hear you move in, they think you're a trader and they'll kind of look at each other and they'll point to somebody they want. I'll say, okay, traitors, eliminate somebody. I won't say murder, and they'll pick somebody. And then I'll say, okay, traitors, go to sleep. Detectives wake up. Detectives pick a person they think might be a traitor and they agree on somebody. And I'll either nod for yes or shake my head no, and then I'll say, okay, okay, detectives, go to sleep. Okay, everybody wake up and I'll say okay, unfortunately so and so was eliminated from the game. And, um, everybody like, oh, you know? Um, now this is the part.

Speaker 1: 6:11

This part's a little tricky as well, because when kids are eliminated, they can't make noise and that that way. That's where it gets a little tricky, because some kids they'll be making noises or they'll be looking around like, oh, like, no, you can't make noises. So you could have them sit in a certain spot or you could have them just sit and watch, like from their desk, or you could have them sit on the floor. I think I did that the second time because then you could tell who's still in the game, who's not. So they would sit on the floor, they could still watch, they just can't talk. And then we'd have a little discussion which took this is the hard part as well.

Speaker 1: 6:44

It took a little long, but I'll say, okay, we're going to nominate two people for either you could say eviction or banishment, and they'll say, you know, someone will raise their hand and they'll tell me oh, I heard I nominate so-and-so because I heard you make a noise over here. And then I'll pick somebody else and say, well, I picked this person because of this and we'll have them vote Now. In the beginning I had them talk. They were talking way too long, so it took too long. I think I had them vote for nominating three people and it just took too long, we didn't even finish, so then they'll vote on it. Well, who thinks so-and-so did it and who thinks so-and-so did it?

Speaker 1: 7:22

Now the detectives if they find out who somebody did, they can say hey, I'm a detective and I know this, but they could be lying and we talk about that. That's just playing the game, right, we're not really lying, nobody actually did that. I'm just saying they could do that, say, you know, I know this because of this. And, um, I'll also say you can't, I'm not going to keep picking the same people over and over again to nominate somebody. Like I'm trying to pick different people each time to nominate somebody and then they'll vote and they'll not. They'll eliminate someone or banish someone and the game will continue.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Now, if they get somebody, like I think right away in the second game, they got a detective right, right away the traitors just eliminated a detective right away, and so eventually there was no detectives. But I would still call out okay, detectives, wake up, pick somebody. And there's nobody there, there's no detectives. Okay, detectives, go to sleep. Because I can't say that the detectives are gone. So eventually, I think they got all the traitors. They got them all out. I I think they got all the traitors, they got them all out. I say, okay, the faithfuls win. That's the goal, right, the goal is to get all the faithfuls to win or the traitors to win by getting rid of everybody. And we never really got to. You know, we didn't always finish because it takes a while and I want to make sure I get my PE lesson in there.

Speaker 1: 8:37

But it's a fun game. Pe lesson in there, but it's a fun game. And for those of you that are outside and sometimes you have to come inside because of the heat or the rain or whatever, actually, speaking of this probably won't be out in time, but we have to be inside this week because it's picture day and there's all random times. So my AP is like, hey, can you do PE inside on Wednesday? So it's things like that. Uh, I might even play this that you know, on wednesday, right, a little bit, not with kindergarten or first, probably in second, I'd say third, fourth and fifth, I'd say third and higher will be.

Speaker 1: 9:09

This is a great game. So that is, uh, I don't recall. I guess that is traders. We'll just I'm gonna steal the trademark name, that is traders. Again, I'll link everything in the show notes so you can see what I'm talking about, but it's a great game. It's a great quick game. Um, no, it's not exactly pe type thing, but it's communication, if you want to loosely tie in some I don't know standards. Uh, it's just a fun game for rainy days. There you go, it's traders. It's cool. Have a great day we weekend. Pe nation. You guys and girls are awesome. Let's keep pushing our profession forward. Thank you.