Space Battle: A Team Target Game For Elementary PE

Join the Galactic Battle PE Nation!

Let's transform your PE class with Space Battle, a target game using four-square grids as "spaceships" where students defend their pins while trying to knock down their opponents'. This game combines strategy, teamwork, and skill development while keeping all students actively engaged throughout.

• Setup requires four-square grids (painted, chalked, or taped) representing spaceships
• Bowling pins serve as "engines"
• Teams of 4-6 students per ship
• Last team with standing pins wins, or team with most pins after time limit
• Variations are unlimited
• Excellent opportunities for strategy discussions between rounds
• Even eliminated teams can continue participating

Take care,

Dave

Grab a copy of the PDF HERE

Article on Space Battle with rules and setup.

Check out supersizedphysed.com for more resources, including free PDFs, articles, and courses to help with your PE program. Please leave a review to help grow this podcast and keep pushing our profession forward.

-Team Building Games Ebook (with preview): https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Team-Building-Games-and-Activities-for-PE-Class-14063095

-Kindergarten PE Kickoff Guide: article

-Free resources include Substack and Medium articles with PE tips, games, and strategies

-A free video course on the "PE-9": principles for improving your PE program

-High Fives and Empowering Lives  book available as an ebook or paperback

-Paperback or download: HERE

-Amazon Ebook: HERE

Please take 3.5 seconds to leave a review

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Space Battle Game
• 0:45 Gratitude to Listeners Worldwide
• 1:52 Space Battle Setup and Rules
• 5:29 Game Variations and Strategy Discussions
• 8:20 Final Thoughts and Call to Action

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Super Size Phys Ed podcast. My name is Dave and today let's talk Space Battle. It's a game I haven't played in quite a while but I want to bring it back and I was thinking about it the other day and it's just a great target game for elementary PE. So without further ado, here we go. Welcome inPE Nation.

Speaker 1: 0:45

So first of all, thank you again for listening, downloading just being a part of this whole process. I appreciate all of you, I appreciate the new places I've seen pop up that have listened to the podcast. Again, I'm very grateful and humbled that people from literally around the world will listen to me talk, which is kind of crazy. But my goal, as always, is to just bring you as much value as possible and just create value in the PE space and I do that by either tactical kind of games or just strategies and teaching tips, or even just inspirational stuff, I guess, or inspirational people. So I try to give you a good mix of that. So again, I appreciate all of you. And again, you know my dog is making noise out there, so you might get used to Peppermint. Call her Peppy. She's actually outside, is making noise out there, so you might get used to peppermint, call her Peppy. She's actually outside just causing little problems there or not problems, but you know she's having fun.

Speaker 1: 1:52

So Space Battle it's a game I actually created in my former school and I haven't played in my current school. I keep saying new school. It's been my fifth year, so I haven't played it here yet. I've played games like it. It's a target game with pins and gator skin balls, dodge balls, whatever you want to call them. So what we usually play is Prairie Dog Pickoff, which is I always give Joey Feith credit for this because he did teach me and others this game and he created it, at least what it's called in the different levels. He called them builds. So go to the physicaleducatorcom for a pro dog pickoff. It's on his website as well and on his youtube channel, um. So we play that a lot. It's, it's. I'm not gonna get into that um, because that's a whole nother topic but uh, or home of the game. But.

Speaker 1: 2:42

But Space Battle is kind of similar where basically I started because I started using the four-square grids if you call them four-square courts as spaceships, and in my former school I actually painted four-square grids under the pavilion because it was a really large pavilion and my current one is not as big. But I painted them like over the summer kind of thing, and then I noticed, hey, why don't we turn them into something different besides just four square? So they became the ships. Now, if you don't have it set up like that, that's the. I think that's the biggest thing about this game is, uh, to set up the grids um, kind of four square. You don't have to. I mean, it could just be one big circle or whatever, but it's that kind of size and the ones that I didn't have set up like I had some space in between. I just used some chalk and draw some four square grids. Of course it does come off and I got to redo it. But you do with painter's tape kind of thing. You do it with any kind of floor tape if you're in a gym and those are like the. So those are the spaceships.

Speaker 1: 3:51

So I put four to six-ish kids per team, you know, in the spaceship. That's their team. Okay, and depending on how many, this is all the setup. Depending on how much gator skin ball your collection is or how big it is. You give each team about two or three to start with. So the objective is to we start with bowling, rolling, and then you can add on to throwing later if you'd like.

Speaker 1: 4:20

Throw or bowl is a proper technique. Obviously, you're trying to knock the your opponent's pins down and you want to be the last ship standing. So, along with the setup, you, you need to put pins at each corner of the four square grid. And I will send, I'll have this. Um, it's actually the article which has a pdf in it. Um, in the show notes you can take a look at it. I'll also put on social media where you can kind of take a look at the setup. It it's a whole PDF I created. So definitely check the links in the show notes for this.

Speaker 1: 4:51

And so basically every corner, all the four corners of the ship, have a pin, and you could also put one in the middle, so that'd be like the main engine. I call these engines and you know it's going to be pretty obvious from here. But you're trying to knock the other team's pins down. You need to demonstrate proper bowling or rolling technique. They must bowl from their own. This is important. They must bowl from their own ship. So one foot must be touching their ship at all times because they can't just be in I call it just outer space just rolling a ball. You can't just go up to another team's pin and knock it down. You have to have one foot on your ship at all times to roll it. You can block with your hands or feet. You can't kick the ball. Team members may send one player to collect the balls that are scattered in outer space. You can take one team member and they can be the collector of the Gatorskin balls.

Speaker 1: 5:41

Basically, once a pin is down or engine is down, it's it must remain down. The last pin standing wins, or the team with the most standing after two to three minutes is clear the winner of that round. So a lot of times that's what it is. We just play like a three minute round or something like that, and it's up to you, it's up to your, the time frame you have, and it's up to uh, you know how fast it goes. Sometimes it goes really fast, sometimes it doesn't. So I always put a time limit on it, though, because if not, sometimes we're there forever.

Speaker 1: 6:12

I do play and this is not in the article I do play where, if your team is out, you can still uh, participate. So if your team is eliminated. Technically they can't win the round, but they can knock out other teams, because I don't want kids just standing there waiting, waiting, waiting. That's not what I. I try to not make any game like that, so it's an elimination game, but you can still participate. If your team is eliminated, you can knock out other teams. So there's some variations, though, in this, and they're really unlimited, honestly. So here's some of the ones I've used in the past teams can put a pin back up after performing certain exercises. A team member must go to another planet, which is like a building area, and complete a cup stacking sequence like a 333, 363, something like that, and that, uh, that means an engine can be fixed or like a pin could be stood.

Speaker 1: 7:06

And a variation that I definitely used was you could rotate ships between rounds and discuss the different strategies the defensive strategies and offensive of having a ship in the corner versus one in the middle. So obviously the one in the middle gets a lot more action, it's a lot more difficult to defend and the ones in the corners are easier to defend and that kind of deal. But you can have the students obviously talk about that, figure that out amongst themselves and in the later rounds you can include overhand throwing and you know that's up to you, that's up to your class, that's if I also tell them they need to show control with bowling if they want to earn the throwing portion of it. So you know, definitely I wouldn't start with throwing, i'd'd start with bowling kind of thing and work from there. So after that, you know, between rounds, um, as you're taking a break or whatever, uh, we're outside, so sometimes just getting a water break is very necessary.

Speaker 1: 8:02

Um, you know I have them sit and get in groups or we do a big team talk on a couple things like, like, what was your strategy? What can you do next round for a better outcome? And then, what ships were the easiest or toughest to defend or target? Why, you know why, or why not, or why were they the easiest, why were they, you know, the hardest to defend? That kind of thing? You know I really enjoy this game Again.

Speaker 1: 8:26

I haven't played in a while, but I want to bring it back as I'm talking about it and game again. Um, I haven't played in a while, but I want to bring it back as I'm talking about it and as I was looking at the pdf that I created a long time ago for this. So, um, you know, definitely, um, give this game a try. It's been, it's been a while. Like, I give it a try, let me know how it goes. And uh, there's. I won't even do a tip of the day, that's just that, just it. Check the show notes for all the links I discussed, the article, the everything, and definitely go to superscience, phys, edcom for more information. Have a great day, week, weekend, up nation are amazing, you're awesome, you're incredible and I appreciate you listening in. So let's keep pushing our profession forward. You.