Instant Activity: "Tractor, Buoy, Sea Monster"

Let's play, PE Nation!

A camp classic from 1999 gets new life in our PE classes as we teach Tractor Buoy Sea Monster, a fast, no-equipment game that borrows the logic of rock, paper, scissors. We explain the gestures, the rules and a quick partner activity that fills three to five minutes with fun and fair play.

Check out this game if you’d like, and more games in my team building activities for PE. It’ll be in the show notes, and it helps support the show if you’d like to move on further with more games and activities that I put together for you, as well as my kindergarten games and activities ebook I just put out.

-Kindergarten PE Games and Activities ebook ($3.99 for 10 activities)

-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

Grab my copy of the Outside PE Checklist as a reference that includes equipment, procedures, transitions, and other essentials for successful outdoor teaching

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

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

-Paperback or download: HERE

-Amazon Ebook: HERE

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Game Tease
• 0:43 Origin Story: Camp in 1999
• 2:31 What Are Tractor, Buoy, Sea Monster
• 3:38 Who Wins: The Beat Chain Explained
• 4:16 Classroom Setup & Partner Play
• 5:26 Wrap-Up & Resources

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Super Size for Zad podcast. My name is Dave, and today I want to teach you about a favorite game of mine. It's a real simple one. It's called Tractor Buoy Sea Monster. And yes, it is just like rock, paper, scissors. And we'll talk about it right after this. So here we go. All right, welcome in PE Nation. I want to teach you a game today that I learned in 1999 because I remember exactly where I was. I was in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, uh kind of near Fargo. Um just as a I volunteered. I was there for a month. I was the town runner at a camp, like I said, and I really enjoyed it. And there was a game that they the leaders taught the campers called Tractor Buoy Sea Muster. And yes, it is just like rock, paper, scissors, where of course something beats something, and then it could be beat by something else. And I teach this to definitely my older students. I've taught it to, I think, uh I taught recently. I know I taught to second grade. I might have taught to first grade just because, but kindergarten still working on the rock, paper, scissors and just playing fair and not changing their answers and all that good stuff. So Track Debris Sea Monster is a great game. If you have a few minutes, like this year, we have an extra 10 minutes of our specials, and sometimes it's just really hot outside. It's actually almost always really hot outside in Florida, and it's actually cooling down a little bit, so it's been nice. But sometimes we have a few extra minutes. And I've already gone over the lesson for the day, maybe done some questioning, and I'll have a couple minutes. I'm talking like three to five minutes. And I mean you can play this longer, but I think it'll get old after a while. But it's it's really fun. It's something that kids can do at uh like recess if they want to play, or you know, just whenever, wherever, at home they could teach your family this game. So here are the three things. Tractor, they have to make, they have to pretend like they're basically driving a car or driving a tractor. That's tractor. Buoy, and I have to explain what a buoy is. And for my international listeners, I'm not sure what they call it. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. But uh buoy is something that floats in the water, that's uh like in the at the local uh I don't know, swimming area where you can't you can't go past that. It's like a floating, not a cone, but a floating device, uh, usually like an orange thing that is floating in the water that says you can't go past this, you know, area. So buoy is just your hands over your air, hands over your head and making uh just putting them together like a like almost like a cone. Um again, hands over your head all the way up and kind of clap together like this. And yeah, I just made a cool noise. So that is buoy, and Sea Monster is just uh students or whoever putting their hands out, like two hands out, like they're trying to scare somebody. I was thinking of Sully for Monsters Inc., just going, rah, you know, that kind of thing. So tractor, buoy, sea monster, and it's real simple. Tractor runs over the buoy, so tractor beats the buoy. I guess it's a water tractor, I don't know. And buoy stops the sea monster. And I'll I'll demonstrate to that to them. I'll be like, okay, tractor runs over the I'll just show them visually. I'll be like, okay, tractor, you're driving, and you run over the buoy, and then the buoy, you know, stops sea monster. He runs right into it, and then the sea monster it's the best one. Sea monster beats tractor because a sea monster drives the tractor, and I'll make a little driving motion. So again, tractor beats buoy because it runs it over, buoy stops a sea monster, sea monster drives the tractor. And then what I'll do is I'll have them stand. Well, actually, I'll start. I'll stand in front of my, you know, my three classes while they're sitting, and I'll turn around and I'll say, okay, you have to be ready. I'm gonna say three, two, one, and I'm gonna jump and face you. And you choose one of those three things. And you can't change your answer. I always do this even with rock, paper, scissors. They can't change their answer because I don't want them, I want them to learn, you know, playing fair. And they just who cares? We're just playing for fun. So, you know, I'll say three, two, one, I'll jump and face them, and I'll do whatever, and they'll do, you know, their thing, and and I'll go over, okay, who beat who, who tied, you know, all that stuff. And it just, um, so that's I'll do that a couple times. And then I'll have them, you know, I'll say, okay, now you have to, you know, stand up, find a partner, and then do the same thing, stand back to back, and then do it like a 3-2-1 and then face each other and see who wins. And if it's a tie, do it again. And if if there is a winner, just you know, high-five each other and then go find somebody else, find another partner. So we do that for a few minutes, and the kids have a lot of fun with it. And I always tell them they come to see me or one of the other coaches. So it's kind of like if they don't have a partner, come see one of us. Although a lot of times, you know how that they are, they want to they want to beat the teacher, so they'll come to us as well. So just I'll get like a line of students, and um, you know, that's a simple one. I know it's a short episode, but that's Tractor Bowie Sea Monster. I don't need to explain anymore, I don't think. But the kids have a lot of fun with that and something different that you could play for like a again an instant activity, a five-minute game kind of thing. And I think your your students will enjoy it. So check out this game if you'd like, and more games in my team building activities for PE. It's in it'll be in the show notes, and it helps support the show if you'd like to move on further with more games and activities that I put together for you, and as well as my kindergarten games and activities ebook I just put out. So, with that, PE Nation, take care. You guys and girls are awesome. Have a great day, week, weekend, whenever you're listening to this, and let's keep pushing our profession forward.