Reindeer Games For PE Teachers

Jingle Bells, PE Nation!

Today I share how to run Reindeer Games, a winter-themed PE event that trades endless laps for creative stations, safe movement, and real learning. We cover setup, scheduling with large classes, inclusive music, budget decor, and a full menu of flexible, fun games.

• two-day versus one-day event planning
• mirrored station tracks for large groups
• safety choices for outdoor and indoor spaces
• winter-themed stations that build skills
• inclusive music and simple decor
• smooth rotations and student leadership
• bridging stations to the next unit

Happy teaching,

Dave

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

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-Team Building Games Ebook ($4.99 with preview): https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Team-Building-Games-and-Activities-for-PE-Class-14063095

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

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-Paperback or download: HERE

-Amazon Ebook: HERE

Chapters

• 0:11 Setting The Stage And Context
• 0:42 Post‑Surgery Check‑In And Schedule
• 1:48 Why Reindeer Games Over Turkey Trot
• 3:18 Managing Large Groups And Time
• 6:36 Two‑Day Format And Logistics
• 6:36 Decorations On A Budget
• 7:34 Music Choices And Inclusivity
• 8:52 The Game Menu And Safety
• 12:52 Cowbell Tip: Plan Your Event
• 13:53 Resources, Thanks, And Sign‑Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Super Science for Z podcast. My name is Dave, and today let's talk reindeers. Let's talk the reindeer games and things we could do in December to have fun with our students, kind of like the turkey trot, but let's call it the reindeer games. So without further ado, here we go. All right, PE Nation, welcome in. So this is my first podcast post-surgery, and I appreciate all your patience. If you've been waiting for an episode to drop, usually I drop them on Mondays, sometimes Tuesdays, but today I'm recording it on Tuesday. So hopefully I'll get this out to you really fast. And if not, I'm sorry. I'll get out to you as fast as possible. So I did have surgery uh Friday, last Friday, and it's been a long recovery so far, but I'm doing much better. And um yeah, it's been it's been something taking medicine and icing my wounds and uh that kind of stuff. So I'm glad you're here, and I'm glad I'm doing this because it makes me feel better to communicate uh with all of you, and um, I'm looking forward to even getting back to school. This is uh Thanksgiving break, and um, yeah, I'm looking forward to a lot of things, I guess, but definitely healing up and this is going well. So um again, thank you for tuning in and being patient with the podcast episodes. So today, let's talk reindeer games. Now, in the past, I did Turkey Trot, which is one of my last episodes, and I also did reindeer games. So that was end of uh, you know, right before Thanksgiving's turkey trot, and then right before Christmas break is reindeer games. This year I decided to do one or the other. And between my PTO and administration, they wanted me, they were kind of gearing a little bit towards turkey trot, and that's fine. I like turkey trot, but that's just about running. When I do the reindeer games, I make this about um stations and just doing different uh activities with the students. And I want to tell you how I did it, did them in the past and how I could do them, I might do them again next year. Um, I just didn't want to take too many days. Last year the turkey trot took two days, and the reindeer games took two days as well. So, you know, again, that's four days out of the uh out of my schedule, out of my program that I enjoy, but I also want to get my students uh ready for other things, and especially my uh fourth and fifth graders. Um, I want to get them going with chook ball so I can get the fifth graders going with a tournament after break, after Christmas break. So it's just a lot, and I didn't want to uh do both. So, but I I do want to tell you about the Rainier Games because I do enjoy it. I actually think I like it better than the Turkey Trot because it's more, it's not just running, it's it's different things. And you can make this however you wanted to make it. So uh first let's let's talk about how we set it up. And yes, I had to make it a boomer just because, you know, boomers are fun, and it makes me uh take a breath for a second there and um get ready. So the first thing is how I set up the reindeer games. Now, again, everybody's different, so it's hard for me to say one size fits all in this regard. But the way I do it is I do it over two days, and actually I've done it with one day before, and it's it's very difficult because we have anywhere between six and eight classes per grade level, and if they all come out at the same time and we only have 50 minutes, we actually used to have 40 minutes my whole time at this school and at my former school. So let's just say we we've been doing it with 40 minutes, and it's really difficult because what we do is um, you know, we have we can't have eight stations and like five minutes per station, it's never gonna work. And even with an extra 10 minutes, it still wouldn't work. It's just too many uh, you know, moving parts and getting kids to their stations and it's just not enough time. So what I did in the past when we did have eight classes going at once is I basically had two separate uh almost like tracks going. Like if and I'll tell you the games in a little bit, but basically I had duplicate duplicate games going on at the same time. So, you know, if you're in class A, you'd be doing um the same game as class, you know, C, because I kind of I don't know what I did. I something, or let's just say the even numbers and odd numbers. I think I did that way actually, where it's you know, if your stations uh one, three, five, and seven, those are the same games as two, four, six, eight. But one and two are doing the same games, and then they go on to their other games. Like it's kind of like a separate track almost, because there's no way I can get eight games in 40 in in 40, 40 minutes or even 50 minutes. So they're doing four big games in you know, about 10 to 12 minutes per station. So um that's how I set it up. Now, if you do it for two days, let's say you have a lot of big classes like I do, or a lot of classes like I do, you can do it in like a two-day window where you just do it during PE time, where when they come out to PE, that's the reindeer games. And this year I only have three or four classes at a time instead of like more. Sometimes I have well, it's really three plus splits. So it's like three and a half to almost four classes at a time. And like it's a lot easier that way, a lot more manageable. Um, so it definitely I would say set it up in two days if you have like anywhere between uh you know, I don't know, five or more classes per grade level. So I think that's the best way to set it up is get with your administration and set up that way. Or if you want to do it one day, that's fine. But then you have to get um like we did a turkey triad, you have to get the art, music, and stem or whatever specials you have to help and come out and uh bring their classes out at the same time. So that's just a lot of kids. So again, that's how I set it up. I do two days of reindeer games uh right before break. And that's number one. All right, number two is decorations. Now I'm not big on decorating. I'm I'm not even good at decorating around my house, but I try to get um just dollar store items or things donated and set up the pavilion with uh just little wintery kind of stuff, um, just around the, you know, again, the pavilion, the courts, um, just hanging on, you know, the gates or whatever, just get it looking kind of wintery. And uh again, you don't have to spend a lot of money on this, and you can get teachers, other teachers to help send out an email for extra stuff. And uh yeah, if you can get some help on that with it between your PTO or even just other students like the fifth graders are great at a lot of them want to decorate and be helpful. So um, I'll keep this one short, but definitely add some little decor um to your reindeer game theme. Number three is the music. So I definitely keep it more um wintery and less Christmassy, um, just because you know, there's some people that or some families that would rather you not play Christmas music and definitely not any type of Christian music, which by the way I love. Um I'm just saying, you know, we in the public school need to be careful with the music we play. So definitely keep it more of a winter theme, um, you know, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer kind of thing, and not obviously um, you know, the gospel. Um just gotta be careful with that kind of stuff. So just keep that in mind. If you're in a private school and that's, you know, or definitely a private uh like Christian school or Catholic school, obviously there's different parameters there, but keeping it uh very general and basic. It's kind of like with Halloween. I I don't do super scary music or anything like that. I mean, thriller is the I guess the scariest one, but um, and I try to keep that even just to the older students. Um, just be mindful of the music, I guess what I'm saying for this one. And uh keep it very basic, generic, uh, but definitely get a holiday theme going in there. It's very it's very important to the uh to the reindeer games itself. And that's number three. Number four are the games. Now you can do whatever you want with this, um, as far as you know, your creativity, the things you want to do with your students, if you want to make it more of a showcase of what you've done in the past, or just random games uh to have fun. That's kind of what I did, I think, um, for the most part. So here's some of the games we played um in no particular order and just some extra things that you could throw in there, or just some ideas. So one of the games we did, which I'm not sure if I'm gonna do again, but is uh a giant snowball uh relay where I just got these big exercise balls and told them that's a big snowball, and they have to you know roll it down the court. There's like four lines going at a time, maybe six, and just they just have to roll it down the court and back, or they have to roll it to the partner and back, or around some cone or obstacle and back. Now, the only problem I ran into was I did it on our basketball courts because we're outside, and that is cement. And so we had a couple spills, especially from the younger students, and uh, you know, I kind of uh tampered down that game a little bit because I didn't want anybody getting hurt. Now, I don't ever want anybody getting hurt, and neither do you, but you know, if you're in a gymnasium and the floor is a little more forgiving, um, I think that's a great game. I think they have a lot of fun with it, especially if you make it, you know, that's a wintery theme. And, you know, that I just think that's a great game, but it just didn't really work for us. Um same thing with the like the ball hoppers. You can make that like a snowball hopping kind of game where you they have the handles and they just kind of bounce on it. Um again, I don't do that a lot. We have those. So sometimes I'll do them on the grass, but I'm just uh I don't just want anybody getting hurt. Um some other games are um do you want to build a snowman? Which they have to do a relay race, and they have to build a snowman out of like hula hoops and um noodles for arms and different like yarn balls for like the the coal, you know, whatever, um, and or the eyes and um just some other things for their their nose and whatever. Just give them random equipment to build a snowman, but it's gotta be equal in each line, so it's a relay race, and whoever builds it first wins. Another game we did was a sleigh ride where it's um kind of like a 40-yard dash with a relay aspect to it, where they had to uh drag a hula hoop that was pulled by uh jump rope, and it's kind of like a sleigh, and they had to run it down and bring it back or around a cone or to a partner. So just making it again wintery or reindeer-based or Christmas-based um games, maybe not calling Christmas, but you know, that whole deal. And so um the other one was an um we call it elf tales, where it's just like the dragon tales where they have two, and you know, I didn't actually buy the the clips, but I had uh like chip clips or what do you call them, like clothespins, sorry, clothespins, and I tied yarn to them, and they had to run around and try to step on each other's tails and um that kind of thing and just kind of chase each other around. And um, if you got your your tail uh caught or gone, you had you had to go to the side and do an exercise, or you can come back in and or when you come back in, you can start going for other people's tails, things like that, where the kids are just running, having fun. You could do again, I don't do dodgeball, but you could do some kind of snowball fight where it's uh socks or something like that. Now I didn't do that, but you could where you know you're making up snowballs and just kind of or throwing at targets. We actually did that as well, where it's a snowball target toss where we threw into frisbee targets, you know, um games like that. Anything with a again, a wintry theme or that kind of theme will work for your games. And now it's time for your cowbell tip of the day. All right, so your tip of the day is to plan out your reindeer games, if that's something you are interested in, or you have a couple days before Christmas break to to plan for. Maybe there's a couple days that you're just like, you know what, I'm at the end of a certain unit, and I have a couple days that we can spare to have some fun with the students. Hopefully you're always having fun, but extra some something extra for the students before Christmas break, before winter break. And I just think it's a lot of fun for the students. Like I said, I'm not doing this year, but I have done in the past almost every year. And I think I'm gonna bring it back next year. I just I'm gonna miss it this year. And um, hey, maybe I could squeeze it in, but you never know. So definitely check out the reindeer games, try to get that going in your school or something along those lines. Reindeer run, if you want to do that instead of turkey trot. But definitely give that a try in your school, at least once. Try it out, see if you like it, see if it fits with your school. And that is your cowbell tip of the day. Thank you everybody for tuning in today. I really do appreciate it. As always, go to SupersizeFized.com for more information, or definitely check out the show notes with all the links, with the articles, the podcast, the books, the free video courses, and other things out there. So with that, have a great day, week, weekend, have a great Thanksgiving if you're not hearing this this week. And let's keep pushing our profession forward.