On the final day of our fourth grade basketball unit, I wanted to try something different. We had done the “standard” skills and drills, played the shooting, passing and lead-up games, and even had some heated competitive matches.

Many days went very well and the students worked at their skill level and strived to work together, some days more successfully than others.

I pulled out an “old school” game board – Basketball Skillastics. It is a roll the dice and move around the board style game, where players take turns, land on a challenge and then report to their team to do their best.
I introduced the game to the class, divided them into four teams, and told them that part of the challenge was to “help me debug” the game – to see what worked well and what we could improve upon for future players. They had to come up with a team cheer that they would do every time they had completed a skill challenge.

We set up and they were off! The first four ran to the board, rolled the dice, moved to the skill and then reported back to their team. They completed the skill and then all knelt to give their cheer! The excitement and smiles and team work filled the gym – how fun!

After all teams had completed round one, we stopped to talk. Comments and suggestions included, “I like the team support, I like the challenging skills, I like our cheer”! Suggestions for changes included having the team do variations on the skills and shooting a basket on certain rolls.
We played round two and it was just as much fun!

The kids wrapped up our unit and felt successful, supported and of value. I would say this was a good day in P.E.