Kindergarten PE games play a crucial role in a young student’s physical development journey.  Fundamental movement skills (including running, jumping, balancing, throwing and catching) should be the focus of kindergarten PE.  These skills are best developed between the ages of 3 and 8 and form the basis for both PE enjoyment and leading life-long healthy lifestyles. 

The equipment you need for PE lessons will vary depending on the focus – gymnastics, for example, will look very different to an outdoor soccer lesson.

But what if there’s no equipment available?

Kindergarten PE games with no equipment

The ever-changing nature of school timetables means that we often find ourselves teaching kindergarten PE when we weren’t expecting to.  Or, the PE store key is missing and we’ve been left to deliver a PE lesson with no equipment. 

But don’t panic! We’ve got your back – with our Top 5 kindergarten PE games with no equipment.  All you need is space and plenty of energy!

1. The Atom Game

This activity, found in our quick games is always a popular warm up activity.  Ask the students to move around an area – keep changing the way they move – walking, jogging, skipping and so on.  After about half a minute call out a number.  Students must get into groups of that number as quickly as possible.  Any children not in a group, or the last to form a group, must perform a fun forfeit such, as star jumps. 

2. Truck and Trailer

Children work in pairs, with one being the truck and the other being the trailer.  The truck leads the trailer around the area, and the trailer must follow, keeping as close as they can to the truck.  Encourage the leader to move in different directions, changing speed and type of movement. 

On the signal ‘change’ the children swap roles and the trailer now becomes the truck and leads their trailer around. 

3. DVD player

Tell your kindergarten students to imagine they are inside a giant TV, and you have the remote control.  The buttons you press for your TV determines what actions the children perform.  These button actions can be introduced one by one, depending on your class ability…

• Play – children walk/jog inside the ‘TV’.
• Pause – children must freeze, like a statue.
• Rewind – children move backwards.
• Fast Forward – children move quickly, taking little quick forward steps.
• Stop – children lay down on the floor.
• Mute – children must move around in silence.

4. Chain Tag

An exciting teamwork tag game, where one child starts as the tagger.  The children move around the area, and if the tagger tags someone, they must make a link (hold hands) and become taggers together.  Each time a child is tagged, they join the chain. 

For safety, after six students are in a chain, ask the next child tagged to start a new chain. 
The last un-tagged child is the winner and becomes the start tagger for the next round.

5. Grasshoppers

This is one of our favorite activities, and always popular in kindergarten PE!  ‘Grasshoppers’ uses lots of imagination and fundamental movement skills!

Ask children to pretend they are grasshoppers, as if they are moving (jumping) around in the grass.  Call out different commands and the children must complete the command with an action…

• ‘Side to Side’ – jump side to side with feet together.
• ‘Over the Stone’ – jump up high as if jumping over a stone.
• ‘Lost Grasshoppers’ – hop once in all directions – forward, backward, left and right. 
• ‘Slow Motion’ – hop as slow as possible.
• ‘Snake’ – jump as fast as they can to get away from the snakes.
• ‘Grasshoppers’ – continue jumping around the area.

We hope these fun kindergarten PE games help as a ‘back-up’ for those times when you have no choice for delivering a kindergarten PE lesson with no equipment available. 

As always, if we can help with kindergarten PE lesson planning, or ideas for any Phys Ed activities, just shout!