5 Best Easy and Fun PE Gym Games for Kindergarten

Are you looking for some super fun gym games for kindergarten? Look no further! Discover the secrets to keeping your kindergarten students engaged, active, and having a blast with these 5 easy, yet super fun, gym games.

In this blog post we’ll dive deep into 5 PE tag and team games that are packed with opportunities for developing locomotor skills, coordination, and imagination. Additionally, these 5 activities will promote sportsmanship, improve social emotional learning and provide your students with hours of laughter.

The 5 best PE gym games for kindergarten are:

• BUBBLE CARS
• SNACK ATTACK TAG
• TURTLE TAG
• MUSICAL SIGHT WORDS
• CRAZY BALL SOCCER

5 Best Gym Games for Kindergarten

Let’s jump into some serious physical education fun!

BUBBLE CARS

Bubble Cars is seriously one of the absolute best gym games for kindergarten. Get your kindergarten students moving and grooving with this PE Whole Class Kindergarten Gym Game, simply called, BUBBLE CARS!

This fun, engaging activity helps kids develop essential locomotor skills like walking, galloping, and skipping. Designed for PE teachers, BUBBLE CARS encourages physical activity through imaginative play. Kids will love wearing an official badge while using hula hoops as their pretend police cars. Additionally, the remainder of the class will get their own “bubble car” in their favorite color and have a blast zooming around the gym and exploring different ways of moving their bodies. Perfect for practicing spacial awareness while building coordination, balance, and cardiovascular fitness, this unique game is a must-have for any elementary physical education curriculum.

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

For this game you will need:

• 4 Blue Hula Hoops
• Several Different Colored Hula Hoops (not blue) – enough for each student to have their own
• Basket filled with Yellow/Red Driving Violation Tickets – or you can simply use red and yellow construction paper squares

GAME SET-UP

Place a basket with “traffic tickets” (10-12 each red/yellow) in the middle of the gym. Choose 4 students to be the “Police Officers” and give them each a blue hula hoop to use as their police car. Give the rest of the students in the class a different colored bubble car (hula hoop). Set up 10-12 orange cones to make a “Driving School Area” in the corner of the gym.

GAME DIRECTIONS

Explain to the students that they must get inside their Bubble Car (Hula Hoop) and drive it safely. Explain that the lines in the gym are the roads so everyone, including the police officers, must travel on the lines in this game. The object is for everyone to travel safely around town without speeding or getting into an accident. There is no running in this game – skipping, galloping, walking only. It’s perfect for working on essential locomotor skills.

If a student “crashes” or runs into another student’s “bubble car” they both must sit down and wait for a police officer who will get a yellow ticket from the basket and bring it to them.  Once they get a yellow warning ticket they can get back in the game and begin traveling safely again. 

If a student is running, a police officer may bring them a yellow ticket for that, as well. If a student that has a yellow ticket gets into another crash or gets caught “speeding” a police officer then brings them a red ticket. The police officer then must escort them to the “driving school area” where they must stay until the end of the round. Switch police officers after each round of play.

GAME TIPS

Here are a few bonus tips to make this game even more fun for your students to play!

• I like to play the Kidz Bop version of the song “Life is a Highway” when I play this game with my students.
• Sometimes I also put store and restaurant signs up (McDonalds, Walmart, etc.) for the kids to travel around to. You can even have the kids make the signs.
• When students are in the “Driving School Area” I have them practice moving around with their “cars” safely. Sometimes I have them actually hula hoop when they are there – you decide – just have fun with it!

BUBBLE CARS is also a very easy game to leave as a lesson plan for a substitute teacher. Just print off, gather the equipment and leave for a sub. GRAB YOUR OWN COPY OF BUBBLE CARS RIGHT HERE!

SNACK ATTACK TAG

Engage your students in an energetic PE lesson with this awesome ‘Snack Attack Tag’ game! This game is a great PE warm-up activity for Gym class. It keeps students active while promoting teamwork and physical fitness.

This PE resource is designed for PE teachers to use during physical education class or homeschool or classroom teachers who want a fun activity to play outside during an extra recess or learning break. It can even be used as a field day activity. This game is loved by kindergarten students, as well as students in grades 1-5. My PE students ask to play this game over and over again.

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

For this game you will need:

• 4-6 Different Colored Hula Hoops
• A Large Bucket with 50-60 Bean Bags

GAME SET-UP

Space out 4-6 different colored hula hoops around the gym or playing area. Place a bucket filled with 50-60 (enough for each student to have 3 each) bean bags in the middle of the gym.

GAME DIRECTIONS

Choose 4-6 students to be the “Hungry Monster” taggers. Send each monster to one of the colored hula hoops. Explain to the class that the monster taggers all start inside their house (colored hula hoop). Students who are not taggers should grab 3 snacks (bean bags)from the bucket and spread out around the gym.

When the round begins, the “Hungry Monster” taggers will leave their hula hoops and try to tag the students with the snacks (bean bags). If a student gets tagged, he/she must give the monster one snack/bean bag. The monster then takes the “snack” back to his/her house and drops it inside the hula hoop where it is now safe and cannot be stolen. The monster continues to tag students and collect as many snacks as possible during the round of play.

At the end of the round, send the monsters back to their houses to count up their snacks and determine which monster collected the most snacks. Switch taggers and play another round!

GAME TIPS

Here are a few bonus tips to make this game even more fun for your students to play!

• Choose a fun song about food or snacks that is about 60-90 seconds long. Use the song to signal the beginning of the round and the end. Sometimes I call this game “SCOOBY DOO TAG” and I play the Scooby-Doo theme song (it’s a perfect 58 seconds) for each round of play. My students LOVE IT SO MUCH!
• Make a rule where if a student loses all of their snacks in one round they can wave their hands in the air and call to their friends for help. Students who still have snacks left can share one with a classmate so they can quickly get back in the game.
• At the end of each round, make it a point to celebrate kindness by recognizing the students who shared a “snack” with a classmate or friend.

SNACK ATTACK is also a very easy game to leave in a lesson plan for a substitute teacher. Just print off, gather the equipment and leave for a sub. Snag your own copy of this super fun SNACK ATTACK PE activity RIGHT HERE.

TURTLE TAG

This exciting gym activity is perfect for teaching kids the fundamentals of running and agility. TURTLE TAG puts a fun, imaginative twist on the classic game of tag. Students will love pretending to be turtles, scurrying around the gym, rolling onto their backs when they get tagged and hiding in their “shells” when needing a short break. This game helps develop essential motor skills like coordination, speed, and spatial awareness. Packed with energy and laughter, TURTLE TAG is a surefire way to engage your students and get them excited about physical activity and gym class.

EQUIPMENT NEEDED

For this tag game you will need:

• 4-5 Green Pool Noodles
• Kids ready to have fun

GAME SET-UP

Choose 4-5 students (depending on class size) to be the “TURTLE TAGGERS.” Give each tagger a green pool noodle and send them to the middle of the gym to start the game.

GAME DIRECTIONS

The students with the pool noodles are the taggers and they should run around trying to tag the TURTLES – classmates. If a turtle gets tagged, he/she must lay down on his/her back waving their hands and feet in the air.

A turtle can be saved if another turtle comes by, grabs both of their hands and pulls them back up and into the game.

If a turtle needs a break, he/she can go INTO THEIR SHELL. This means they curl up in a ball and cover their head. If a turtle is in their shell they are safe and can’t be tagged by a turtle tagger. However, a turtle can only stay in their shell for 5 seconds (I have my students count 1-TURTLE 2-TURTLE 3-TURTLE 4-TURTLE 5- TURTLE). After counting to 5 the turtle must get up and get back in the game. Turtles can only go into their shell 2 times during each new round of play. 

Switch Taggers and play another round!

GAME TIPS

Here are few bonus game tips to make this game even better:

• I love to play the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle” theme song when playing this game.  It’s exactly 1 minute long – which is the perfect length of time for a round of play. Switch taggers after the song ends and play enough rounds to allow all students to be taggers.
• It’s also fun to use pool noodles to match the 4 Ninja Turtles and sometimes I even use colored headbands and let the taggers wear those! (BLUE – Leonardo, PURPLE – Donatello, RED – Raphael, – ORANGE – Michaelangelo)

SNAG YOUR VERY OWN COPY OF TURTLE TAG RIGHT HERE!

MUSICAL SIGHT WORDS

Get your young students excited about reading and physical activity with this awesome MUSICAL SIGHT WORDS Whole Group game.

This engaging activity combines the fun of music and movement with essential literacy skills. Students will love hopping, jumping, skipping and dancing their way through sight word recognition, all while getting their bodies moving.

MUSICAL SIGHT WORDS is the perfect way to reinforce reading and high frequency words in a fun, dynamic, and interactive setting. Bring the magic of this multi-sensory learning experience to your classroom or gymnasium.

GAME EQUIPMENT

For this game you will need:

• Different Colored Poly Spots – you need as many spots as you have students
• 2 Sets of Sight Word Cards – you need as many cards as you have poly spots
• Basket to hold the Flash Cards
• Music

GAME SET-UP

Grab as many poly spots as you have students. Tape a “sight word card” to the front of each poly spot and put the matching “sight word card” in a basket. 

Spread the spots out on the gym floor with the “sight word” side facing up. Put the basket with the second set of matching word cards in the middle of the gym.

GAME DIRECTIONS

Explain to the students that when the music starts they should walk, skip, hop, dance or gallop around the gym. Feel free to use any locomotor skill that you would like your students to work on.

When the teacher stops the music, students should move to quickly find a word spot and stand on it. For the first round of play, the teacher chooses a sight word card from the basket, shows it and yells it out. The student who is standing on that word shouts the word out, spells the word, and then they earn a point.

The teacher starts the music again and the children begin moving around the gym again. When the teacher stops the music, the last student who earned a point gets to choose the next word from the basket and read it aloud.

Continue playing until all or most students have had a chance to earn a point and choose a word to read and spell from the basket.

GAME TIPS

• Sometimes it’s fun to play the elimination version of this game. Just take away a spot each round until you get down to just one student winner, like the classic game of “Musical Chairs.” So they don’t feel like they “GOT OUT” I usually have my students go to a section of the gym and practice jumping rope, playing catch with a friend or practicing with a hula hoop.
• This is a fun game to play with weekly spelling words and grade appropriate math facts too.

GRAB YOUR VERY OWN COPY OF THIS READING/SIGHT WORD PE CLASSROOM GAME RIGHT HERE!

CRAZY BALL SOCCER

Crazy Ball SOCCER is a must-have activity for any elementary PE curriculum. Get your elementary students energized and engaged with this game that puts a fun, fast-paced twist on the classic game of good ole soccer. 

Students will love the challenge of dribbling, passing, and scoring with several safe, soft, easy-to-control balls, like beach balls and gator skin balls.

This whole class team game encourages skill development and teamwork with no downtime or students having to sit out.

GAME EQUIPMENT

For this game you will need:

• Several “SOFT BALLS” like Beach Balls, Gator Skin Balls, Kickballs – but NO HARD SOCCER BALLS
• 2 Small Soccer nets – if you don’t have nets you can use 2 large cones for each goal instead
• OPTIONAL: Team Jerseys or Pinnies
• OPTIONAL: Colored Bandanas to tie on nets
• OPTIONAL: Gold Chips or Tokens and a BUCKET (See Game Tips for more info)

GAME SET-UP

Divide the class into two equal teams. Put one team on one half of the gym and the other on the other half. Tell each team which goal is theirs and what direction they should be moving. Dump out all of the Beach Balls & other “Soft Balls” onto the gym floor.

GAME DIRECTIONS

Explain to the students that the object of this game is to kick the balls into their team’s specified goal or net. Several balls should be used in this game and students can run freely up and down the gym floor.

There are NO GOALIES in this game. Everybody should be trying to score a goal and only focused on passing or kicking a ball down the court or field (if playing outside) and into the net. Once a student scores a goal, he/she must quickly retrieve the ball from the goal and throw it back out into the center of the gym so it gets back into play again right away.

The student then runs over and gives the teacher a HIGH FIVE signaling that he/she scored a goal for their team.

This is one of the best gym games for kindergarten because everybody can be playing at all times and nobody has to sit out.

GAME TIPS

• I often tie a colored bandana to each goal to help remind students. It’s also helpful to have one team wear matching colored pinnies.
• Play 3 rounds of this game. ROUND 1: Play as explained above and have  kids give you a HIGH FIVE after each goal scored. ROUND 2: For this round, I have a cup filled with gold chips. When a student scores a goal they still give the teacher a HIGH FIVE but this time they can grab a chip and add it to the CLASS POINT BUCKET. At the end of the round (the length of a fun song) count how many chips (goals) the class got as a team. ROUND 3: Play a final round like ROUND 2 but challenge the students to beat their previous score.

SNAG YOUR VERY OWN PDF OF THE AWESOME GAME “CRAZY BALL SOCCER” RIGHT HERE!

GAME OVER

Get ready to level up your PE game and keep those kindergarteners smiling from ear to ear! With these five fantastic gym games, you’ll have the perfect toolkit to make physical education fun and engaging for your little learners. So, gather your students, lace up those sneakers, and let the fun begin!

GOOD NEWS! You can snag all 5 of these easy-to-print kindergarten lesson plans and games RIGHT HERE in my KINDERGARTEN PE GAME BUNDLE!

Happy Teaching, Learning, Laughing and Loving! Have a FABULOUS Day filled with plenty of FUN and FITNESS! See you soon!

Be sure to check out my other unique and fun PE Resources and Games in my Love 2 Teach and Learn TPT store RIGHT HERE!