Engage Your Students with Block ‘Em!

Hello fellow PE teachers! Gopher Sport game recommendation coming up! I’m Jim Agostino, a 17th year Physical Educator in Connecticut. We are pretty intense customers of Gopher Sport and own a large amount of their equipment including some of their more unique equipment and games. I wanted to share and recommend one of our absolute favorites! 

ACTION! Block ‘Em Set! 

Item 58-139 (72 blocks, 36 red and 36 blue, plus foam balls in matching colors)

ACTION! Block 'Em Set! 

– Great way to focus on overhand throwing, catching, defense, strategy, etc. 

– The best part is the engagement, everyone is involved in an active role and it is most definitely a moderate to vigorous activity.

– Perfect for your cooperative game unit, or as an opening week PE game to get students interested and excited about the year in P.E.! Gopher includes many ways to play but this has become our favorite because it works well for students in K-5. 

ACTION! Block 'Em Set! 
This is our tower setup for Block ‘Em

Our favorite way to play:

-Setup three gym mats on both sides of the midcourt line- students must stand in front of the mat when guarding (you can use 1” gopher color floor tape to create a guard line as well)

– On each mat use Gopher white 1” floor tape or masking tape to stencil a rectangle for placement of each 1×6 block tower, two towers per gym mat evenly split, for a total of 6 towers. The rectangles help students know exactly where to build each tower. 

-Choose guards for each of the tower mats. If a tower is knocked down the guards will rebuild the towers. You may also choose to assign specific builders and give them orange “construction crew” pinnies.

-Opponents who knocked the tower down (even one block knocked off is a “tower down”) will raise their hand and the scorekeeper will add one point for their team. 

-We use a standing flip chart scoreboard to make this easy! 

-Team with the most “tower knock downs” at the end of the round wins- reset and play another round. Simple yet so much fun. 

Optional safety add on: Gopher Squeeze 6.3” or 7” Foam Balls – (lighter than the included balls yet still are able to knock down the towers!)

Give Block ‘Em a try and you won’t be disappointed! 

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