Touchdowns

Build One: Hoop Catching

The teacher places hoops in the playing area in a scattered formation.

Each student is assigned a hoop, stands inside their hoop, and is then given a ball.

Players attempt to toss the ball up in the air and catch it before it drops while keeping both feet inside their hoop.

The teacher can decrease the difficulty of the task by providing students with a larger or softer object to catch.

The teacher can increase the difficulty of the task by providing students with a smaller or bouncier object to catch. Alternatively, the teacher can also have students increase the height of their toss or perform an action between the toss and the catch (e.g. touch the floor, spin around, clap your hands, etc).

Build Two: Partner Passing

Students stay inside their hoops but the teacher takes half of the balls out of the game.

Students must now toss the ball to a player in another hoop (who doesn’t have a ball) in a way that allows the target player to catch the ball while remaining in their hoop.

Just like before, the teacher can add a variety of balls to the game to increase or decrease the difficulty of the catch.

Also, the teacher can have students pass only to players who are in the same colour hoop as their own (or have them pass only to players who are in different coloured hoops than their own).

Build Three: Touchdowns

With your students now ready to toss, catch, pass and receive, they can play the full version of Touchdowns!

On each end of the playing area, the teacher places cones. Each cone is assigned a two-player team and each team is given pinnies to wear and a ball.

The goal of the game is for teams to collect as many beanbags as possible.

For a team to collect a beanbag, one player from that team (the catcher) must move to a hoop containing at least one beanbag. That player’s partner (the passer) remains at their team’s cone with the ball.

The passer makes a pass to their catcher who attempts to catch the ball with both feet inside the hoop.

If the pass is caught, the catcher returns back to their team’s cone with their ball and one beanbag from the hoop they were standing in.

If the pass is not caught, the the catcher returns back to their team’s cone with their ball without a beanbag.

Once the catcher gets back to their cone (with or without a beanbag) the two players on that team switch roles (i.e. the catcher becomes the passer and the passer becomes the catcher).

Play continues until there are no more beanbags in any of the hoops.

Build Four: Super Touchdowns

This build is the same as build three except that the teacher now adds a variety of objects to the hoops (not just beanbags).

The teacher can assign a point value to each object type. This influences the hoops students will attempt to travel to, which is helpful if the teacher wants to promote short passes or long passes.

Alternatively, the teacher can set a class challenge in which the students must attempt to collect all of the objects within a given time frame (including the hoops which may only be collected if there are no objects within them).

Students should be careful when throwing the ball into a crowded space.

Only one student may be in a hoop at a time.

Students should be careful of the hoops on the ground when running.