Pony Express | Playworks

To develop teamwork and cooperation

Skills Practiced: Running, endurance and pacing

Demonstrate safe tagging:
- Light touch, like butterfly wings on the shoulder
- Unsafe tags: hard contact that might cause the person being tagged to fall
Divide the group into two teams.
Have one team line up diagonally at one cone, and the other team line up diagonally at the other cone.
Hand a bean bag to the first person in each line.

A very large square or rectangle.

On the leader’s signal, the first person in each line begins to run counterclockwise around the square/rectangle, making sure to run completely around the lines (i.e. no cutting corners).
After the first person has run an entire lap, s/he hands off the bean bag to the next person in line, and s/he begins to run a lap.
The object for both teams is to catch up to the other team and tag that runner on the shoulder.
If someone is tagged, a new round begins at each cone with the first person in line.

Try walking, skipping, hopping, etc. (if the space is smaller, or for younger players)
With more advanced groups, no equipment is necessary if you have natural boundaries, and they can high-five the next person in line