Sneak

Children playing recess games like Sneak
  1. Ball Games
  2. Cooperative Games
  3. Tag Games

  • Large Group (10 and up)

  • Ages 6-10

  • Balls

Development Goal

To develop teamwork, cooperation, strategic thinking and verbal communication.

Before You Start

  • Divide into two teams.

  • Make sure everyone understand all rules and know where the boundaries are located.

  • Demonstrate safe tagging: light touch, like butterfly wings, on the back or shoulder. Unsafe tags: hard contact that might cause the person being tagged to fall.

Set Up

  • Divide the playing field in half with cones and designate small “zones” on the outside of each team;s half to hold people who are tagged. (Waiting Zone)

  • Place a hula hoop with 4-5 balls inside each team’s half (Ball Zone).

How to Play

  • Each team tries to take the other team’s balls and return to their half without being tagged.

  • The goal of the game is for a team to be the first team to capture 9-10 balls (could be more or less).

  • When guarding the Ball Zone or the Waiting Zone, a defender must be at least 2′ away from the zone boundaries.

  • If a player is tagged while in another team’s half, he/she must go to the Waiting Zone on the other team’s side.

  • If a player who has stolen the ball is tagged before they reach their half, the ball is returned to the Ball Zone, and the player goes to the Waiting Zone.

  • A player can be freed from the Waiting Zone when a teammate crosses the dividing boundary line and tags the player. Both players then receive a free walk back to their half (players may not run outside the boundary lines or take a ball with them on their free walk back to their half).

  • A player can only free one teammate at a time.

  • If an opposing player can get one foot into the Ball Zone without being tagged, they can remain there safely (without getting tagged) before attempting to return the ball to their half. Only one ball may be stolen at a time before player must reset by running to their team’s half.

  • Once an opposing player has one foot in another team’s Ball Zone, that player may throw the ball to a player in his/her half to get the ball in that team’s Ball Zone or run over the dividing boundary to return the ball to his/her team’s Ball Zone. Player MUST remove both feet from the Ball Zone to throw the ball to his team on the other half. A ball thrown with a foot in the Ball Zone will come back, and the player in the Ball Zone will be responsible for escaping back to their half.

Variations

  • Limit the number of players allowed in the circle at one time.

  • Allow a player in the circle to throw the ball to a teammate. The ball must still be carried over the center line.

  • The players in the Waiting Zone can join hands and reach out of the zone to make it easier to be freed.

  • Similarly, all players in the Waiting Zone are freed when a player makes it across to rescue them.

  • Four teams: Divide the playing field into five quadrants (plus-sign shaped) with the center quadrant as the neutral zone (no tags) and designate small “zones” on the outside of the teams’ zones to hold people who are tagged.