PE Scooter Activities

Certain physical education activities elicit cheers and excitement from students. Scooters top the list. The simple squares of plastic atop four wheels provide numerous activity options for all ages. Scooters work on balance, coordination, speed and building muscle. A lap around the gym at the beginning of class provides a warmup and a refresher on maneuvering the scooters.

Set up an obstacle course for use with the scooters. Gym equipment works well to create the obstacles. Set up a row of cones, requiring the students to weave back and forth through them. Use a high jump bar or limbo stick as an obstacle which the students must go under without knocking it over. Place jump ropes across the path, forcing the students to go around them. Invite the students to suggest other items as obstacles.

Tag on scooters adds a challenge to the traditional game. Adapt your favorite version of tag to accommodate the use of the scooters. Scooter freeze tag requires a tagged player to stop moving on the scooter until someone unfreezes them by tagging them again. Line tag requires the players and tagger to follow the lines on the gym floor while riding on the scooters. If anyone ventures off the line, he is out. Once tagged, players move to the side and wait until the next round.

Set up a series of city streets in the gym for the scooters. This activity provides students the chance to maneuver the scooters while learning about traffic signs and rules of the road. Use tape or the lines on the gym floor to designate the streets. Make street signs typically seen in a city, such as stop, yield, pedestrian crossing and no parking. Talk about the meaning of the signs and how to obey them. Let the kids drive their scooters around the streets, yielding to each other as they maneuver the streets.

Relay races on scooters take a slower pace than a running relay but allow the participants to build leg strength and coordination. Set up a cone at the far end of the gym. Have the first player from each team scoot around the cone and back to the start. After tagging the second player, she repeats the process. This continues until everyone on the team has finished. Another option is to place several cones along the length of the gym, requiring the students to weave back and forth through the cones during the relay.