Octopus Tag

Throughout every child's lifetime, tag games take place in the heart of every physical education classroom setting. There are thousands of different learning tecniques that contribute to a childs development in life physically, mentally, and socially. Tag games can aid in a childs heath, bringing a hidden workout into a fun and exciting experience. Every child who takes part in a tag game will build skills in runnning, and in spacial awareness of their surroundings. Children can interact with one another and build relationships off of the teamwork they have while participating in these games. The games have large amounts of participation time where children will take turns and learn patience when being assingned to be "it". Developing these forms of tolerance can encourage a child to handle frustration in a controlling manner, building social skills that the child can use for the rest of their lives. Even though tag games seem to aid in the proper development of a child, the physical education classroom has put tag games on their Hall of Shame, and has banned these games from the classroom.

Tag games are looked upon as games that aim to highlight one specific child while eliminating other children from participation within that game. Although most tag games involve much physical activity around any given gymnasium, it is said by the Hall of Shame that the total amount of time that the children are being physicaly active is limited.

The Hall of Shame can list tag games as lacking to children, physical education teachers have the awesome job of picking and choosing which tag games give children the most involvement in the act and fun of physical activity. By coming up with a game where there is continuous action and participation, no child will be sitting on the sideline. For example, the game of Octopus tag has every children moving and always having something to do. Once a child is tagged, they become an Octopus where they sit on the ground and flail their arms trying to get every other peer who passes by. No child is ever not participating, and always has something to do, whether it's being "it" or becoming an octopus. Another tag game could be Blob tag. This game has children connect to the tagger one by one after being tagged, slowely creating one large blob who can capture whoever has not yet been tagged. This can creates teamwork within the blob, and does not have any time outs or sidelines.

With creation of new tag games with continuous involvment and participation, no child will feel left out or put down because of being tagged. By focousing on eliminating embarrasement and minimal activity, tag games can progress and help a child to have fun while enjoying physical activity.