Thursday, February 16, 2023

The Activity

It was Wednesday at the continuation high school. Advisory. 

Advisory is a short period between periods one and two that occurs only on Wednesdays. Back in the day (I've been doing this a long time), it was the time when the students would get printouts of their graduation status. With computers and access online to their records, they don't need this information once a week (they still get those printouts about once a month), so advisory has evolved.

On this day, the ASB was conducting an activity. While I was reading the usual announcements (this is the time when they deal with administrative stuff the students need to do), the counselor came over the intercom to let us know to release the students to the quad. 

I've been at the school for games of musical chairs. I've seen some interesting games. But this was the first time the students were lined up for something and I didn't hear any sort of explanation as to what they were doing. 

They all seemed to understand the game already. 

I gleaned the rules from watching. After, I asked a student what they had been playing.

It's a game called Sharks vs. Minnows. Apparently, it's a well-known elementary school playground game. 

This is actually a good tip for dealing with teenagers: they do like doing stuff from their "childhood". (The trick is to do it with full awareness that they are Too Old for This.) 

Unlike the earlier games I had seen, this time they had plenty of volunteers. We only had one injury when a boy slipped and fell. (He complained that he was wearing Crocs which don't really work well for a running game.) 

As for the game: in the middle of the basketball court, four students lined up. They were the sharks. At the edge of the court ten-ish students lined up. They were the minnows.

At the start of the game, the minnows were to run across the court and make it to the other side. If the sharks tagged them, they were out (and became sharks, although some just stepped out of the game). They went back and forth across the court until all the minnows got tagged out. (I would have assumed that someone should win, but they had that last kiddo run across one last time. With four plus sharks, the kiddo was doomed.) 

Cute game, but completely new to me. Have any of you heard of this game before?

17 comments:

  1. I have heard of the game, as in the name of it, but not how it worked, or the "rules." Nice way to burn off the teen energy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is. High school students would really enjoy some recess.

      Delete
  2. I never heard of this but it's a version of touch tag. I remember playing g "Statue". If you got tagged. You had to freeze in that spot the way you looked. You could only be unfrozen if someone else touched you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I haven't heard of that game before. It sounds like it would have been fun back when I had enough energy for that sort of thing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. HAHA...I have never heard of that. Be cool with a bunch of kids. But there is always that aggressive SHARK and things get out of hand. Sounds like all went well though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In a school setting, you have adults (ideally) paying attention and curbing aggressive kiddos.

      Delete
  5. For some reason, I get tagged as antonymous. I am thecontemplativecat.. Tag was fun then, as it is now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You should be able to click on the arrow and input your name and URL. Blogger's being difficult.

      Delete
  6. I’ve heard of the game but didn’t know how it’s played

    ReplyDelete
  7. I recall playing in gym class with surplus military parachutes. Weird, huh?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Was your school near a military base? I mean, that's more cool than weird, but I wonder where they got them.

      Delete
  8. It's called something different here, but same rules (I can't remember the name). As an aside, the part of Australia I grew up in call tag "tiggy" and where we live now they call it "tips".

    ReplyDelete
  9. Shark and minnows I don't think we played that, although it could be called something else.
    Coffee is on and stay safe

    ReplyDelete
  10. We played a similar game when I was a kid. We also played a handball game we called "Chink" which involved a group of kids hitting a ball against a wall. The ball had to bounce once (only once) before hitting the wall and could only bounce once before it was hit. If you missed, you were out.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That sounds like fun. All we did was tetherball and hopscotch. And kickball.

      Delete

I appreciate your comments.

I respond to comments* via email, unless your profile email is not enabled. Then, I'll reply in the comment thread. Eventually. Probably.

*Exception: I do not respond to "what if?" comments, but I do read them all. Those questions are open to your interpretation, and I don't wish to limit your imagination by what I thought the question was supposed to be.