Equipment - hula hoops, beanbags of varying colours Scatter some hoops around the area. Split the class in half - one team are the 'smugglers' and the other team are the 'goodies' (as opposed to baddies). The goodies get a 30 second head start to grab all the beanbags they can and sort them into hoops so that each hoop only has one colour. After this 30 seconds, the 'smugglers' get to run in and start trying to disorganise this scheme by moving beanbags into the wrong hoops. Game continues until you're ready to stop.

Video Recorder Children move around however they like, responding to your announcement of standard VCR buttons:

• Play - walk around
• Rewind - Move backwards
• Fast Forward - run
• Pause - Bounce on the spot
• Stop - freeze
• Eject - Jump up as high as you can
• Record - Strike a funny pose or pull a face

Sharks - this is like a more physical musical chairs. You will need: hoops. Scatter half as many hoops as there are children on the floor. Children pretend to swim around the room randomly until you shout 'Sharks!' at which point they must get to a hoop (2 students to a hoop).Every time this happens, remove a hoop. Those students who don't get into a hoop the next time go out (try to have something for them to do or help out). When you get to 2 sharks left over, only one can fit in a hoop. Have them follow the wall to ensure they don't just hang over the hoop waiting.

Scatter a number of those small conical hat-like markers around the area. Half of them are the right way up (domes) and the other half are upside down (cones). Students pick a marker and stand at it without touching it. On command, students at cones have to move to domes and vice versa.

Give each corner in your room a name or a number that can easily be remembered. Blindfold one student and have them stand in the middle. The other students scatter and roam around the room until the command is given, when they must stand at any one of the corners. The blindfolded student calls out a corner name or number, and all students who went to that corner go out. The game continues in this fashion until there is one person left (ie, when there are four students left, they are obligated to be at different corners)

Tails. Most schools have a collection of "braids", or long fabric loops used for distinguishing team members. Each student gets one of these and they have to tuck the end into their pants to give themselves "tails". Students cannot hold on to their own tail, make physical contact or 'collect' their own tail, but they must run around and try to collect as many tails from other students as possible.The game continues until all tails have been collected.

Play a standard tag game, except each time a student is tagged they must hold hands with the person who tagged them, eventually forming a chain. When the chain reaches four people, they can split to become two groups of 2.

Designate a handful of students as 'ice' (give them blue sashes), two students as 'suns' (yellow) and the rest of the students as normal players. The ice students run around "freezing" the normal students, who must stay frozen until they are touched by one of the "suns". This game has no official ending.