Castle Siege

Purpose of the Activity: To increase cardiovascular, core, and upper body strength.

Suggested Age: K-12

Equipment: several tumbling mats, 1 foam soccer ball for every 2 students, 10 cones, 10 tennis balls, 12 hula hoops, stop watch, and music

Game Objective: The objective of the game is to completely destroy the other team’s castle.

Set Up: 

- Split the class into two equal teams

- Each student must find a partner from their same team

- Tumbling mats are laid down on the 10ft line on the volleyball court towards the middle of the gym

- More mats are set up in a wall at the 3pt line. This is the Castle Wall

- Soft soccer balls are laid out on tumbling mats

- On the back volleyball line set up 5 orange cones with tennis balls on top. These will be      
  castle's Towers.

- On the baseline set up a hula-hoop dome. This is the Throne.

- The throne is to be protected by another mat until the end. This mat is the Draw Bridge

Rules:

When attacking the other castle, one team must first destroy the opposing teams Castle Wall and Towers. Once these have been destroyed, any student on that team can open the Draw Bridge by pulling it out of the way, revealing the Throne. Once one teams Throne is destroyed the game is over.
In order to destroy the castle, one student will act as a catapult while the other acts as the retriever/loader of the catapult

• Partner 1 (catapult): This student must start by lying flat on their back on the mat with their arms stretched out. Once their partner “loads” them, they must do a sit up and launch the ball (boulder) with two hands over their head towards their target. They are NOT to intentionally target other students.
• Partner 2 (loader): This student is in charge of retrieving boulders and loading their partner (catapult). When retrieving a ball they must go to the opposite side to avoid blocking oncoming boulders from destroying their castle. If a loader does intentionally block the other teams shots they must sit out for 1 minute. In addition, loaders cannot carry more than 1 ball at a time.

Every 1-2 minutes make sure to have the students switch with their partner so they don’t have the same role the entire game. This also gives the “loaders” a break as they often get tired from running after boulders.

Tips:

When playing this game with younger students don't set up a castle wall as they often don't have the core and upper body strength to launch a ball hard enough to knock it over. Also as students get older you can move the wall and towers farther back.

When playing this for the first time, regardless of age, start with only 1 element to destroy and then add more as they get familiar with the game.

When I teach this game I like to give a little history about Medieval warfare with my students. For the younger kids this is very basic and I go more in depth with the older kids, but the students really enjoy sharing what they know about catapults and castles and this really helps bring the game to life for them.

Game-play Videos: