A Honey Elementary favorite. Seriously. I have students that come back YEARS later and ask if we still play King of the Hill. 

Four teams are invading each other’s territory trying to steal and get all four footballs into their territory. Think of it as an elevated Capture the Flag. But you don't just steal one "flag" and win. You have to have them all. You may run the ball or throw the ball to a teammate to get the ball back into your territory. We use 4 colors of football belts to separate our teams. All teams set up in their territory and strategize. On the whistle, all 4 teams invade each other's spaces and try to steal each other's footballs,

1. Ball dropped or belt pulled while carrying a ball but you are still in the territory you stole it from? The ball goes back where it came from. They caught ya!

1.A- If a child has a football and their belt FALLS OFF, the football is returned where it came from, but they are not frozen.

1.B- TWIST!!!!! Ex: The blue team's football is stolen by a green team player and the green player runs through the yellow team's territory to get back to their own green territory. If they are running through the yellow territory, they are FAIR GAME for yellow players. A yellow person could pull their belt and take the football. It totally happens too because that green player has to run through either yellow or red territory to get back to their own.

2. Belt pulled? Take a knee and have a teammate tag you and rescue you. Enemy can’t guard frozen people. Belt can only be pulled by an enemy if you are in their territory. So a red person can not pull a blue person's belt while they are both in green territory. Only green can pull.

2.A- If the child is going for the football and got their belt pulled, I tell them to back several feet away from the hoop and then take their knee. (You can see the kids in the GIF who have taken a knee.)  If they are too close to the hula hoop that is being guarded, it can be hard to be unfrozen by a teammate because the frozen person is right by the guards. Plus, it can turn into a safety issue as well.

2.B- If see a kid who is frozen from far away from where the game is playing, or they have been frozen for a while, I will unfreeze them myself so they aren't just taking a knee and holding it forever.

3. Only 3 people can guard footballs. No footballs in your hoop? No guarders needed. If they have more than three people guarding when they have a football or footballs in their hula hoop, they get a warning. Do it again, I take a football and give it to another team. Too many guards make the game which is hard to win already, nearly impossible to win!

4. Bigger classes are better with this game. At least 40 or more with 4 teams. I have never played it with 3 teams, but I imagine it could work.

5. Kids strategize on who should guard the footballs, guard the perimeter of their space, unfreeze frozen teammates, and should go steal footballs. Kids will team up with a teammate and try to distract the guards or one steals the ball and then throws it to their teammate who catches it and makes a run for it. Creativity runs rampant here.

6. This game changes quickly. A team will go from having 2-3 footballs to having none in the drop of a hat. 

7. It's hard to win. We will play it all day and no one will be able to get all 4 footballs in their territory. I tell them if all 4 footballs are in their territory at the same time, they win. When they do win, boy is it a big celebration!