Space Battle!

A fun target game for elementary PE class

3 min readSep 13, 2025

Hello PE Nation!

I wanted to share with you a simple target game that focuses on teamwork, strategy, rolling and throwing a ball and defending space (no pun intended!)

It’s called “Space Battle” and I’ve had a lot of success with it over the years. This game is fast-paced and can be modified in many ways to cover a variety of standards and fitness components.

Here’s how to play:

Setup/Equipment

Create or use already painted 4-Square grids using tape or chalk
Form teams of 4–6 per grid (“spaceship”)
Each spaceship has 4–5 pins placed on the corners and inside the middle of the ship (optional)
Each spaceship starts with 2–3 gator skin balls

Objective

To throw/bowl with proper technique
To knock your opponents’ pins down
To be the last ship standing

Rules

Teams work together to defend their pins from alien spaceships by blocking with their hands or feet (no kicking the ball).
Students demonstrate proper bowling/rolling technique.
Students must bowl from their own ship (one foot must be touching the ship).
Team members may send one player to collect balls that are scattered in “space”.
Once a pin (or “engine”) is down, it must remain down.
Last pin standing wins, or the team with the most standing after 2–3 minutes is declared the winner of that round.

Variations

The variations are unlimited.

Get Dave Carney’s stories in your inbox

Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.

Remember me for faster sign in

Here are some I’ve used in the past:

Teams can put a pin back up after performing certain exercises.
A team member must go to another “planet” (building area) and complete a cup-stacking series (3–3–3 or 3–6–3). An engine (pin) can then be fixed.
Rotate the ships between rounds and discuss the defensive strategies of having a ship in the corner vs. one in the middle of outer space.
Later rounds could include overhand throwing.