Winter PE Games: Ideas for a Winter Olympics Theme
Bring the Winter Olympics spirit to your school. We have some activities below for you to use with your class... These Winter Olympic–themed games encourage active participation and healthy competition while developing fundamental PE skills.
Winter is the toughest time of year for PE. It’s regularly cold, wet and windy! But that doesn’t mean PE needs to stop – and with the Winter Olympics starting this week, you have the perfect theme for winter PE games.
Winter PE activities not only encourage movement (children will need to keep moving to stay warm, after all!) but they can spark excitement when the class is ready for something fun, competitive – and seasonal.
Why Use a Winter Olympics Theme in PE?
A Winter Olympics theme brings variety to the usual PE games and helps develop a range of physical skills, like balance, agility, strength and coordination. The activities we suggest here, can, regardless of ability, be easily adapted to suit different age groups.
Using a topical theme also gets children thinking about, and engaged in, the Winter Olympics activities they might see on TV, too. If they can link what they’re doing at school to what they see on the TV, it will build familiarity, recognise and relate to skills – making them eager to want to have a go themselves.
Winter PE games are always more challenging than planning for PE lessons in summer, so this ‘hook’ may make PE lessons a little more engaging and fun.
Three Fun Winter PE Games to Try
1. Hall Curling
Hall Curling is a simple but highly engaging way to introduce pupils to the Winter Olympics, allowing them to experience the tactics and precision of curling using familiar school equipment. The activity keeps pupils active while encouraging teamwork, control and decision-making.
Adaptations: Alter the rolling distance or the size of the targets to increase/decrease the difficulty.
This is great for developing accuracy, teamwork and tactical awareness in a fun, inclusive activity that works well across a range of abilities.
2. Ice Hockey Shooting
Ice Hockey Shooting introduces pupils to the fast-paced nature of ice hockey through controlled pushing and aiming activities using simple school equipment. The game keeps pupils active while encouraging accuracy, teamwork and spatial awareness.
Adaptations: Alter the size of the goal, or the distance of the shooting zone. Add a goalkeeper to increase the challenge further!
This is great for developing accuracy, manipulation skills and decision making. It brings together competition and teamwork.
3. Biathlon
Biathlon Throw and Run introduces pupils to the endurance and precision required in biathlon by combining running with a target-throwing challenge. The activity keeps pupils moving while encouraging focus and control under pressure.
Adaptations: Increase or decrease the running time to change the endurance difficulty; or alter the size of the throwing targets and distance.
This is great for developing stamina, throwing accuracy and the ability to perform while fatigued.
Bonus Idea! Team Flags & Opening Ceremony
Get the class to work in ‘national teams’ and create their own flags using colours and symbols that represent their group. Start your Winter Olympics with an opening ceremony! Children could walk into the hall or onto the playground with music, to build excitement and status for your units.
Planning Your Winter PE Games
Whatever’s on your long term plan during the winter months, outdoor activities need to be active, group sizes need to be small, and equipment has to be plenty.
If you use our PE lessons plans, they are all created with maximum class activity and maximum pupil learning in mind! Plus, don’t forget that they are curriculum-mapped, with knowledge organisers, implementation documents, and online assessment tools! You can find out more and download useful resources for your PE Curriculum here.
Our PE Planning Calendar is also a fantastic tool for providing enriching opportunities (like the Winter Olympics above!). Quick, fun, one-off activities that raise and support recognition of many national holidays and awareness days!
Final Thoughts
Here’s a couple of final tips to capture interest and build enthusiasm..
Activity creation: Split the class into small groups and ask them to create games inspired by what they have seen, that can be played in the school hall.
Celebrate achievement: Design and make certificates for participation, teamwork, effort or improvement. And, medals for the podium places!
Leadership responsibilities: Can pupils set up their own activities, or lead the warm ups.
If you need any help or guidance with your winter PE lessons, and we haven’t covered what you need here, please get in touch with the PE Planning team!
You can also subscribe to PE Planning here for full access to our lesson plans. Good luck!
