Happy Father’s Day!

Especially for my lower elementary students, one of their favorite games is a classic tag-style game called Sharks and Minnows. During the game, the tagger starts in the middle while the other players try to run across the playing area without getting tagged. When someone gets tagged, they become a tagger as well. I adapted this easy-to-learn and play game to reflect food chains better. My students loved this new variation because it gamified and simplified the basic concepts of an ecosystem. However, I wanted to expand on this game because it only featured a single prey and predator relationship. This is where the idea of the game “Shelter” came to be.

Shelter introduces a couple of new wrinkles to the introductory predator and prey game. First, there is a shelter that acts as a “base.” Secondly, we have added a new class of animals, so the relationship is prey-predator/prey-apex predator. Tennis balls are fish that symbolizes prey, and most of the students start the game as a penguin. The fish are prey, and the penguins are predators of the fish. However, other students are orcas, which are predators of the penguins. This makes a more realistic food web model as the penguin players must simultaneously balance the relationship of hunting fish (as predators) while avoiding orcas (as prey).

Below is a video tutorial of how to play the game Shelter, and here is a free downloadable lesson plan that describes the rules and talking points in detail.

You can find this tutorial and many others in the members’ section of the website.

I hope your students love this game as much as mine do!