Addition Robbery is an active group game that requires physical agility, cooperation, teamwork and basic math skills.
Supplies
- A variety of different colored balls (preferably the ball pit balls)
- 4 laundry baskets, or buckets
- A large gym or outdoor space.
Setup
Split the kids into 4 groups. Assign each group to a basket and place the baskets on the corners of the gym or designated play space. Have the children line up behind their basket. Dump all of the small balls into the center of the designated play space.
How to Play Addition Robbery
Tell the children that when the whistle blows one player from there team will run out take a ball and run it back to their basket. When the ball is in the basket the next player may go. Only one player may be out at a time. Once all of the balls in the center are gone teams can take balls from another team. Again only one person from each team maybe out at a time. If two players do go out both must return and they lose their turn.
Now for the twist…explain that each ball has a secret value. The object of this game is to have the most value in your basket when the game is over. The values of the balls will be announced as the game goes on.
Throughout the game expose the value of each ball every 2-5 minutes depending on the number of colors and interest in the game. For younger kids lower numbers are best, but you can get tricky with the older kids throwing out much higher numbers.
When you blow the final whistle all kids must stop where they are, if a ball is in there hands it is no longer in play and no one get the points. As the kids to add and find the value of their basket. The team with the highest value basket is the winner!
