Assessing Gross Motor Skills by Playing Angry Birds Live

I was inspired by several Angry Birds posts on Pinterest to do something fun at the end of the year in my classroom.  Check out my inspiration here! I decided to assess gross motor skills for the end of the year by making Angry Birds Live in my classroom. I had many reasons for choosing Angry Birds Live: I had to pack up my classroom so I had tons of boxes laying around, I wanted a fun way to assess their ability to throw a ball at a target, my students love Angry Birds, and well it just looked fun!

Preparation

1. Gather a variety of boxes to set the balls onto.  We used boxes that various food items are delivered to the school cafeteria in - cereal, sporks, ketchup, juice, etc.
2. Save recyclables such as Kleenex boxes and empty juice or applesauce cups to set balls on and keep from rolling
3. Buy or make your bird and pig balls! Check out my tutorial here on how to make your own Pig Ball
4. Set up a safe area in your room or outdoors to have the boxes (it was too windy most days for us to do this outside).  Make sure that there is nothing breakable nearby.
5. Tape a line for students to throw from
6. Play Angry Birds theme song from YouTube and let the kids have a ball! 

When we started doing this I ran the show. Once I had my assessments done and thought the kids fully understood the rules then I let the kids reset up the boxes and balls.  I was amazed with the different structures some of my kiddos came up with for stacking the boxes and balls.  This activity is surely a keeper for the end of the year!