Summer Sports and Fairness

We’re now smack dab in the middle of summer! That means sports like baseball, soccer, track and field, tennis and more are in full swing!

One of the best parts about fun sports activities like these is that they give us an amazing opportunity to talk with little thinkers about fairness in games and sports. Since your kids’s mind is engaged in the game, it’s also poised to help grow!

Here are some great ways to take sports thinking to the next level:

Activity 1: Is this game fair?

1. Take a piece of paper and divide it in half.

2. Ask your child to explain the rules of his/her favourite summer sport, and write down these official rules on one side of the paper.

3. Ask your child to explain rules they would change or add to their favourite sport in order to make things fairer.

4. Unfold the paper so that you can see both sets of rules.

5. Discuss the original rules and your kids’ version. Ask them if they think everyone who plays feels the same way about the fairness of the original rules, and why they think their changes make sense. Would everyone agree with their changes? Why or why not?

6. Finish your discussion by discussing why there are rules in the first place.

Activity 2: The Fairest Game of Them All!

Have your child invent their own sport or game, with the objective of making it the fairest sport/game ever. Record their suggestions any way your kid likes, whether that be drawing, writing, video, making models, instructional charts, posters, etc. This will make the activity a creative endeavour, and give them something to discuss later on.

Get a group of kids together and try it out. Follow this with a discussion of why this is a “fair” game, how it might change now that they’ve actually tried it out. Was it as fair as they thought?

As always, try to make asking big questions a playful endeavour.

Game on!