• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Physical Education Writing Prompts

Gym class as a subject: a game you invent, a fair call, your team, a skill that took many tries.

Physical Education Writing Prompts

Show all 60
  1. In gym class the ball lands right on the line, and nobody saw it clearly but you. Write what you say.Angle: your own team needs the point. Say what you do, and how the next minute feels.
  2. What does a good sport look like in PE when the team has just lost? Show it in what one player does in the next minute.Angle: what the hands do, what is said to the other team, who picks up the cones.
  3. Tell the story of a PE team that was far behind and decided to enjoy the game anyway.Angle: what changed first: the faces, the noise or the passes?

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All 60 prompts

A game I would invent 15

  • Design a gym class obstacle course with five stations and describe one perfect run through it. Angle: over, under, around, across, through. One station should be funny.
  • Invent a game for PE on a rainy day when the whole class has to stay in one small room. Angle: quiet feet, soft things only, and a way to win without running.
  • Invent a game for PE that is played in complete silence, and explain how the players signal each other. Angle: hand signs, stomps, a nod. What happens to a player who laughs?
  • Invent a gym class game in which nobody is ever out, and explain how it stays exciting. Angle: what happens to a tagged player? A new job, a new team, a new rule.
  • Invent a new game for gym class and write down everything a class would need to know to play it tomorrow. Angle: how many players, what you need, how a point is scored, how it ends.
  • Invent a PE game that the smallest person in the class has the best chance of winning. Angle: what does being small help with: ducking, hiding, fitting through the hoop?
  • Invent a relay race for PE in which each runner carries something stranger than the last. Angle: a spoonful of water, a wobbly stack of beanbags, a very long pool noodle.
  • Invent a tag game for gym class with one new rule that changes everything. First line: In Shadow Tag you are safe only while you are standing in a shadow.
  • Make up a gym class game for exactly two players and a wall. Angle: draw the court in words: where each player stands and where the line is.
  • Make up a gym class game that needs the big parachute, and write what the class does at the best moment. First line: On three, everyone lifts, and the middle of the parachute becomes a mountain.
  • Take a gym class game you already know and change three of its rules. Write the first time the new game is played. Angle: one change makes it faster, one fairer, one sillier.
  • Write the instructions for a PE game played with a ball that nobody is allowed to throw. Angle: roll it, bounce it, carry it on a spoon. Say why your way is the most fun.
  • Write the poster that announces your invented PE game: its name, three rules and one warning. Angle: the warning can be a joke. Warning: may cause extreme cheering.
  • Write the rules of a gym class game on another planet, where everything falls slowly. Angle: do balls float? Does a jump last a minute? What counts as a goal?
  • Your gym class has one ball, four cones and a rope. Invent a game that uses all of them and nothing else. Angle: name the game first. The name often tells you the rules.

Rules and fair play 15

  • A gym class captain has to pick teams and wants it to be fair. Write the captain's better way of doing it. Angle: something other than choosing one by one. Explain it in three steps.
  • A gym class game has a rule that everyone complains about. Write the meeting where the class votes on changing it. Angle: who speaks first, who changes their mind, and what the new rule says.
  • A gym class team wins because of a mistake the referee did not see. Write the talk in the line afterward. Angle: one player wants to speak up and one does not. Give each a good reason.
  • Explain to a new student the one rule in your gym class that matters more than all the others. Angle: say the rule, then tell a short story that shows why it exists.
  • Explain why gym class games have boundary lines. Then describe the same game with no lines at all. Angle: where does the ball go? Where do the players go? Who brings them back?
  • In gym class the ball lands right on the line, and nobody saw it clearly but you. Write what you say. Angle: your own team needs the point. Say what you do, and how the next minute feels.
  • In PE a classmate keeps bending one rule, just a little. Write what you would do. Angle: say something, change the game, let it go? Pick one and defend it.
  • Should a PE game keep score? Argue yes or no. Angle: think of a game you have played both ways. Which one do you still remember?
  • What does a good sport look like in PE when the team has just lost? Show it in what one player does in the next minute. Angle: what the hands do, what is said to the other team, who picks up the cones.
  • Write a thank-you note to a classmate who did the fair thing in PE when it cost them the game. First line: Nobody else felt that tag. You sat out anyway.
  • Write about a rule in PE that once seemed unfair to you. Then argue the rule's side. Angle: who is the rule looking after? Would the game still work without it?
  • Write about the first rule you ever learned in PE, and who taught it to you. First line: Before anything else, we learned where to stand when the whistle blew.
  • Write five rules you would add to gym class if you were in charge of it for a week. Angle: at least one rule should be about how people talk to each other.
  • Write the rules of your gym class as a visitor would guess them, just from watching one game through the door. Angle: what the visitor gets right, and the one rule nobody could guess.
  • You are the referee for one game in gym class. Write the hardest call you have to make. First line: Both of them looked at me, and both of them were sure.

My team 15

  • Describe one relay handoff in gym class from both sides: the runner coming in and the runner about to go. Angle: two short paragraphs. Each runner thinks the other had the hard part.
  • Describe your gym class team as if each person were a part of one machine. Angle: who is the engine, who is the brakes, who is the horn?
  • Imagine your gym class team meeting again ten years from now. Write what each of you remembers about one game. Angle: everybody remembers it differently. Who is closest to right?
  • On a gym class team, are you the planner, the cheerer, the calm one or the one who will try anything? Write about it. Angle: tell about one game where the team needed exactly that.
  • Tell the story of a PE team that was far behind and decided to enjoy the game anyway. Angle: what changed first: the faces, the noise or the passes?
  • Write a letter to your PE teammates on the day the teams are about to be changed. First line: Before we all get new colors, I want to say three things.
  • Write a report on your gym class team for the school newspaper: one game, three players to praise, one thing to practice. Angle: praise something small that nobody else would have noticed.
  • Write about a time in PE when you let your team down, and what a teammate said next. Angle: the exact words matter. Write them down as you remember them.
  • Write about a time your PE team worked something out without any adult telling you how. Angle: what was the problem, who had the idea, who made it work?
  • Write about the bench in gym class: what a player waiting for a turn can see that the players in the game cannot. Angle: who is open, who is tired, and what the team needs next.
  • Write about the teammate you would choose first in PE, without mentioning how fast or strong they are. Angle: what do they say when you miss? What do they do when they miss?
  • You are put on a gym class team with someone you hardly know. Write the first five minutes. First line: We both looked at the cones so we would not have to look at each other.
  • Your gym class team is one player short for a whole game. Write how the team covers the gap. Angle: who does two jobs, who changes the plan, and whether it works.
  • Your gym class team needs a name, a cheer and a handshake. Write all three. Angle: the cheer should be short enough to shout in one breath.
  • Your PE team has to cross the gym without touching the floor, using three mats. Write how you do it. Angle: who goes first, who carries the mat back, where it almost goes wrong.

The hardest thing I learned to do 15

  • Describe learning to jump rope in PE for someone who has never seen a rope turn. Angle: the timing is the hard part. Where do you look? When do your feet leave the floor?
  • Describe the moment in PE just before you try something hard: the breath, your feet, the noise in the room. First line: The rope hung there, and so did I, one foot off the floor and no higher.
  • In PE, which is harder for you: learning a new skill, or doing an old one while people watch? Explain with a story. Angle: one scene for each. Then say which you would choose tomorrow.
  • Keep the diary of one skill: three entries, early, middle and late, on learning to walk the balance beam in gym class. Angle: three short entries. Let the sentences get surer as the feet do.
  • Pick a PE skill you still cannot do. Write your plan for learning it, one small step at a time. Angle: make the first step so small it is almost funny.
  • Tell about a time in PE when you taught someone a skill you had only just learned yourself. Angle: explaining it showed you what you really knew. What was missing?
  • Tell the story of your first cartwheel or forward roll in PE, including the ones that went sideways. Angle: describe what the mat and the ceiling looked like from upside down.
  • Thank the person who helped you learn a hard skill in gym class, in a letter that says exactly what they did. Angle: what was the one thing they said or showed you that made it click?
  • What did you once say in gym class that you could never do? Write about the day you were wrong. Angle: who was watching, who was not, and which mattered more to you.
  • Write about a skill in gym class that everyone else seemed to get before you did. First line: By the second week, I was the only one still counting out loud.
  • Write about learning to catch in gym class: the ball you dropped most, and the first one that stuck. Angle: what did your hands do differently? What did your eyes do?
  • Write about practicing something for gym class at home, where nobody could see. Angle: the hallway, the yard, a rolled-up sock for a ball. What did you work out alone?
  • Write about the gym class skill you are proudest of, and prove how hard it was. Angle: no bragging words. Only the tries, the misses and the day it worked.
  • Write about the hardest thing you ever learned to do in gym class, from the first try to the first time it worked. Angle: how many tries did it take? What was different on the day it worked?
  • Write instructions for the PE skill that took you longest to learn, for a younger kid who is about to start. Angle: include the mistake you made most often, so they can skip it.

How it works

These physical education writing prompts ask for rules, arguments, teammates and first tries: things every writer in the class can describe from memory.

Read the full guide

PE writing prompts for a game that does not exist yet

Fifteen prompts ask for a new game: one with a ball nobody may throw, one for a rainy day in a small room, one played in complete silence. The test of the writing is whether someone else could play from it.

Rules and fair play

Fifteen more turn on a rule or a call. The ball lands right on the line and only you saw it; a classmate keeps bending one rule, just a little. One asks you to argue the side of a rule you once thought unfair.

  • Write a rule the way a referee would say it: short, and the same every time.
  • For a skill, count the tries. The number tells the story.

Questions and answers

What are PE writing prompts?

Prompts that take gym class as the thing to write about. Describe your team as if each person were a part of one machine, or tell the story of the skill everyone else seemed to get before you did.

What are good writing prompts for physical education?

Ones a writer can answer from the gym floor: the first rule you ever learned and who taught it to you, a relay handoff told from both sides, the moment just before you try something hard.

Is there a writing prompt about teamwork in gym class?

Fifteen, in the group My team. One asks for a team name, a cheer and a handshake; another for a letter to your teammates on the day the teams are about to be changed.

Are these prompts about one sport?

No. They use what most gyms have: cones, mats, a rope, a parachute, a whistle. Soccer, baseball, football, softball and volleyball each have a list of their own on this site.

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