Best New Games [With DVD]

With Best New Games, Updated Edition, you can lead people of all ages and abilities in cooperative fun This resource is rich with activity ideas for classroom and physical education teachers as well as group leaders in settings such as scout troops, youth groups, college orientations, retirement and senior centers, day care centers, park district programs, and business conferences and meetings.

Best New Games is the most comprehensive collection of New Games currently available, presenting a wide range of activities, including ice breakers and get-acquainted games, games for building sensitivity and trust, team-building games, and games for opening and closing your play session. For those unfamiliar with New Games, a new DVD included with the book offers footage of 15 games in action to help you quickly understand how to play and present New Games.

Best New Games begins by covering the basics of using the games, including how to lead, adapt, and create your own New Games. Then you'll find 77 games presented according to activity level (low, low/moderate, moderate, and high) as well as 7 trust games. Each game description includes instructions for play, tips, safety considerations, age-level accommodations, space and equipment requirements, and the developmental skill focus.

The updated edition also features an easier-to-use format and a game finder to help you take the stress out of planning play sessions. The game finder offers an at-a-glance listing of all games organized by activity level, when to play, number of players, special space and equipment needed, social purposes, and skills needed and developed.

An expanded discussion of how to use the activities in the book will help you identify the games appropriate for your group and your unique needs. For teachers, a new section details how New Games can fulfill educational and physical activity standards in the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Plus, ideas and suggestions for incorporating New Games into lesson plans offers a great starting point for more active learning in the classroom.

With Best New Games, you can give your students and group members a new way to be physically and mentally active, regardless of age, size, sex, or ability. By focusing on the fun of play, Best New Games, Updated Edition, can help you pave the way to better teamwork, cooperation, and trust both in and out of the classroom.

Dale N. Le Fevre started working with the nonprofit New Games Foundation (NGF) in 1975 as a volunteer. By the start of 1976 he was office manager and associate director. In 1977 he formed his own project, Play Express, which took New Games into schools, while he continued to give trainings for the NGF. In 1979 he left the United States for eight years to promote New Games worldwide.

To date, Le Fevre has conducted over 1,000 New Games workshops worldwide. His workshop participants have included Jews and Arabs in Israel in the early '80s; mixed races in apartheid-era South Africa; Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland in the early '80s and late '90s; and Croats, Serbs, and Muslims in Croatia and Serbia in '93, '94, and '98.

Le Fevre's publications include The Spirit of Play (previously published in five languages) and Parachute Games With DVD, coauthored with Todd Strong (Human Kinetics). He also produced several DVDs, including Complete Cooperative New Games, Best of New Games, Best of Cooperative Games, and New Parachute Games. He also produced the New Games CD-ROM, Revised.

Most recently, Le Fevre has founded a new company, Playworks, which works with businesses to use New Games to help resolve conflict, improve communication, build stronger teams, and reduce stress.

Le Fevre holds an MA in education from New York University and a BS in business from Valparaiso University, Indiana. In his free time he enjoys gardening, hiking, biking, dancing, and camping. He lives in Sheffield, England.