Parallel Zombie Tag

The game is simple and fun. It could be used for an activity day and a good way to engage the students’ minds during recess. I will explain the basic way and then add some optional twists

Parallel Zombie Tag.

Zombies have a signature walk in which their arms are extended in a parallel fashion, like so

The game involves dedicating one individual the parallel zombie while the rest are pedestrians. When the pedestrian gets tagged, they two become zombies. Now, the only defense a pedestrian has from the ‘Parallel Zombie’ is their ‘Perpendicular Cross’, in which they hold their fingers like so,

The catch is that while holding up their ‘Perpendicular Cross’, pedestrians cannot move.



*************Added Twists*****************

Given that a pedestrian could hold up their 'perpendicular cross' forever and never get tagged you could set a time limit of 10 seconds. This would ensure that everyone will eventually become a parallel zombie. If you are dealing with more advanced students you could make them count to 30 by 3's or 20 by 2's, etc.

************Additional Notes About The Game*************

I think this game would serve as a great transition into exponential growth or exponents. For example, you could time how long it takes everyone to become a parallel zombie when starting with 1 zombie, 2 zombies, 5 zombies, etc and then review the times with your students. The time involved should exponentially decrease.