Photo by Joe Imel/Daily News William H. Natcher Elementary School students were rewarded Tuesday with the Passport To Play program. Passport to Play is a fun way to keep kids’ minds engaged and bodies active.

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In less than an hour, students at William H. Natcher Elementary School walked around the world and played games in four countries.

The school was chosen as one of the 51 locations in the country to host the McDonald’s Passport to Play program, which brings playground games from four different countries to the school to encourage physical activity.

On Tuesday, nearly 330 students took a tour of the large inflated globe to learn about the culture and nutritious snacks enjoyed by children in China, Holland, Mexico and Australia.

Ten-year-old Jenna Baldwin, a fifth-grader at the school, took off the McDonald’s karate uniform after finishing a Chinese game of “Kung Fu Says.”

“I thought it was awesome,” Jenna said. “It was like ‘Simon Says’ with karate.”

A large inflated globe glowed from the center of the gym while four blown up red logs divided the basketball court into “countries.” As students orbited the globe, they’d stop and look at where the country was located on the planet before taking in a little culture.

Jenna said she was surprised to learn what the children in Australia eat as a snack.

“They drink lemonade and eat squash and frozen grapes,” she said. “It was really cool.”

Natcher was selected for the program after being nominated by local McDonald’s owner and operator Alex Burrell.

Burrell said the school has worked with McDonald’s in the past to teach students how to incorporate fast food into a healthy lifestyle by making nutritious decisions.

“They’re so excited to go from country to country,” Burrell said. “This is showing kids there’s more to life than video games and computers.”

Family Resource Director Susan Tabor said she was shocked when the school learned it had been chosen.

“This is a really big deal for us,” she said.

The program provides additional information about the countries on its Web site, passport2play.com, that teachers will incorporate into their social studies lessons, Tabor said.

After a session of “Kung Fu Says,” students flew from China to Holland for a game of korfball. The game is similar to basketball, except there’s not a backboard and students are aiming for a plastic funnel rather than a string basket.

In Mexico, tlatchitli was played a lot like soccer except students had to keep their hands behind their backs and aimed the ball at a small hole in a board rather than a netted goal.

A game of boomerang golf, much like disc golf, had students in Australia throwing foam boomerangs at chain cages to earn points.

Ten-year-old Edis Simamovic, a fifth-grader from Bosnia, said while he has already learned so much about American culture, he thought it was neat to see the sports other countries play.

“I enjoyed the soccer because it’s my favorite sport, just another way to play it,” he said.

John Chesney, field manager with Passport to Play, said three teams are traveling the country teaching students about 11 countries. The student “travelers” spend about 15 minutes in each country before flying to the next exhibit.

“We have a variety of layers to their learning experience,” Chesney said. “We’re teaching physical activity and eating habits and incorporating geography because they learn where the country is on the map. They also learn fun facts about the kids in the country.”

Chesney said the program provides children with the unique opportunity to “literally and figuratively walk around the world playing games with other countries” as they tour the 7-foot inflated globe.

“The kids are really happy,” he said. “I’ve not run into anyone who has played these games, so everyone is learning something new and are so excited about it.”