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Find the word
Where: indoors
Space needed: sitting at a table
Number of children: 2+
Equipment: pen and paper
Not all games have to involve running around and being physical. Here’s a great mental game that will delight the future Countdown contestants in your group.
If you have enough children, split them into pairs or teams, otherwise they can play individually. Give each team (or person) a sheet of paper and a pen and get them to write the numbers 1 to 30 on the left hand side. (If you have a particularly intellectual group get them to do 1 to 50).
The game is this: you are going to turn over a piece of paper and on that paper is written a word or a phrase. Let’s say the phrase is ‘Pancake Tuesday’. Each group will have two minutes to try and make as many words as possible using the letters in ‘Pancake Tuesday’ (or whatever phrase you choose). The team with the most (correct!) words is the winner.
- You’ll need to explain a few points about what words are allowed before they start:
- Words should have three or more letters (a, an, as etc are not allowed).
- If a letter appears only once in the phrase they can use it only once in any word, if it appears twice they can use it once or twice in any word etc. So they could have ‘seek’ but not ‘seeks’ as there is only one ‘s’.
- I normally allow them to use the words in the phrase to get them going so I’d be ok with ‘Pancake’, ‘Tuesday’, ‘Pan’, ‘Cake’ or ‘Day’.
Once your children are familiar with the game you could add a few twists such as extra points for longer words or for words that no other person / team thought of. And, of course, you can change the phrase to make the game seem topical and relevant at any time of year, eg ‘Merry Christmas’, ‘Happy Easter’ or ‘International talk like a pirate day’.
Rock, Paper, Scissors
Where: indoors
Space needed: a little or a lot
Number of children: 8+
Equipment: none
Finally a game for fans of the TV show…. hmmm… I don’t think there’s any game show that’s like Rock, Paper, Scissors. (Note to self – devise TV show for obvious gap in the market.)
I’m sure you know the rules of Rock, Paper, Scissors and here’s how you can turn it into an easy to play game with your group. Get everyone to stand up and move around the room. When you start the game everyone pairs up with someone near them and each pair plays a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. The loser joins on in a conga line behind the winner and they are now a chain of two. (If the game is drawn keep playing until there is a winner).
Each chain of two finds another chain of two to play Rock, Paper, Scissors with and the losing chain joins on behind the winning one to form a chain of four. Keep doing this until you get down to just two chains and the winner of this last game is the overall winner.
This is short and simple and the kids will want to play it again and again.
Bouncing Balls
Where: indoors
Space needed: about 3m x 2m
Number of children: 2+
Equipment: bouncy balls and a small bucket. (sponge – optional)
This is a game that’ll delight any future contestants of The Cube. First get a small bucket. I use one that came as part of a beach bucket and spade set. If you have a sponge put it in the bottom of the bucket to dampen the bounce (you’ll see why in a minute). Place the bucket up against a wall and put a line on the floor about 2 metres away.
Split the children into teams with between one and six children in each. Each team will get a number of bouncy balls. The aim is to sit behind the line on the floor and try to get as many balls into the bucket as possible. However, a ball will only count if it has bounced at least once before going into the bucket. It can bounce off the floor or the wall but it must have bounced. Give each team two minutes. The winner is the team that can get the most balls in the bucket in that time.
To avoid the whole thing descending into chaos I’d recommend putting some rules in place. Limit the number of bouncy balls to between 10-20 so they’ll have to fetch the balls that missed the bucket before they can throw again. For teams of two or three they could all throw at once but for bigger teams, take it in turns. As I’m a kind soul I count balls that went into the bucket and then bounced out again – but a sponge can stop that happening.
And it’s always worth awarding bonus points for picking up all the loose bouncy balls at the end.
This game doesn’t work that well on carpet but fear not, you can still play! Simply put a table up against a wall, put the bucket on the table and hey presto, a bouncy surface. Although you will be limited to one child throwing at a time.
