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Grandma’s footsteps
Where: Large hall or outdoors
Space needed: 6+ metres
Number of children: 6+
Equipment: None!
I’m not quite sure why we played a game about sneaking up on Grandma but it never did us any harm. (Grandma on the other hand…) The object is simple: one child is ‘Grandma’ and the other children have to sneak up on Grandma without her spotting them moving.
Choose one child to be ‘Grandma’ and get them to stand at one end of the hall or playground with their back to everyone else. The rest of the children line up at the other end, ideally more than six metres away. Tell them to start moving towards Grandma. However, at any moment Grandma can turn around and if she sees anyone moving she sends them back to the start. If one child can make it close enough to touch Grandma, they become Grandma for the next turn.
Playing this with some of our children, I realised there was one very important thing I’d forgotten since I was a kid – how much cheating there is! I’d recommend posting an adult to keep an eye out for those who attempt to ‘creep’ while Grandma is watching them. Also make sure Grandma does spend some time facing away to give the children a chance to make progress.
Happy families
Where: Indoors
Space needed: Space to run around in
Number of children: 12+
Equipment: Sheets of A4 with four family members on
For one of the smaller groups we run I brought in Happy Families and Snap card games and the kids loved it. In a world of apps, consoles and handhelds, an old-fashioned game can seem novel and exciting. We even played with children as young as five by pairing them up with a leader or older child.
As a bonus, here’s an action version of Happy Families: get an A4 sheet, cut it into four equally sized pieces and on each write the name of a family member (e.g. Mr Bun, Mrs Bun, Master Bun and Miss Bun). You’ll need enough families to cover all the children in your group.
Sit the children around the edge of the room. Then place each piece of paper face down on the floor around the room (shuffle the pieces so members of the same family are not all together). When you say go the children run and grab one piece of paper each and then they try and find the other members of their family. When all four members of a family are together they sit down as a group. The last family to find all its members is out. Remove that family from the game, gather the pieces of paper, shuffle them and play again. For the first go you can add in leaders to make the numbers up to a factor of four.
You can theme the families for different times of year or parties. For example, for our heroes party we made superhero families (The Incredibles, Fantastic Four, etc). Another variation is to replace the families with animals (so there are four cats, four dogs, four pigs etc) and you can only find your family by making a noise like that animal.
Bible sword drill
Where: Indoors
Space needed: Very little
Number of children: 2+
Equipment: Bibles
This game is straight from 1970s Sunday School, normally seen alongside felt storyboards and songbooks with complicated folding patterns. It couldn’t be simpler: give those taking part a Bible (either the whole group or just two people head to head), read out a Bible verse and then the first to find it and read it out wins. If you want the full retro effect you can say ‘Put away’ and the kids put their Bible at their sides, like sheathing a sword. Then you say ‘Draw’ and they pull their Bible out and hold it in the air. Finally you say ‘Charge’ and they go looking for the verse. I find just saying ‘Go’ is enough but wanted to give younger readers an insight into our formative years.
It can take children a while to get into it if you don’t often use a ‘full’ Bible with them. Start off by showing them the index and how to find where a book is. Then tell them what chapter and verse means and how they can find that. It may be worth starting off with a few simple examples such as Genesis and Matthew before going for Jude or Amos! I’ll grant you it’s not for everyone, but some kids will love it.
