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FLOUR-SMARTIE CUTTING
A game very similar to bobbing for apples, except without apples. Or water. Or bobbing.
A small amount of preparation is needed for this one. Take a dessert bowl and fill it with flour, compacting it as much as you can. Then turn out onto a large plate or tray in one piece. It can help if you refrigerate it for a few hours before turning it out, and it’s also worth having a couple in reserve in case the turn-out process doesn’t end up as successful as hoped! Carefully place a single Smartie on top of the centre of the dome and place a table knife beside the pile of flour. Explain to your players that they will take it in turns to come up and cut away a portion of the flour pile; they can cut away as much or as little as they can separate with a single straight knife cut. However, if they dislodge the pile so that the Smartie falls into the flour they lose, and their forfeit is that they have to eat it, without using their hands. In other words they have to put their face into the flour and try to get the Smartie, without coughing or spluttering too much. Make as many of these as necessary for your group size - you could just do one and have everyone take turns, or you could have a number in play simultaneously. About half a dozen players per plate is optimal.
RUNNING DODGEBALL
You can’t go wrong with a game that involves throwing stuff at young people!
Mark out as large a rectangle as you can in your meeting space, leaving enough space either side along the longer edge for a number of people to stand and move about in, and enough space at either end for the whole of your group to stand without encroaching into the rectangle. Get two volunteers or leaders to stand along the long sides with a couple of foam balls. Explain to the group that in this variation of dodge-ball they have to run from the safe zone at one end of the rectangle to the safe zone at the other end while the people either side try to hit them below the knees with a ball. On the command everyone has to run, and anyone hit by the ball beneath the knee is out, whether it’s a direct shot, a rebound, or it hits them while the ball continues rolling. Once they’re out they get to join one of the sides as an additional thrower trying to get the rest of the group out. The players are only vulnerable while they run between one end and the other, but everyone has to run! Keep going until you have just a few runners left, while everyone else stands on either side trying to hit those who remain. Repeat a number of times or until you find someone who’s too good and keeps winning.
BODY DICE / HUMAN TWISTER
A flailing mass of limbs, joined together at random, like the England rugby team.
This is a variant of Twister but without the need for a board, or playing sheet - instead all you need are the players and a dice. Divide your group into teams of six and spread them out across your meeting space, ensuring that there is plenty of space between teams. The teams will be playing against each other in an effort to be the team that follows the instructions and survives the longest. Explain that they need to number each of their players one to six, and that will be their number for the rest of the game. The leader will roll the dice to find out which team member is in play, and then again to find out which body part they need to use: one = elbow, two = armpit, three = ear, four = knee, five = foot, six = nose. Roll the dice again to find out the next team member needed, and once more to find out which body part they need to connect to the body part of the first team-mate. So if you roll a six, followed by a five, and then a three followed by a four, it means player six has to attach their foot to player three’s knee. They then have to hold this position, as well as obeying any further instructions they receive whenever their number is rolled again. Keep on going, identifying pairs of players and which body parts they need to connect, so that each team ends up with a mixture of bizarre and tangled interconnections. If a body-part already in play comes up again, they simply detach the original instruction and swap to the latest one, giving the players the choice as to whether the left or right elbow / armpit / ear / knee / foot is used each time. Keep going until all of the teams are unable to maintain structural integrity and balance! It goes without saying that you will need to be careful to keep this appropriate. Except that we’ve said it now. Either way, make sure you’re aware.
SCATTERGORIES
This game is brought to you by the letter ‘s’ for Scattergories.
A simpler game that requires no space or movement, just some pens and paper. This is best played with your group divided into teams of three or four, but can be played with people playing on their own if you have a smaller group. The basic idea is that at the start of the game you identify a number of categories (e.g. girl’s names, items of clothing, fruits, countries, jobs, etc.) which the teams need to write down on their sheets of paper, before then writing down words that fit into each category. Explain that they will have one minute in each round to come up with as many words as they can which fit each category - with the rule being that each word in a round has to begin with a particular letter that you will pick and tell them at the start of the round. At the end of the minute you get each team, one by one, to read out what they’ve written for each category, and for each word they (correctly) got that none of the other teams wrote down, they score one point. If they read a word out that another team has also written down then both teams just cross it out on their list, so essentially they score a point for each unique word in each category per round. Keep a running tally of how the teams are doing, and tot up the scores at the end to find the winner. Be as creative and as specific with the categories as you like.
