POPPING PUMPKINS
You will need: a lot of glass jars, orange tissue paper, elastic bands and both brilliant and disgusting prizes
5 minutes
Fill alternate jars with goodies and gross things, for example sweets in one and baked beans in another. Do this 20 or so times, cover them completely with orange tissue paper and fasten the paper with the elastic band. Number the jars on top with a permanent marker. One at a time the young people need to choose a number and poke their hand through the jar in order to gain a prize.
Top tip: have spare sweets so that everyone is a winner.
WAITER RELAY
You will need: paper plates and balloons
5 minutes
Split the young people into two teams and line them up parallel to each other at one end of the room. One blown up balloon and plate is to be given to the first player on each team. The aim of the game is to get each member of the teams to run to the other end of the room and back, keeping the balloon on the plate. The first team to finish wins.
This sounds far too easy right? Correct. Game changer: before running to the other side of the room, each person has to spin on the spot five times.
Top tip: feel free to use water balloons and have replacements to hand.
’WOT’S ON YOUR FACE?’
You will need: shaving foam, blindfolds and cheesy Wotsits
10 minutes
Autumn comes in all shapes and sizes but we are often limited to the autumnal colours of orange and green. Thankfully my favourite game includes bright orange potato snacks: Wotsits (other cheese-based puffy crisps are available).
Split your young people into pairs. One young person will have their face covered in shaving foam while the other will be blindfolded and handed a large amount of Wotsits. The aim of the game is for the blindfolded young person to cover as much of their teammate’s face in Wotsits as possible.
Top Tip: this will get messy so have coverings for young people who don’t want to get messy.
PUDDING PICTIONARY
You will need: an array of desserts, melted chocolate, pies or whatever else you can find in the reduced section
15 minutes
Pictionary involves one member of a team drawing a picture and the others guessing what they are drawing. Easy, right? Not on this page: split the young people into different teams and give them one pudding each and a cleanable surface. The game leader will have a list of pictures which are to be drawn… using the pudding. One member of each team will go to the leader to be given the name of the picture they are to draw. They must then head back to their team and ‘draw’ it using only the pudding that they have been allocated. The person who guesses correctly will go to the leader to be given the next picture. The first team to guess all of the pictures wins.
Warning: this game gets very messy so be sure to have sufficient materials to clean up afterwards.
PAINT TWISTER
You will need: Twister and red, green, yellow and blue paint
10 minutes
Before the game begins, match the paint to the spots on the Twister board and pour a large dollop on each of the matching spots. The young people will take turns to volunteer to spin the wheel on the Twister board. The Twister wheel will decide which limb will be linked to which colour. The aim of the game is to remain upright and to be the least covered in paint at the end.
Important Tip: use machine washable paint so that you don’t have complaints from parents.
GLOW IN THE DARK RING TOSS
You will need: at least ten empty glass bottles and bendy glow sticks made into rings
10 minutes
Although autumn is upon us we can hopefully still go outdoors for fun games: glow in the dark ring toss is ideal before the winter nights take over. Set the ten bottles into a wide triangle formation and give the bottles different values. The aim of the game is to get the highest score by getting the rings over the highest scoring bottles. Put the young people into a line one at a time (if you have more glass bottles you can create more teams) and give them five glow stick rings each. Leaders can calculate the scores for each player to determine the ‘glow in the dark ring toss champion’.
Top Tip: differing glass bottle sizes work best to add to the difficulty level.
DOUGHNUT LIMBO
You will need: ring doughnuts, string and tape
10 minutes
Tape a long section of string across the room and hang shorter strands of string down from it. Attach the doughnuts to the end of the dangling string and resist the temptation to eat them. With their hands behind their backs the young people must try to eat the whole doughnut without it falling on the floor, ripping the string down or using their hands. The first person to eat the whole doughnut wins the game!
Top Tip: you could use party rings as a crunchy alternative.
Lucy Rae is a youth worker at Holy Trinity Brompton.
