30-Second Games, Slower, Sitting Down Games

Transcription

1 30-Second Games, Slower, Sitting Down Games Alphabet Train Seat everyone in a circle. Choose one person to start the game by saying a word. The next person in the circle must quickly say another word that start with the letter that ended the previous word. Proper nouns (e.g., names of people or places) cannot be used. Once used, that word cannot be repeated for the rest of the game. Players can be eliminated if they take too long to come up with a new word, if they use a proper noun, or if they repeat a word already used. The beginning of a game might sound like this: Player 1: apple Player 2: elephant Player 3: tiger Player 4: river Player 5: rhino Player 6: octopus etc. To make the game more difficult, you can specify that all words used must be on a theme, e.g., food, animals, places, etc. Beast, Bird or Fish Players sit in a circle, with one player in the centre. The player in the centre holds a soft ball or sponge which she throws as unexpectedly as possible at one of the circle players while simultaneously calling either beast or bird or fish. Then she immediately counts to ten. The person holding the ball must yell out a type of animal in the category named, before the count is completed. no words can be duplicated. If the player cannot name an animal, she must change places with the player in the middle. To make it easier for younger kids, you could play this game after an activity about animals, so they have more ideas. Also, decide beforehand what type of things fit in the categories you can include insects as beasts, and aquatic creatures (shellfish, etc) as fish to give you a wider range from which to choose. Boating Play this in pairs. Two people sit on the floor with their legs straight and the soles of their feet touching. They lean forward and grasp hands. Keeping their legs as straight as possible. Each person then tries to pull the other person to her feet.

2 Bread Tag Game Equipment:A number of different colours of bread tags in a container for each group of a dozen or so Guides. To Play: The players sit around a table or in a circle on the floor; the container in the middle. The more colours of clips there are, the better. There should be one special colour of which there are only two. There can be any number of the other colours. In turn, around the circle, each player dips her hand into the container. Without looking, she withdraws one clip and puts it down in front of her. If it is the same colour as the one drawn immediately before her, she takes all the other player s clips. All clips must be placed in front of the players. The player who draws the first special colour clip takes all the clips on the table, except those remaining in the container. The player who draws the second special clip hits the jackpot and takes all the clips, including those left in the container. (If plastic bread clips or other tokens are unavailable use squares of coloured paper.) Bubblegum The only rule is absolute silence. The girls are usually so involved in the game that this is not a problem, however, if someone does make verbal noise, they must go around the hall corner (so you as a leader can see them, but they can t see what s going on major punishment!) Note the gum is totally pretend don t use real gum!! Seat the girls around a stage area where there is enough room for them to walk from one side to the other. Start with the leader walking across the stage pretending to chew bubblegum. She blows a BIG bubble and it pops, she get ready to blow another and the gum falls out of her mouth and on the ground. She is surprised and disappointed, but walks on. The first girl does some action skipping, hopping, cartwheel, crab walk, or something across the stage and gets the gum stuck on her foot, hand or whatever. She is disgusted! She pulls it off (some girls then get it stuck on their hands or other body parts but eventually pull it off) and tosses it back on the ground. Remember this is all done in silence and there is no real gum! The very last girl to go across the stage gets the gum stuck on her, but instead of tossing it down, she pops it in her mouth and happily continues chewing and walking on! Chief Sit all the girls in a circle. Pick a detective, who leaves the room for a moment or sits in the middle of the circle with eyes closed. Then pick a Chief. The Chief then leads all the girls in an action (ex: clapping hands, touching noses, tapping knees, etc.). Whatever action the Chief picks, all the girls must copy. The Detective then opens her eyes and tries to figure out who the Chief is. Whenever possible, the Chief changes the action (preferably when the Detective is facing the other way!). As with Wink Murderer, the Detective only gets three chances to guess who the Chief is. The best way to make this game a challenge is to instruct the girls in the circle to not stare at the Chief but instead to stare only at the person directly across the circle from them. Communication Game Equipment: An envelope per team of two children. When you are preparing the equipment, cut two of each shape in each size of each colour. i.e., two large yellow circles, two small green triangles, 2 medium blue squares. One of each shape goes in each envelope, so that the two team members could make an identical picture. Category: Indoor, quiet Ages: Brownies on up Numbers: An even number of kids, because you need to divide them up in two s.

3 The children sit down on the floor, back to each other, with their envelopes in front of them. One girl is the designer, and she opens her envelope and makes a design or picture with her shapes. Then she describes her picture to the person who is back to her, so that she can make an identical picture. No one is allowed to look at their partner s pictures!! After the two are done, using only their voices to pass the information back and forth they may compare their pictures. Allow about 10 minutes for this game. Don t make too many shapes, or too many small pieces as you will want to use this game again (it is too much work to set up to only use once!) Ask the children to be careful when they put it back in the envelopes because you don t want to find one green triangle on the floor after you have all the envelopes put back in their box! Drawing Board Equipment: A picture on a large piece of paper stuck up on a wall somewhere outside the meeting room. For example, the picture that we had was a picture of a face with long curls and a crown with points and jewels on the crown. It was drawn with a marker on white paper. Also a piece of paper and a marker for each team. Number of Players: In teams of at least 4. One person is the drawer. Category: Quiet, indoor. Age: 9 and up. In the first variation, one person is chosen as the drawer for each team, and that person is not allowed to talk at all. One of the members of the team goes out to the hallway to look at the picture, but she is not allowed to say anything except yes or no, to the rest of the team, who must ask her questions about the picture. The person with the piece of paper must draw the picture, as they hear it described to them, without asking any questions herself. In the second variation, each member of the team can go look at the picture except the drawer, one at a time. Then the drawer can ask each team member one question, and they can only answer the question yes, or no. This continues until the picture is drawn. (I m not sure I have explained this well, so I will provide an example. Kathy is the drawer and she has Natasha and Heather on her team. Heather goes to look at the picture. Kathy asks her if it is a picture of an animal, Heather says Yes. Natasha goes out to look and Kathy asks her if it is a dog, Natasha says No. Kathy asks Heather if it is a person, and Heather (who can remember this) says Yes. Kathy asks Natasha if it is a boy, and Natasha can t remember, so she goes to look and then comes back and says No. And so forth until Kathy feels she has enough information to start drawing she might then ask if it is a whole body, just a face, in profile or straight on, long hair, curly hair, smiling, etc) Drop It Play in pairs. Partners face each other. One holds an object in each hand, outstretched at shoulder level and the suddenly drops one of the objects. The other person has to catch it before it touches the ground. Four Corners One girl (or a Guider) is It and sits in the middle of the floor, hiding her eyes and counting to a pre-agreed number out loud (such as 20). The four corners of the room have been designated with numbers, letters, theme names or whatever you wish to distinguish them from each other. The

4 other girls scurry to the corner of their choice (not necessarily all together) and stand there when It reaches 20 (or whatever) BEFORE LOOKING UP she calls out the name of one of the corners. Everyone in that corner is caught and comes to sit with it and helps count out loud for the next round. Eventually only one girl is left scurrying to a corner, uncaught. While this game can be (and often is!) loud and hilarious, girls soon catch on to the fact that the way to fool the counter is to be noisy running by one corner, tiptoeing to the next! I ve had lots of girls Brownie and Guide age request this every week! Gotcha Place everyone (20 or so participants) standing in a large circle, facing inward. Place one person ( IT ) in the centre of the circle. IT is equipped with a fake water pistol (hands together making a pist0l). As IT turns around the circle, he/she chooses their first victim and shoots fake water at them, saying GOTCHA. Be sure that IT is clear about who he/she is shooting. As IT shoots, the target must duck and the players on both sides of the ducker must quickly point and try to shoot each other with their own fake pistols, shouting GOTCHA. Any mistakes can mean elimination at this point. For example, if the ducker forgets to duck, if he shoots, or if he says GOTCHA, he s out. If the players on either side of the ducker shoot the wrong way or say bang instead of GOTCHA, they re out. Also, the player in this case who gets shot first is out. All eliminated players must sit down. Continue the game in the same pattern until there are only two players remaining from the original circle. Bring them to the middle of the circle and place them back to back, as if preparing for a duel. IT begins to count numbers in sequence, e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. For each number called, the two duelers take a step away from each other. When IT calls a number that is out of sequence (e.g., 2, 3, 4, 6), the duelers turn around and shoot each other with GOTCHA. The winner is the last player standing. Hedgehog Girls skip, run, jump, walk etc around until the leader calls hedgehog. At this they all crouch on the ground with their heads covered with arms so they can t see. When all eyes are covered the leader places a blanket over one girl and when she is fully covered says hedgehog. This is the cue for everyone but the covered girl to stand up and guess who the hedgehog (covered girl) is. Kangaroo, Skippyroo The girls sit in a large circle with one in the middle who is the kangaroo named Skippyroo. Skippyroo closes her eyes, or is blindfolded, and the girls in the circle chant Kangaroo, Skippyroo, Dozing in the midday sun Comes a hunter Run, run, run the leader points to a girl (the hunter) who disguises her voice and says: Guess who s caught you just for fun. Skippyroo has to guess who the hunter is.

5 Letter Challenge One person calls out a letter and second person has 30 seconds to say as many words as they can think of, starting with that letter. Others keep count and check that no word is repeated. Second person then challenges the next person with another letter until everyone has had a go. One, Two, Three Category: Indoor/ Outdoor Equipment: A whistle (but not vital) Number of Players: Unlimited To Play: Guides sit in a circle with their legs outstretched. Guides number off in threes i.e. the first girl says one, the second says two, the third says three, the fourth says one, the fifth says two etc. If the Guider calls number one, all the number ones stand up and run (clockwise) around the outside of the circle. They keep running until the Guider gives certain signals with the whistle. If a short whistle is blown, the girls change direction and continue running. If a long whistle is blown, the girls continue in the direction they are going and go back to their place. They cannot change direction even if they are just past their place! The last girl back in her place with her legs outstretched is out but she must remain in the circle. The Guider can call the numbers in any order or call the same number twice, even three times. When the numbers of Guides left in is reduced, the Guider could call 2 numbers together. When there is only 1 or 2 of each number left call anyone left. This time all the Guides still in run and after the long whistle the first girl back to her place with legs outstretched is the winner. Opposite Game Players need to listen and follow instructions very carefully in order not to be eliminated! GO: means stop still. STOP: means to move around the playing area, either walking or running. UP: means sit or lay down. DOWN: means stretch up to the ceiling. Poor Pussy/Honey Do You Love Me? The children sit in a circle with one person in the centre of the circle as the pussy. The pussy crawls over to each of the children in turn around the circle (until she makes someone laugh, then she takes their spot in the circle, and they become the pussy.) The person that the Pussy stops in front of, must say Poor Pussy and pat the Pussy three times while the Pussy meows piteously and tries to make the person laugh. If they succeed in saying Poor Pussy three times with a straight face, then the Pussy goes on to the next person. The person who is it chooses a victim and says to them, whilst performing such antics as to cause them to smile involuntarily, Honey if you love me, will you please, please smile? The person that they stop in front of must say, Honey, you know I love you, but I just can t smile. with a straight face.

6 Princess in the Tower A game we play with Brownies sounds very similar to Jane s puppy and bone. We call it the Princess in the Tower. The princess has to be rescued from the Giant. The Princess sits on a chair doing nothing, her guardian points to Brownies at random sitting in a semicircle who have to creep up to rescue the princess without being heard by the Giant who is blindfold actually our giants hide behind a convenient curtain in the hall and spring out when they hear anything. Our Brownies all love the game which I find quite extraordinary because they are normally very noisy, and sitting very still is quite out of character for most of them!! Puppy and Bone Category: Quiet, Indoors Equipment: A blind fold and a bone Number of Participants: 8 and up! Ages: 5 to 15 years he children sit in a semicircle facing one child who is the puppy. The puppy wears a blind fold and the bone is on the floor in front of her. A thief is chosen by pointing so as not to let the puppy know which direction the thief is coming from to steal her bone. The thief tries to steal the bone from the puppy without the puppy hearing her. (The rest of the group must sit quietly while she tries). The puppy listens, and points in the direction of the thief and barks, if she hears anything. If she catches the thief by pointing at her, the thief has failed and has to go back into the semi-circle. If the thief succeeds in stealing the bone then she becomes the puppy and the puppy joins the circle for the next round. Variations: Guides might prefer the spy and the secret papers! Play this one outside in the dark with flashlights. The spy has a flashlight and aims that at the thief, otherwise the rules are the same. Quiet One person is it. All of the other people line up opposite it (line up like Red Rover). It calls each person over one by one. The person coming over must not smile or laugh, but remain completely sombre & serious. If the person coming over laughs or smiles, they must return to the line. This continues until there is at least one (usually more than one) that cannot make it across without laughing. Then the laughers proceed to do any number of things to make the other girls laugh, but they must do it Quietly! No talking, just pantomime, silly dancing, etc. The sombre girls try to hold out as long as possible. If there is one that makes it, she starts the game anew. Instead of it being on one side with a line of girls across from her, we split the group into two equal lines facing each other about 3-4 feet apart. Taking turns from one line to the next, one girl walks down the center of the aisle trying not to laugh. She must walk slowly looking straight ahead and her eyes must remain open. She may not smile or laugh. The girls in the opposing line, tries to make her laugh. They may do anything they d like as long as they don t make any noise and their feet don t leave the ground. If she succeeds in reaching the end of the line without laughing, she rejoins the end of her line. If she laughs, she joins the end of the opposing line. The game continues until all the girls are in one line.

7 Rising Circles The group sits in a circle, everyone cross-legged with their arms round each others shoulders. At a signal, they all try to stand up without breaking hold. Sausages One person is the questioner. She asks each girl in turn a question. Whatever the question the answer must be SAUSAGES. The aim of the questioner is to get everyone out by making them laugh. The last person in becomes the next questioner. Sing a Song Pick a subject, e.g., food, girls names, towns countries, etc. Each person in turn has to sing part of a song that mentions a town (or whatever your subject is). anyone who can t drops out until the next round. The winner chooses the next subject. Sleeping Beauty All the girls pretend to be Sleeping Beauty (that is, they lie on the floor perfectly still and silent) when they have all stopped squirming, you choose one girl to be the Fairy Godmother. She goes around to the girls who are being the best Sleeping Beauties and wakes them up with a gentle tap. They then move quietly to line up, the next activity, make a circle, etc, etc Don t know why it works, but the girls love it! We play this game when the girls have been very active and need to calm down or when it is very hot and they are all a bit tried. Our girls love it, and it is important to have different fisherwomen and that nothing physical is used to catch the fish out. You choose a Fisherwoman, the rest of the girls lie down on the floor and pretend they are dead fish, the fisher woman walks around the room watching the fish for movement. When the fisherwoman spots movement that person is out, they can then join the fisherwomen (depending on how long you want the game to go for). If you have some very dead fish joke telling to individual fish can be used to see if you can make them laugh and move. Space Walk This starts with a story along the lines that the girls are in a spaceship on a special mission when oops, there is a leak in the air tank so they must conserve there air. To do this they must be a still as possible (usually easier if they lie down) so their air lasts until they get home. If the leader catches them moving they must go on a space walk around the ship and then go back inside. They usually like this very dramatic part. Usually I say that after 5 spacewalks they are out and I get these girls to look for others moving. This game is very popular with my unit and great if the leader needs a break or to do something else. Most are very still so as not to get out. Spot the Dot (the 30-second version) Materials: A series of construction paper dots, ranging in size from very large (like 2 feet in diameter) down to very tiny (like a piece of confetti) To Play: This game is especially popular with the Sparks and Brownies. Start with the largest dot. Sit the girls in a circle and ask them to close their eyes, then hide the big dot somewhere in your meeting place (note that it is very hard to hide the big dots!). Once the dot is hidden, the girls open

8 their eyes and have to find it. When a girl has found the dot, she returns to her place in the circle and sits down. Once everyone has found the big dot, get them to close their eyes again and hide a smaller dot. The game continues until the girls are hunting for a dot no larger than a piece of confetti! The Hand-Slapping Game Good for ages Equipment: none Number who can join: unlimited but it makes for a long game! The children make a circle, lying down on the floor on their tummies with their hands on the floor in front of them palms down. (This can be done around a table too!) Each child has her left arm linked through the right arm of the girl beside her. And her right arm linked through the left arm of the girl on the other side. So, each girl has two hands in front of her, the left hand of her right hand neighbour and the right hand of her neighbour to the left. One person starts- she picks the direction of travel of the slap and then she slaps her hand on the table. One slap means the slap continues in that direction, and two slaps mean that the direction is reversed. In either case only the hand immediately adjacent to her hand in the appropriate direction of travel is to go next. If someone misses their turn they are out and must remove that hand! (This gives each girl 2 chances at being out which is more fun than messing up once and being removed from the game). The game continues in the opposite direction, with the next hand having the next turn. This is a Cup This is a game best played at banquets and other large events, where people are sitting at tables waiting for food The first person (person A) turns to the person on their left (person B) and says This is a cup while showing them a cup (it always starts with a cup). Person B says a what? Person A says a cup. Person B says a what? Person A says a cup. Person B says oh it s a cup. Person A picks something else off the table say a spoon. Person A says to Person B this is a spoon while Person B is saying to Person C (to the left of Person B) this is a cup. Both person B and C turn to their right and say a what. Person A says a spoon to person B while Person B says to Person C a cup. it keeps going like this until there is the same number of items around the table as people. Its quite funny as you tend to get confused at what is being passed to you. You may want to teach the girls first so it goes a bit more smoothly and they ll be better then their parents. It goes pretty fast and you can play if someone makes a major mistake then everyone starts again. Just remember that every item being passed around can only have one syllable in its name to keep the rhythm even (i.e. if a salt shaker enters then it is often called a salt ). Wink Murderer Sit the girls in a circle. Pick a detective, who moves to sit in the center of the circle. Everyone closes their eyes and then the leader walks around the circle, eventually tapping someone on the shoulder to indicate that they re the murderer. Everyone opens their eyes. The detective sets to work trying to determine who the murderer is. Meanwhile, the murderer kills people in the circle

9 by winking (or blinking really obviously if winking isn t possible) at them. girls who have been winked at must die a horrible, dramatic death (or at least this seems to bring out the most giggles from the others). Dead people lay on their backs so the detective can tell who is already dead. The detective has three chances to guess who the murderer is. Once the murderer has been discovered, a new detective is chosen and the old murderer gets to go around the circle to pick the new one. Other versions of Wink Murderer: 1) Double Wink Murderer: Basically the same as Wink Murderer, but with more than one murderer working at a time in each round. Usually I tell the murderers that they are not allowed to kill each other. 2) Wink and Squeeze Murderer: When the girls are seated in the circle, make sure they are close enough to each other that they can all hold hands behind their backs comfortably. The murderer can either kill girls in the conventional way by winking at them, or by sending a deadly squeeze. For example: if the murderer wishes to kill someone seated 5 girls away, she squeezes the hand of the girl next to her 5 times. This girl passes on 4 squeezes, the next 3 squeezes, and so on. The girl who receives one squeeze dies! This makes guessing the murderer much more difficult. 3) Handshake Murderer: Instead of sitting in a circle, the girls are free to walk around and shake hands with each other. The murderer can kill people either by winking at them, or, when they shake someone s hand, they squeeze their victim s hand firmly. The detective must circulate through the crowd of hand shakers and try to guess the murderer.