Category: Group Games

One of the easiest games that kids love

Remember Bozo the Clown’s Grand Prize Game?!

If you don’t, then either you’re much younger than me or you had better things to do than watch television as a child.

His bucket game was full of pomp and craziness, but the basic idea of it is extremely simple and duplicatable in any setting where you want to have fun with kids.

All you do is line up some buckets or baskets and have kids try to toss a ball in each one – successively tossing the ball in the next farthest bucket each time (college students have another name for this game, but that version is not for kids).

If you miss, you’re out or go to the end of the line. The player who makes the farthest basket wins.

The super easy variation that I put on this game is having just one stationary bucket or trash can, then making the players take one step back each time they make a shot. The player who takes the most steps back and continues to make the shot wins.

The fun is endless, because you can have all the kids line up and simply try to make a shot from the farthest line drawn. If they make the shot, they keep shooting and stepping back each time until they miss. The next player then steps in at the new line and tries to push it back even further.

Another variation is to have someone shake or move the bucket back and forth while blindfolded. That way, they don’t move the bucket in such a way that helps the shooter. And it gives a funny challenge to the shooter.

What are some variations you’ve put on this game?

Awesome Crowd Game Ideas

I do a lot of large group events. I’m always on the lookout for games that are fun and easy for huge crowds. When people come together in large groups, there is a lot of potential energy that can be tapped in the form of socialization, laughter, competition, and shared human experiences.

So here are some of the resources I have found to be particularly helpful in leading fun experiences for crowds of people:

  1. CrowdControlGames

    This organization creates and sells (at super affordable rates) crowd games that you can run on your computer and then project on the big screen. Browse around at all they have to offer – http://crowdcontrolgames.com/

  2. Crowd Thumb Wrestling

    How about crowd thumb wrestling?! Invented by monochrom and officially called “massive Multiplayer Thumb-Wrestling.” Here is that game led by a game designer on the TED stage…. [ted id=1866]

  3. Crowd Thunderstorm

    You can also lead your crowd in making the sounds of a thunderstorm. This video shows a choir on stage doing it. But you can just as easily lead an audience of any size in the same exercise: [iframe width=”640″ height=”360″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/29qaN0M0o0s” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe]

  4. Group Games Galore!

    I have also compiled a blog post category of group games over the years on this blog. There are over twenty entries and growing, so read through all these great crowd game ideas such as “Heads or Tails” and “Bring Me This.” Click here.

 

 

Easy Group Game: Mouthpiece Madness

I got this idea from a friend of mine at Camp Orchard Hill, Derek Hodne. I did some searching online and discovered that many other people have taken this game and packaged it into various retail forms, such as Watch Ya Mouth, Speak Out, and Mouthguard Challenge.

The game is simple, and you can do it yourself with a small or large group setting with a little creativity. The supplies needed are the plastic mouth spacers (cheek retractors) that dentists use to hold back lips and cheeks while they work on patients. You can grab a dozen of them on amazon.com for about $12 ($1 per spacer).

You give a player the spacer and they put it in their mouth. Then you give them a phrase to try to say and the other players have to decipher the phrase. The spacer makes it near impossible to pronounce words with sounds like “M”, “B”, “P” or other phonetics that bring the lips together. So phrases like, “Mommy buys peanuts at the market” can be both difficult and entertaining at the same time.

When my friend Derek administered the game, it was at a gathering of hundreds of high school students. He called up about eight players onto the stage and split them into two teams of four each. Each team had one player with the cheek retractor and the other three were the phrase guessers. It was fun for the rest of the crowd to watch as Derek held the microphone up to the teams while they played.

Try it with your group (large or small) and have fun!