The Rules

1. You must only draw your face – no body.
2. You may NOT draw ANY hair. (Not on your hear, not on your face)
3. You may NOT draw any accessories (such as glasses, jewelry, makeup, etc….)

Once everyone has draw themselves in secret (so no one has seen what you’ve drawn), gather all the pictures together and mix them up. Show the group the pictures one at a time and have them write down the name of the person they believe is in the drawing. Once you’ve been through all the pictures and everyone’s answer is locked in, reveal who drew each picture.

For every picture you guess right, you get one point. For every person that correctly guesses the picture you drew, you get a bonus point. The person with the most points at the end wins!

Balloon Smack

One balloon is in the middle of the room. Everyone is divided into two teams and each person is assigned a secret number (between 1 & 6 or however many there are on each team). The leader calls out a number, the person from each team who was assigned that number must grab a pool noodle (on the floor in front of them) and try to smack the balloon against the opposite team’s wall. 1 point per smack. It up to you whether you allow ‘body’ smacks or not.

The Shoe Kick

Each person dangles their shoe on the end of their foot and with a mighty kick, tries to launch their shoe the furthest.

The Slurpie Run

This is a team relay. Each person has a straw. The objective is to suction a small paper square (2 inch square) to the straw and carry it to a pylon and back. If the paper falls, the person must suction it from wherever it falls and continue. First team with all their people through wins.

Pig

To prepare for this game, get enough brown paper lunch bags for about two per person. In each bag, place some sort of snack. You can use mini chocolate bars, mints, a potato chip, some breakfast cereal, a piece of a raw potato, three soup crackers, and whatever else you think of. Staple the bags closed. Divide your players into equal teams. Have them choose one ‘pig’ among themselves – this person should be willing to eat anything. Give eat team two dice. Once the game has begun, each member of each team will take turns rolling the dice. If they get doubles, their team stops all rolling and the person who rolled doubles runs to the center of the room and retrieves a brown paper bag. Once they have returned with their bag, the player will open it and must completely consume whatever snack is in that bag before their team can continue rolling. If the player is unable or unwilling to eat their particular snack, they can feed it to the pig. Once the snack is completely swallowed, the rolling resumes. The team who has eaten the most snacks by the end of the game is the winner.

Musical Glasses

Both teams must try to play the ‘Happy Birthday Song’ using spoons tapping glasses of water. The best song wins.

Scavenger Hunt Charades

Normal charades – but as soon as one item is guessed, the whole team must find and retrieve the object before they can act for the next item.

The Pyramid Scheme

A relay race – One person is blindfolded. They must crawl over to a pile of 6 plastic cups and stack them up pyramid style. Once they do, they get back across their line where the next person will put on the blindfold and do the same thing until all the team as gone. First team done wins.

Instructions

Make a small 6 x 6 grid (each square is about 1ft) marked by masking tape on the floor. In 10 of the 36 squares will be a mine (a ball or any other object that won’t hurt if someone steps on it) placed by the opposing teams. One person on your team will be blindfolded and must navigate through the minefield without stepping on a grid that contains a bomb (tape not included.)

They do this by listening to the instructions of one of their teammates. If they do step on a mined square, they must go back to the front outside edge of the minefield (escorted by one of their teammates). The time it takes them to navigate through successfully will be recorded. Once one person from each team has had their turn, the next person on the team will then be blindfolded, sent through the grid, and their time recorded.

When everyone on all the teams have gone through, the times for your team will be added together and the team with the fastest total time will be winners.

1. Draw an island
2. Draw a palm tree on the island.
3. Draw some coconuts on the palm tree.

Each person tries to draw the picture as accurately as they can, without being able to see what they are drawing. You’re sure to get some interesting pictures.

In the end, each element has a point value. For example:

• If the trunk of the palm tree is touching the island, get one point.
• If the coconuts are actually on the tree, get two points.

The person who has earned the most points wins.

For a complete set of instructions, scoring criteria, and sample picture, download the Blind Pictionary.pdf.

#1. Catch

Everyone goes into a good size room, (if you have a small gym, that works best) close the doors and turn out the lights. Taking about 1 bouncy ball per 3 people, the leader throws them out into the darkness. As soon as he does, everyone tries to grab them. [WARNING: Potential for injuries if players aren't considerate of each other.] Although they are next to impossible to catch in the dark, it sure is a lot of fun to try. After about 10 – 20 seconds, flip on the lights and watch everyone scramble for the previously lost balls that are now in plain sight. Award a point per ball per person. Or have one or two different colored balls that are worth more (or less).

#2. Baseball

This is a great, slightly dangerous game. The game must be indoors for the bouncy ball to bounce off the walls and such – again, a small gym works best. Setup like regular baseball with the four bases, two teams, etc… The difference is the bat is one of those fat bats – the giant red plastic ones from Walmart – and the ball is one of those bouncy balls. When the batter hits that ball… Man, is it hard to catch! You may need to adjust the rules a little bit, depending on the size of your room and group. Try one of these rules to make it fair:

• The batter must get a home run for a point.
• If the batter is not standing on a base when the ball is returned to the pitcher, he’s out.
• The batter can round the bases as many times as he can, getting one point each base. When the play is over, he’s out.

But again I warn you, these game have potential to be dangerous – particularly to eyes. If you have goggles, you may want to wear them.

Here’s how the events are done: Your entire team will participate in a particular order – however you choose. Once everyone has tried the event once, you start back at the beginning and go through the lineup again. So, say the event is to throw the ball in order to knock over a tin can. Bobby throws and misses. John throws, misses. Amy throws, knocks it over. The tin can is setup again, and Lisa throws, misses. That’s the whole team, so back to Bobby throwing again. Then John, etc…. Every time the tin can is knocked down, you add ten points to your point total for that event, set the can up again, and keep going through your line until the three minutes are over.

You can change the number of events or number of teams or length of time per event however you like. Generally speaking, you can estimate about two minutes in between events while the teams tell you their score and move to the next event. So if you do twelve events for three minutes each, plus the two minute wait time, that means this game will take about 60 minutes. So you can adjust things to fit your schedule.

Example Outdoor Events

• From 20 feet away, throw a plastic flamingo into a volleyball net. If it gets stuck in the net, earn ten points.
• Have three metal baseball bats laying close together at different angles. Roll a golf ball at them and listen for the ‘ping’ sound it makes when the bats get hit. If the bats are setup right, you can ricochet the golf ball off them all. For each ping you hear, earn five points.
• Putt a baseball with a broomball stick into a small hoolahoop. With each hole-in-one, earn ten points.
• From 15 feet away, throw a beachball on top of a soccer net. If it lands and stays on top, earn ten points.
• Roll a giant foam dice by bouncing it off your head. Earn ten times the amount shown on the dice – BUT if you roll a ‘one’, you start back at zero for this event.
• Throw a volleyball at a bowling pin on a bucket 15 feet away, if the pin falls off, earn ten points.

Get the idea? You can use whatever you have to make any little game. You will want to do a test run on your event to make sure it’s not too easy or too hard. Regardless of what games you make, the big key in this game is leader enthusiasm. Without it, this (or any other game) will be a dud. With that, here are a few more ideas for indoor events on those rainy days.

Example Indoor Events

• Roll a ball down the length of a slightly tilted table. If it falls into a tin can on the floor at the end, earn ten points.
• From 15 feet away, fly a paper airplane towards a large pail. If it hits it, earn ten points. If if goes in the pail, earn fifty points.
• Using the pieces from a Scrabble game, make as many different five letter words as you can. Each word earns you five points.
• From 10 feet away, roll a football into a hoolahoop on the floor. If it stays inside the hoolahoop, earn ten points.
• With one person from your team standing on a piece of paper, bounce a ping pong ball to them from 10 feet away. If they catch it after just one bounce, and without stepping off the paper, earn ten points.
• Taking turns writing just one letter each, write out the alphabet as many times as you can. For each complete alphabet, earn fifty points.

If he guesses correctly, he wins all of the kernels in the challenger’s right hand. However, if he is wrong, he must give the challenger that number of kernels from his own collection. If the challenger was holding more kernels in his right hand than the other person had in total, the other person gives all his kernels to the challenger and is now out of the game. He can no longer challenge or be challenged. This goes on repeatedly until one person has won all the popcorn.

Notes

Near the end of the game, the remaining players can have many kernels that take a long time to count out and make the game progress rather slowly. To speed things up a little bit, make a rule that at least half of the players kernels must be offered in a challenge so that it is more likely for people to be eliminated. If it’s still taking too long, make a rule that ALL of the players kernels must be offered in a challenge.

Notes:

Be sure that you do not use thin rope or the like that would cut into kid’s legs. I use triple-thick strips of rags that my wife sewed (About four inches wide and four feet long. They also double as blindfolds in other games.)

You can play just about any game “penguin style” – baseball, kickball, football, tag – you name it. You can do a penguin theme event where you play all your regular games penguin style.

Setup

All you need is two soccer nets and a ball. (You may also want pylons to mark the goalie’s crease.) A ‘gator skin’ ball works best: it’s soft and squishy so head shots don’t hurt so much, but it has enough weight that you can throw it with power. The distance you place the nets apart depend on the size of your group. Try 75 feet for 20 people and 200 feet for 100 people. The goalie’s crease should be a half-circle around the net with 15 foot radius – maybe a bit smaller if you have younger players. You will need two teams – each with a goalie.

Playing the Game

The objective is to throw the ball into the other teams net. The game is started with a jump ball in the center. Once a player has possession of the ball, the player may take three steps and/or hold the ball for three seconds. After that the player must either pass the ball to a team member or throw the ball at the net. No players from either team are allowed within the goalie’s crease – with the exception of the goalie (who is not allowed out of the crease).

Depending on how rough you want to play the game, you can allow or disallow players from ripping the ball out of the another player’s hands. If you disallow it, players must only try to intercept or block the other team’s passes – they are not to touch the other players.

For the Ref

Most infractions result in the loss of possession, however, you may want to award penalty shots if the defending team breaks a rule during a scoring opportunity (such as being within the goalie’s crease). If the game ends in a tie, a shoot out will decide the winner.

Variations

Team Diceball

This variation is better with smaller groups (20 – 30). The rules and gameplay are the same, just the setup is different. The field is smaller (75 ft), the nets are hockey nets face down with the bottom end open towards the field (and the goalie crease is removed), and the ball is a large foam dice (about 8 inches square). Whenever the dice is thrown in the net, whatever number on the dice is showing up, that’s how many points are awarded.

Bucketball

Just slightly different from the original, replace the nets with large buckets (plastic garbage cans work great). The goalie no longer tries to prevent goals, but goes to the other team’s side, stands on a chair, and holds the bucket up so his team can put the ball in his bucket. There is no goalie crease, but players are not allowed to interfere with the goalie.

Indoor Team Handball

If you are playing indoors, place hockey nets upright, facing the end wall about 2 ft away from it. There is no goalie, but still a goalie crease. To score, the players will need to bounce the ball (or dice as mentioned above) off the wall.

You can find other great wide games in Six Wide Games Kids Love.

See if they can recognize someone by examining…

• Handwriting
• A strand of hair
• A shoe (or sock for a real challenge)

Or perhaps they will know each other by listening to…

• A voice
• A whistle
• A hum

With a blindfold on, they can try to id someone by feeling…

• The top of someone’s head
• Someone’s elbow
• Someone’s chin

You may want to make this category guys with guys, girls with girls.

If you want, you can assign points for each successful id, or just play for the fun of it. It’s not really conducive as an ice-breaker game for people who don’t know each other, but it’s a great prelude to a Bible study as it breaks down initial inhibitions and allows them to be more free to share in discussions.