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Circle game
Students sit or stand in a circle and you time how quickly everyone can say their name immediately after the person to their right. The person on the left can say their name the second the person on the right next to them starts to say their own name. (Variations: you can have students say their favorite animals or colors, etc.)
Grades 1-3, Grades 3-5
Circle game
Have the group sit or stand in a circle and have “It” stand in the middle. You will want to start as “It” the first time you introduce the game. Explain that if It is going to tell them to “move their bum” if whatever It says applies to them. For example, It might say “move your bum if you have a pet,” or “move your bum if you had cereal for breakfast,” or “Move your Bum if your favorite food is pizza.” When It calls the command, all players who have a pet (or had cereal or like pizza) must switch spots with someone else who also has a pet (or had cereal or likes pizza).
While players are switching spots, It tries to steal the open spaces. The person who is left in the middle becomes “It and must think of something different to get people moving.
Grades 3-5, Middle
Teams of 3
Divide your group of students into teams of three. Each person on the team has one of the following roles:
The activity ends when the Viewers say they are satisfied with the drawings. You can have the Talkers vote for which image looks the most like the one they were trying to recreate (hint: don’t let them know which drawing belongs to their team).
(Note: If you have uneven teams, you can have that student draw the original artwork that will be recreated. Or you can draw them yourselves before you start the game, or you can have the art drawn on the whiteboard with the Drawers already in place, with their backs to the board.)
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Two lines facing each other
Assign each player a partner. Have campers sit in two long lines, partners facing each other, legs outstretched and feet touching. Their legs are the “ladder rungs.” Assign each pair a number and then call out one of the numbers. The pair with that number must stand up and race each other down the center of the ladder, avoiding the rungs. Once a player reaches the bottom of the ladder he must run around the outside of the ladder to the top and then head back down the center until he returns to his original space. The partner who arrives at his space and sits down first earns his team a point. The game finishes when players on one side of the ladder have earned a set number of points or when the game has peaked.
Grades 3-5
Circle Game
Have the group stand in a circle. Ask a player to help you demonstrate what a jumping double high0-five looks like: you should jump at the same time and high-five with both hands while they are in the air. Have the first player pick another player and demonstrate what a jumping double high-five looks like, only this time ask the players to shout “ho!” (or some other monosyllabic word of excitement) as their hands meet in the air.
The game begins when one player runs across the circle to another player and does a jumping double high-five with a “ho!” in the air. When both players land, they switch places so that the second player is now running across the circle toward another player. And then that player will run across the circle to high-five another player, and so on.
Encourage the other players to stay on their toes and watch for players coming at them. Eye contact is important in this game — if someone approaches you, ready to jump and switch places, you need to be ready or else you might get jumped on!Also a jumping double high-five can be a tricky skill to master, and eye contact helps ensure that both players jump at the same time and the same height (which is particularly important when playing with children of different sizes). Keep going until everyone has been picked at least once.
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Circle Game
Rules: All students stand in a circle and put their heads down looking at the ground. When the moderator says, “heads up” each student looks up at someone else in the circle. If the person they choose to look at is also looking at them, the two of them are both out. If the student they look at is looking at someone else, they get to play another round. The idea is to start slow and then speed up quickly!
Feel free to adapt this game to your group. It could be the Wild West and if you meet eyes with someone you both get taken out. Or if they like Percy Jackson/Greek Mythology, it could be the Medusa effect.
Grades 3-5, Middle
Circle game
Have the group stand in a circle and ask each player to say his or her name out loud. The game starts when the leader points at a person across the circle and orders that person to Go. For example, if Annika begins by pointing at Karsten and saying “Go, Karsten,” Annika then has to walk toward Karsten. But before Annika gets to Karsten, Karsten has to pick someone else around the circle and order him to go. Karsten must not leave his spot until he orders someone else. After Karsten has said, “GO, Hans” (for example), he then may leave his spot in the circle, walk toward Hans, and Annika takes Karsten’s spot. Once the ordering has gone around the circle a few times and each person has been picked at least once, you may increase the difficulty by adding a second “Go!” energy so that two orders are taking place at the same time.
Grades 3-5, Middle
Two teams sit in one circle, alternate team A and B
Each student will get three slips of paper on which they will each write three different nouns (person, place, or thing). Then, students will fold each slip in half and put it in a bowl with all the other words. Students sit in a circle and form two teams (easiest if it’s every other person is on team A and the rest are on team B). The game has three rounds.
Note: Depending on the size of the group, you can adjust the number of paper slips each student gets — if you have a small group, you can increase the slips to five.
Grades 1-3, Grades 3-5
Circle game
Students are all sitting on the knees in a circle. There are different movements depending on what is said. “Frog in the pond” means students put their hands down in front of them. “Frog in the bank” means students put their hands on their shoulders. “Frog in the tree” means students put their hands on their head. “Frog in space” means students stick their arms above their heads and wiggle their fingers. One student is the leader and they will call out “Frog in the pond” and do a movement — either the correct one or not. Students are supposed to follow what the leader SAYS not what they do. So a student may say “Frog in the tree,” but put their hands on the ground. Students leave the circle if they don’t do the correct movement to what is said.
Middle
Directions: Split campers into two equal teams. Have them form a line with one person across from a person on the other team. Then have them hold hands. The AG should stand at the front of the line and hold the first two team members’ hands. At a random interval, the AG will squeeze the hands of the two campers near them. Once they feel the squeeze campers pass the electricity to the next person down the line until the last person feels it and taps the ground (or the second AG if you have one) AG is the referee. Have the last person in the line become the first person and repeat. Keep track of points and make this competitive to keep Middle Schoolers engaged but also deescalate if players get too into the game by reminding them that it is about having fun. Watch to make sure electricity doesn’t jump ahead without passing through everyone.
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