Have the participants pair off. Each team has one person wear a blindfold while the other person navigates him or her across a room filled with obstacles (a coffee table, chairs, a vacuum cleaner). The team that accomplishes the task the fastest, wins. When played indoors, you want to have one team go at a time and use a timer to track how long it takes each team.
DEFUSE THE BOMB!
This activity is best performed in a large room or outdoors. Put a container holding an object in the middle of the space. Create a taped off “quarantine” area surrounding it. The team must find a way to retrieve the container without touching the ground inside the taped-off area. Provide a variety of materials such as cardboard, sticks ropes, and wheels to help them achieve their task. It is a great team-building exercise.
CLUMPS
Divide into pairs. Ask each pair to sit on the floor with their partner, backs together, arms linked. Their task is to stand up together. Once everyone has done this, two pairs join together and the group of four tries to repeat the task. After they succeed, add another two and try again. Keep adding pairs until your whole group is trying to stand together.
PASS THE PULSE
Form two teams of equal size by putting the group into pairs. Have each pair sit opposite each other, creating two long lines and instruct them to hold hands. At the end place a chair with a small object (e.g.a set of keys) on it. The referee stands at the front. To play, have the two players at the front of each line watch the facilitator. Everyone else closes their eyes. For each round, the faciliator flips a coin and quietly shows it to the first two players. Whenthe coin shows ‘Heads’, the two people at the front must squeeze the hand of the next person in line as quickly as possible and so on. As the ‘electric current’ transfers along the line, the goal is to be the first team to grab the object. If heads was flipped and a team successfully grabs the ball, that team wins a point but if the team grabs the ball but heads was not flipped, then the point goes to the other team. Every time new round starts each person moves down one seat.
BALL GAME
For this game, you will need 3 different coloured balls. Each one represents a different level to the game. Everyone stands in a circle and the game commences:
Level 1 - Everyone says the name of someone else in the circle and passes the ball to them as they do this.
Level 2 - Everyone just throws a ball to someone else in the circle
Level 3 -A ball is simply passed to the person next to you in the circle
Everyone must remember the exact order that each level is done and keep repeating it.
The aim of this game is to then incorporate all of the levels together and play them all at once. The levels can be altered to different challenges/categories which the group and facilitator can decide on together.
THE HUMAN KNOT
A simple idea that involves no preparation and is totally free. Have your teens stand in a circle and then put their hands in the middle. Once they do that, have them hold the nearest hands. They shouldn’t look at whose hand they hold and they should only hold one other hand. The fun part is having them detangle themselves! They will need to work together to go over and under one another, to weave in and out. Once they’re back in an open circle, they’ve completed the challenge.
Getting to Know Each Other
MY SUPER SELFIE
Give everyone a sheet of paper and something colourful to draw with, such as a crayon or marker. Ask each member of the group to go off into their own corner of the room to think of the superpower he or she wishes to have. They need to draw themselves as a superhero (or villain!) with the paper and marker provided. After a few minutes, they come back together and share their self-portrait and describe their superpower in detail.
TIMEBOMB
A very simple game that can help people learn each other’s names while having fun. Ask the group to stand in a circle and have each person say their name. Now, throw a ball to someone in the group. They have 2-seconds to call the name of someone and throw the ball at them. If they cannot remember a name, the tennis ball “bomb” explodes and that person is out of the game
DESTINATION
Everyone thinks of a city or country that they have been to or want to visit. They then choose three clues to describe the place and act those clues out using charades.
THREE IN OUR CROWD
Have the group split off into groups of three and find three things in common (besides the obvious gender or hair/eye colour) such as favourite holiday, a season of the year, hobby, phone app, movie, etc. One person then introduces the group and shares the three things they have in common. Depending on your group, you can make it a bit silly by asking the person who does the intro to use a voice like a talk-show host.
WOULD YOU RATHER
Create a list of ‘would you rather’ questions. Have the young people stand facing forward in the middle of the room with each side of the wall representing choice A or choice B. Ask the first question. Students go toward the wall that corresponds with their answer. Encourage debate about the reasons why they’ve made their choice.
CONNECTIONS
The group stands or sits in a circle. To start the game, one player holding a ball of yarn/string and shares a something about themselves. For example, ‘I like going to the cinema’. If other people share this trait then they put their hand up and the person with the yarn wraps it around their wrist before passing it to another person who shares the trait. The game continues like this until a big web of connections has been created.
TWO TRUTHS, ONE LIE
Give everyone 3 minutes to think of two truthful facts and one lie about themselves. Taking it in turns, each person says their truths and lie and the rest of the group has to guess which ones are truthful or not.
NAME GAME
Ask everyone to stand in a circle. Go around the circle and get everyone to say their name loudly. Do this a few times to help people become familiar with all of the names. To start the game, ask someone to say the name of another person in the circle, make eye contact and then swap places with them. The new person then says the name of someone else and swaps places, and so on. To challenge the group, you can speed up or say multiple names at once.
PARK BENCH
Create a bench onstage using chairs. To begin, one person sits on the bench. A second player enters playing a character and their aim is get the person currently on the bench to get up and leave. You can keep adding in new players or start a new round completely.
Focus & Memory
THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU NOW
Assign one person to play the doctor. That person leaves the room. Have a bag with strips of paper listing an ailment or phobia for someone on their team to act out (or even better, have the whole team act it out). Examples: they think they are chickens; they are scared of spiders; they have aliens growing inside of them, etc. The doctor re-enters the room and must figure out what is wrong. He or she may ask any player yes/no questions, but not “what’s wrong with you?” After each question, the doctor can make a guess (diagnosis) of what he or she thinks is wrong. After five or so guesses, if they don’t get it, the other team gets a turn. The team with the most correct guesses wins
WINK MURDER
The game has one assassin who can secretly kill the others by winking at them. Players can pick sheets of paper to determine who the murderer is. All players have to make eye contact with one another while observing the rest, to identify the killer. If the assassin winks at a person, the player has to count five and feign sudden death. If another player guesses who the murderer is, he or she will say “I accuse”. At this point, the accuser can ask other players if they suspect anyone. The second person also says “I accuse” and at the count of three, the two accusers point to the suspect. If they point to the same person who happens to be the murderer, the game ends.
MYSTERY CREATURE
Stick an animal to the forehead of one player, not allowing him/her to see what’s written. The player then asks yes or no questions to try and guess the animal that’s been assigned, such as “Am I big?”, “Do I have scales?”, “Am I a mammal?“ This player continues until they answer correctly, then pick a new person to go.
PICTIONARY
Split the group into two teams and ask thm to come up with a category. For example, ‘animals’. Using a 1 minute timer, each play must draw a picture of something from that category and their team must guess what they are trying to draw. If the minute is up and no one has guessed it, then the guess can be passed to the other team. Each round come up with a new category.
TBC
WHAT’S MISSING?
Get the group to stand in a circle and then choose an volunteer to leave the room. Once this person has left, the rest of the group have to change one subtle thing about themselves. For example, take a piece of jewellery off. The volunteer is then allowed back into the room and has to guess the missing or changed item of each person.
LOOK CHALLANGE
2 players face each other. P1 points at P2 face and says 1,2, look and on the word look, they point at a direction either up-down-left-right. P2 has to choose a different direction. If p2 looks different he wins. Need to explian better
MEDUSA
The players have to stand in a circle with their arms around their neighbours’ shoulders. Initially, players keep their heads bowed. On the count of three or any other indication, the players have to look up at another player. If two people find themselves looking at each other, they instantly scream and drop dead. The game continues until there are only two people left.
COUNT TO 21 (VERSION 1)
Standing or sitting in a circle the group closes their eyes and mustmust count to 21 saying each number at a time. If anyone talks over each other then the game starts again from 0. . See how long it takes to get to 21.
COUNT TO 21 (VERSION 2)
Standing or sitting in a circle, the group counts up to 21. Each player can say up to 3 numbers at a time but the aim of the game is to not be the person who says 21. If you are then you’re out and a new round begins. Play the game until you’re down to two players.
Energisers
PTERODACTYL
This one is for pure laughs. Players get in a circle and go around the circle trying to say “pterodactyl” without showing their teeth (putting lips over teeth like a person without their dentures in). Players may switch the direction of the game by looking at the next person and doing their best pterodactyl impression (match!), again without showing teeth/smiling. Those who crack up or smile are out.
GRANDMA’S FOOTSTEPS
One person is Grandma – he/she faces a wall. Place a set of keys at by their feet. The players must start at the other end of the room, then try to creep up to Grandma and get the keys. However, at any moment, Grandma can turn around suddenly. If she sees anyone moving, she points at them and that person must return to the start.
THE SUN SHINES ON
Sit in a circle on chairs and take away a chair so that ther is one less chair than there is people. Someone (the facilitator suggests a leader) starts in the middle and says “The sun shines on people who (choose an attribute that more than one person has, e.g. have blue eyes; are wearing red; have a sibling etc). All the people who share that attribute must swap places and the person from the middle must try to take one of their places, leaving a new person in the middle to say the next “The sun shines on..”.
SPLAT
Everyone should stand in a distanced circle with a volunteer eading the activity in the middle.The person who is leading should spin round and, at random, point to one person and shout ‘splat!’.This person should duck down and the people on either side of them should to point at each other and shout ‘splat!’. If someone makes a mistake The game continues until there are two players. They should stand 2m apart, back to back, and when the person leading the activity signals, they should walk away from each other.When the person leading shouts ‘splat!’ the last two players have to turn and shout ‘splat!’ at each other. The first to shout is the winner.
ZIP, ZAP, BOING
Everyone should stand in a distanced circle. Explain that in this game, play is passed around or across the circle. There are three ways to pass play to the next person and this done by making a gesture with your hands: :
Zip - only passes play along to the next person in the circle in the same direction
Zap -passes play to anyone else in the circle, and not the next person in line.
Boing - passes a ‘zip’ or a ‘zap’ back to the person it’s come from.
Run the game. When someone makes a mistake, they should sit down or step out of the circle.
MUSICAL CHAIRS
Everyone stands up. There are chairs in the space, but one chair less than the number of people. The facilitator plays music. Everyone has to start moving and/or dancing to the music. When the music stops, everyone must run to sit on a chair. The last person will not have a chair, and is out of the game. One chair is taken away at each round. This can also be played as Musical Statues: same principle, but when the music stops then everyone has to freeze. If you move, then you’re out. Anyone who gets out helps the facilitator see who is moving!
STOP THE BUS
All Young People need a pencil and paper to play this game. The teacher writes a letter on the board, and shouts, “Start the bus.” The students then write down as many words beginning with this letter as they can think of. When one S shouts out, “Stop the bus!” everyone has to stop writing. The students all get one point for each word. The S who has the most words wins an extra 2 point. This may or may not be the one who shouted, “Stop the bus.”
ESOL
DON’T LET THE BALL TOUCH THE GROUND
Start the game with music. The participants will keep the ball from touching the floor with their own technique while the music plays, when the music stops, they need to introduce a new way to stop the ball from touching the floor ESOL
GRAB THE SEAT!
Place chairs in a circle but ensure there is one less chair than the number of people. One person stands in the middle of the circle while the rest of the players sit on the chairs. Using only their body language, players must communicate with others in the circle to swap seats. The aim of the game is for the person in the middle to claim a seat in the circle and the other players must stop them from doing this.
ACTION RACE
Use actions like jump, hop, clap, run etc. Have the students split into two teams and sit in lines with a chair by each team and one chair at the other end of the room. One S from each team stands next to their chair and teacher calls an action, e.g. “Jump”. Students must jump to the chair on the other side of the room and back, sitting down in their chair students say “I can jump”. First one to do it gets their team a point
EXPLOSION
Give the yonug people a topic and an object to pass around. Each student has to say a word in that topic (e.g. food - apple, cake etc.) before the time runs out. If the time limit ends the student left holding the object loses.
TRAIN RIDE GAME
Have the young peoplew form a train (standing in line holding onto each other). Choo choo around the classroom and call out instructions (e.g. faster, slower, turn left/right, stop, go
DIRECT ME
This game is perfect for practicing giving directions, and prepositions of place and movement—as well as being a completely unexpected lesson addition. To play, come to class a little earlier (we know, but trust us, it will be worth it!) to rearrange the furniture into a maze of sorts. In pairs, students lead their blindfolded partner through the maze. Instructors must give clear instructions (“Take three steps forward, then crouch down and crawl…”, “Go under,” “Walk past,” “Step over,”).
