Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Guess The Taste – Youth Work Game

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Guess The Taste - youth work game
Why think up your own gross food combinations when you can have Jimmy Dean do that for you?

Today’s youth work game is Guess The Taste –  a game that can be as funny and disgusting as your imagination can make it. It’s perfect for using when you want just a couple of youth participating up front, with everyone else watching.

The aim of the game is for the young people to identify different flavors while blindfolded. Now, you could be nice and make it fairly simple by just giving them one thing at a time to taste. But where’s the fun in that?

The better way of playing Guess The Taste is to make disgusting food combinations. Not only do the victims have to isolate the different flavors while blindfolded, but you can also make the flavor combinations taste really gross.

Here are some suggestions of disgusting food combinations you could use, but like I said before – let your imagination run wild:

  • Oatmeal & shrimp*
  • Cold baked beans & tuna
  • Onions & mashed banana
  • Sliced meat & peanut butter
  • Chocolate pudding* & celery
  • Ramen noodles* & jam
  • Cornflakes & ketchup
  • Olives & cottage cheese
  • Beef jerky & blueberry yogurt
  • Skittles & ranch dressing*
  • Brussel sprouts & BBQ sauce
  • Sardines & donuts
  • Soup & cheese puffs*
  • Ravioli & milkshake
  • Rachel’s trifle in Friends. Although, what’s not to like? Custard – good. Jam – good. Beef – gooooooooooood.

Tips:

  1. Have a couple of buckets on hand, just in case there’s any upchucking
  2. Make sure the youth taking part don’t have foods they can’t eat (e.g. allergies, religious reasons, vegetarian/vegan, etc)
  3. Hold up signs saying what each combination is as they’re about to eat them, so that the rest of the youth can know what’s about to be eaten (and react loudly!)
  4. For even more laughs, have an adult volunteer take part

* For fellow Brits, a translation:

  • Shrimp = prawns
  • Chocolate pudding = similar to chocolate Angel Delight, but more gloopy
  • Ramen Noodles = Super Noodles
  • Ranch dressing = a little like salad cream or mayo
  • Cheese puffs = Wotsits
If you enjoyed this idea, check out our other youth group games.

Question: What disgusting food combinations can you think of? We’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments below.

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Crab Soccer – Youth Group Game

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Crab Soccer youth work game
Ah, I love how the internet helps us find random stuff like this

Crab soccer – or crab football depending on where in the world you’re from – is a really fun indoor youth group game. It generally has the same rules as soccer, but with a twist – the youth play like crabs.

No, they don’t go round pinching each other, or have their legs ripped off and eaten with butter. Instead of playing crab soccer standing up, they play on all fours. By all fours, I mean they’re actually on all fours in reverse – face and chest upwards. This makes it harder for them to move about (and funnier to watch).

Like I said, the general rules of crab soccer are the same as regular soccer – you have two teams, goals either end, a soccer ball and a goalkeeper in each goal. You’re still only allowed to move the ball by kicking it (unless you’re the goalie); it just ends up that youth can’t get as much power behind their kick and dribbling with the ball becomes more interesting.

You can choose some (or none) of the following rules, depending on what works best for you and your youth group:

  • Goalies could either be in the crab position, sitting normally or standing
  • The height of the goal might be lower than normal seeing as a goalie on all fours will be unable to reach as high
  • The ball can’t be kicked higher than head height (which is obviously pretty low to the ground)
  • The winning team can be either the one that scores x amount of goals first, or the one with the highest score after a certain amount of time

I loved playing this when I was younger and it always worked well in a mixed-sex group, as it’s a sports game both boys and girls can play together. Just keep an eye on the…….let’s say more enthusiastic boys who might try to knock their opponents’ arms out from behind them.

One last thing – don’t forget to film your youth playing crab soccer, if for no other reason than so that you can watch it again when you’re feeling down.

If you liked this game idea, you might also enjoy our other youth group games.

Question: Do you have any other rules for crab soccer? We’d love to hear about different versions in the comments below.

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Top Posts of 2011 – #7 The Barnyard Animal Game

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Originally Posted:  September 10, 2011

This game is H-I-double L- arious!  It’s a good getting to know you game but also works really well for sessions about communication or for churches and other faith-based orgs, it works well as a ‘game with a point’ about hearing from God.  Youth workers also enjoy this game so you might even find a good use for it at a training or team retreat.  I’ve even played this with 5-11′s in a children’s ministry.  So many uses and so much fun?!  How can you go wrong?!

Items Needed:

  1. Lots of individually wrapped candy/sweets (I find Starburst works great!)

(Yup- that’s it- easy on the budget- this game just gets better and better!)

 

Set-up:

  1. Spread the candy around the field or large room- scatter it like seed all over the space
  2. Split your youth into groups of 3-6 (depending on your groups total size)
  3. Have them choose who in each group is the ‘Farmer(s)’ and who are the ‘Animals’ (if the groups are 3-4′s only have 1 Farmer otherwise have 2)
  4. Have the ‘animals’ decide on a barnyard or farm animal that they would like to be.  They also need to come up with a motion for that animal and it’s sound.  (Tip:  While rabbits are found on some farms/barnyard’s they do not make good ‘animals’ – learned that the hard way when some girls were just wiggling their noses and thumping their feet during the game and came last)  Excellent choices include sheep, pigs, goats, chickens, cows and horses.  Have each group show you their animal, sound and motion before the game begins. (Tip: You might end up with sheep that sound like goats or two varieties of birds that sound similar (crows and falcons- yes I learned this the hard way too) help encourage them to make very different and distinct sounds because it will be important later.)
Once everyone knows their farmers, animals, sounds and motions it’s time to play here are
The Rules:
  1. Farmers are the ONLY youth who can pick up the candy on the ground.
  2. Farmers can only pick up candy that ‘their animals’ are standing by, pointing at and making their animal sound and motion.  So Farmers need to really listen for their animals sounds.
  3. Animals do not need to stay together (in fact you want them to spread out to collect the most candy) but they do need to point with their fingers or toes at the candy and do their animal sound (loudly!) and their animal motion.  Animals CANNOT collect the candy they can only identify it.
  4. Two different animals (i.e. cows and pigs) might be pointing at the same piece of candy, in that instance it is up to the farmers to get the candy for their team.  (Yes you may want to encourage some competitive tactics but definitely discourage too much physical violence, it is only candy.)
  5. Once all the candy has been collected, count up the pieces, the team with the most candies wins.  Then let each team divide up the candy their team collected between their team members.
Reflection- making it matter:
You can reflect afterwards and make it a game with a point by asking questions about communication or other topics you are wanting to draw out of the game based on your session.
  • As the Farmer, was it hard to hear your animals among all the noise of the other barnyard animals?  How did you find your animals?
  • As the Animals, how hard was it to communicate with your Farmer(s)?
Enjoy!

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The Welly Wang – Youth Work Game

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The Welly Wang youth work gameThis youth group game is great, if for no other reason than the weird name of the game – the Welly Wang!

In the UK, a welly is a Wellington Boot – otherwise known elsewhere as a rain boot, galosh or gumboot. A Welly Wang is therefore a boot throwing competition.

To set up this youth group game, you’ll need a big enough outdoor space for youth to throw the welly. Take a roll of duct tape and mark off the field layout shown in the image on the right. It’s a little like a javelin or shotput field, along with horizontal lines.

The Welly Wang can either be played in teams or have the young people play solo. Teams tend to work better though, as it means youth that don’t have a strong throw can still contribute to their team’s overall score, rather than not having a chance from the beginning.

To play, the youth stand behind the line marked “Throw from here”. They take a welly and throw it as far as they can, making sure it stays in bounds to the left and right. If the welly lands outside of the left or right lines, their throw doesn’t count.

If the welly lands within the left and right lines, they earn points depending on how far it’s gone. In the event that some of your youth can throw beyond the far line, have them score a flat 10 points.

Other options for scoring:

  • If the welly lands on a line, it’s up to you how it’s scored – you could have them earn the higher score provided it’s at least touching the line to the higher score, or you could have the rule that it has to be fully across a line in order to earn the higher points.
  • Decide in advance whether the points will be awarded based on where the welly first hits the ground, or where it ends up in case it bounces further
Throwing techniques

There are a number of different techniques the young people can use in this youth group game:

  • The one-hander – For this, the youth swing the welly to their side with just the one hand
  • The two-hander – With the two-hander, youth hold the welly with both hands and swing back and forth between their legs, a little like how you swing a kettlebell
  • The backwards lob – Similar to the two-hander, youth swing the welly with both hands between their legs. The difference being that their back is to the field and they swing the welly back over their heads.
  • The Everyone-Clear-Out-Of-The Way-This-Could-Go-Anywhere – This technique is similar to the Hammer event in athletics. Youth spin round to gain momentum before launching the welly at (hopefully) the right time
The amount of turns the young people get in this youth group game depends on how many young people you have. If you’ve got a really large group, you may only have time to let the young people have a go at the Welly Wang once each. With smaller groups though, try to let them each have a few throws so that they can try different techniques.

If you like this idea (or even if you don’t!), check out our other youth group games.

Question: Are there any additional rules you use when playing The Welly Wang? Let us know in the comments below.

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Team Balloon Burst – Youth Group Game

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Team balloon burst youth work gamesThis week we have a great youth work game that can be played anywhere, but it’s especially good if the weather means you can’t play games outside. The Team Balloon Burst is also one which all of your youth take part in.

Resources

Balloons – enough for at least 2 or 3 per person playing. Each team will have the same color balloon, so you’ll need enough different colored balloons to allow for this.

Set Up

Blow up the balloons and have them spread out so that the different colored balloons are all mixed together.

To Play

Split your youth group into equal size teams, with the same number of teams as there are colors of balloons.

The aim of the game is for each team to burst all the other teams’ balloons first, while trying to defend their own color balloons from being burst. The winning team is the one that has unburst balloons at the end of the game.

Rules

  • Youth can only defend their balloons or burst other teams’ balloons using their feet – no hands or other parts of the body can be used
  • It’s a non-contact game, so youth aren’t allowed to push each other out of the way, although some contact is inevitable as they all run after each others’ balloons
  • Once all of a team’s balloons are burst, they’re completely out of the game and aren’t allowed to burst any other teams’ balloons

Tips

  • Blowing up all the balloons for the game can take a little while depending on how many you need, so have your volunteers assist you with this before it’s time to play Team Balloon Burst
  • When arranging teams, it’s best to have both boys and girls on each team. If it ends up as boys vs girls, the boys will tend to win as they’ll be a lot more aggressive with popping the balloons.

If you like this idea, check out our other youth group games.

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