Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Valentine’s Day Games For Teenagers

By Leave a Comment

Valentine's Day Games For TeenagersIt’s not long until February 14th, so here are 3 Valentine’s Day games for teenagers that can be done with an entire youth group.

1. Set Your Heart Racing

Resources

  • Drinking straws
  • Red tissue paper
  • Scissors

Preparation

Cut heart shapes out of the red tissue paper – one heart for each team.

How To Play

To play this youth group game, split the group into teams of the same size, with at least five people in each group if possible.

This is a relay game, so have the teams stand in straight lines all facing the front of the room. Give each person a drinking straw and a heart to the first person in each team’s line. The aim is for them to transfer the heart from one end of the line to the other (and back again if you only have a small group) using only the drinking straw.

Here’s how they should do this:

  • The first person sucks through the straw to keep the heart at the other end
  • They pass it to the second person in line by having them use their own straw for suction
  • The first person stops sucking
  • The second person turns round to the next person in line and the process continues

Rules

If the heart falls to the floor, the last person to have control of it has to pick it up using their straw – no hands allowed!

Winner

The first team to get their heart from one end to the other.

2. Head-Two-Head

Resources

  • Post-it-notes
  • Pens

Preparation

Write names of different celebrity couples on post-it notes – you’ll need one couple for every young person in the youth group.

How To Play

Put a sticky note on the forehead of each of the young people. They then have to go around the room trying to work out who their celebrity couple is.

Rules

They can only do this by asking Yes or No questions – no open questions are allowed. For example, if one of the couples was Beyonce and Jay-Z, the youth might be able to work it out by asking questions like:

  • Are they still alive? (Yes)
  • Are they over 50 years old? (No)
  • Are they sportspeople? (No)
  • Are they singers? (Yes)
  • Are they both in bands (No)

They wouldn’t be allowed to ask questions like:

  • How old are they?
  • What type of music do they do?
  • What type of hairstyle do they have?

Winner

The first person to work out their celebrity couple. Keep going with the game though until everyone’s managed to work out who their famous lovebirds are.

3. Valentine’s Day Scavenger Hunt

This final Valentine’s Day game for teenagers will have them looking for a list of different Valentine’s Day-themed items.

This game might take a little more planning, as you may need to recruit extra volunteers to drive the young people around to collect the items. Another alternative would be to organize it as a photo scavenger hunt and play it at the mall.

For full details of how to plan this and a free downloadable Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt list, check out our sister site here. There are also many other scavenger hunt ideas on that site that are perfect for youth groups.

Question: What other Valentine’s Day games that are suitable for youth groups do you know of? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

You can also connect with us by:

  1. Signing up to receive our posts via email
  2. Following us on Twitter
  3. Liking us on Facebook
  4. Signing up to our RSS feed

 

Water Balloon Relay – Youth Group Games

By Leave a Comment

Water Balloon RelayThis week’s addition to our collection of youth group games is a water balloon relay – fun to play, simple to organize and potentially very, very wet!

Here’s how to play the Water Balloon Relay:

Resources

  • Water balloons
  • Buckets
  • Markers of some kind (e.g. cones, chairs, duct tape, etc)
  • Towels

Preparation

  • Fill up all the water balloons and place them in the buckets (one bucket per team)
  • Put the buckets in a line at one end of the playing area – this will be the starting line
  • Place the markers in a parallel line about 10-20 yards away from the buckets (depending on how hard you want to make it!)
  • Split the youth group into same-sized teams

Rules

Have each team line up behind a bucket of water balloons. The first person from each team should put one of the balloons between their legs.

The challenge is for them to move to the other marker, go round it and then return back to the starting line. They can try to do this by jumping, shuffling, waddling, crawling or any other possible movement.

The only restrictions are that the water balloon must remain between their legs and they’re not allowed to use their hands to touch the balloon (other than when placing the balloon between their legs at the beginning).

As this is a relay, when they get back to the start line, the next person on their team does the same thing.

Options

Due to the nature of this youth group game, there’s a good chance that players will get very wet due to the balloons bursting while they’re in the race. If that happens, there are a few options you can choose to enforce:

1. One strike and you’re out!

If a player bursts their balloon, they’re out – the next player on their team then has their turn.

2. Three strikes and you’re out!

Similar to the first option, a player gets three opportunities to complete their leg of the relay race. If choosing this option, a player has to continue from where they burst their water balloon.

If choosing this option, try to have volunteers on hand to give them replacement balloons – that will help ensure they continue from the same spot. It also means that you’ll need to prepare three water balloons per player in advance, just in case.

3. Unlimited Do Overs

With this final option, players get as many opportunities as they need to complete their leg of the relay. They have to continue from where they burst their water balloon.

Again, try to have volunteers on hand to replace the burst water balloons. One thing to bear in mind is that you’ll need to prepare a much larger number of water balloons. If a player uses too many on their turn, it could result in some players not getting a chance, so this isn’t recommended unless you have a small youth group and lots of balloons!

Winner

This will depend on which of the three options above you choose. With both the one and three strikes options, the winning team will either be

  • The one that has the most players complete their leg of the race without using up their allocation of balloons, or
  • The fastest team to finish if all their players make it round with a balloon intact

If playing the unlimited do overs option, the winning team is the one that finishes first.

Prize

If you want to offer a prize, an option that the youth will love is to let the winners throw the rest of the balloons at the leaders!

If you liked this idea, check out all our other game ideas.

Question: Have you ever played this water balloon relay? If so, did you add in anything else or have different rules? Or can you think of any other good prizes/rewards for the winners? Let us know in the comments below.

You can also connect with us by:

  1. Signing up to receive our posts via email
  2. Following us on Twitter
  3. Liking us on Facebook
  4. Signing up to our RSS feed

 

Cracking Up – Youth Group Games

By Leave a Comment

Cracking Up Youth Group GameThis week’s youth group game is an eggs-tremely fun youth group game that will end up with someone having egg on their face (or at least in their hair!).

Here’s how to play Cracking Up:

Resources

  • 1 dozen eggs – 11 hard-boiled, one raw
  • Towels or ponchos
  • Two chairs
  • Questions (see below)

Number Of Players

Four – this can either be four young people or two young people and two leaders.

How To Play

Have two of the players sit on the chairs facing the rest of the youth group – if using two leaders and two youth, it should be the leaders sitting down.

Wrap the towels around their shoulders of the seated players; if using ponchos instead, leave the hood down. The other two youth should stand behind them.

Taking it in turns, ask each of the players a question. If they get it right, nothing happens. If they get it wrong, the youth standing behind them takes one of the eggs and cracks it on their head.

There’s therefore initially a 1/12 chance that the first young person to get a question wrong will have the uncooked egg cracked on their head. As the game goes on, there’s inevitably more of a chance that the uncooked egg will be picked.

Winner

The winner is the player who ends the game with a clean head, thereby ensuring the yolk’s not on them (OK, that’s the last egg pun).

Questions

There are many different types of questions you can ask as part of this youth group game. You could ask questions:

  • Based on things discussed in previous sessions
  • About Bible stories (if playing with a church youth group)
  • From Guesstimation
  • From Trivial Pursuit

Alternative Versions

You don’t have to play Cracking Up based on regular questions, but on challenges instead. For example, you could play repeated games of Rock, Paper, Scissors, with the loser of each round getting an egg cracked on their head until the uncooked one is found.

Another option would be to involve more young people and combine with the Yes Or No game. With this version, you’d have one young person at a time taking part in the Yes Or No game. If they last one minute without saying Yes or No, they don’t have an egg cracked on their head. If they last less than a minute, an egg is cracked on their head. Keep going until the uncooked egg is used.

If you liked this idea, check out all our other youth group game ideas.

Question: Do you know of any other ways of playing the Cracking Up youth group game? Let us know in the comments below.

You can also connect with us by:

  1. Signing up to receive our posts via email
  2. Following us on Twitter
  3. Liking us on Facebook
  4. Signing up to our RSS feed

 

M&M Icebreaker – Youth Group Games

By Leave a Comment

M&M icebreaker
Image courtesy of Astrid Kopp, Flickr

This M&M icebreaker is a great youth group game for team building, as it helps your young people get to know each other better.

It’s an activity that can be enhanced by you and the other leaders participating too, as it gives the youth a chance to get to know you better as well.

Here’s how to play this icebreaker:

Resources

  • Large bowl of M&Ms
  • Pen & paper (for the list)

Preparation

Prepare a list of six questions (see the questions section below for more details)

Rules

Have the young people sit in a circle. Give one of the young people the bowl of M&Ms and tell them to take a handful, but instruct them not to eat any yet. Once they’ve taken some, they should pass the bowl to the person on their left, who should then take a handful. Continue this until everyone has some M&Ms.

Once everyone has some candy, explain the next stage. For each M&M that they have in their hand, they have to share something about themselves. Each color M&M will have a different subject that they have to share about.

Each time they share something, they get to eat the M&M it related to – continue this until every person has shared enough for all their candy to be eaten.

Questions

There are usually six colors in a pack of M&Ms – red, green, blue, yellow, orange and brown – so you need to come up with a list of six questions that the young people should share about.

These can be about anything you like, but here is a list of some different ideas to get you started:

  • Earliest childhood memories
  • Favorite restaurants
  • Favorite songs
  • Hobbies
  • Favorite Bible story
  • Dream jobs
  • Favorite games
  • Something nice about another person in the circle
  • Favorite movies
  • Favorite candy
  • Dream vacation
  • Something they love about their parents

When you’ve decided on the six subjects, write them down so that the youth can refer to the list during the icebreaker and allocate a color to each one. Flipchart paper is ideal for this, but it could just as easily be written on a regular sheet of paper if there’s no flipchart available.

Tips

  • If you have a large group, this youth group game could take quite a long time, so make sure that’s built into your session plan
  • Similarly, a large group = lots of M&Ms needed, so have a spare bag (or two) just in case
  • One or more of the topics could be based on what you’ll be discussing later in the session. For example, if you’re playing this at Thanksgiving, one of the topics could be “Something you’re thankful for”

Lasting Record

As we mentioned above, this M&M icebreaker is a great way for you and your young people to get to know each other better. After a few weeks though, it’ll be easy to forget everything that was shared.

Therefore, have one of your volunteers write down everything that’s shared as they go around, complete with who said what. This will give you a lasting record of what’s important to your young people.

This can then be used in a couple of different ways:

  1. For their benefit – During the same session (or even future sessions), you could highlight similarities between young people based on the things they like. This is perfect for team building – particularly if your youth group is in the forming stage – as it emphasizes common ground, rather than differences between them. It also gives them something to talk about in the future.
  2. For your benefit – Keeping this record will give you something to refer back to when planning activities for your youth group or subjects to discuss in the future. It’ll also help give you things to chat to them about in the future, as you’ll have a better idea of their interests.

Question: What other tips can you give to maximize this M&M icebreaker? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

You can also connect with us by:

  1. Signing up to receive our posts via email
  2. Following us on Twitter
  3. Liking us on Facebook
  4. Signing up to our RSS feed

 

The Marshmallow Swing – Youth Group Games

By Leave a Comment

Marshmallow swing youth group gameThis is a youth group game using marshmallows that’s infinitely safer than Chubby Bunny, but is just as fun.

If you have a small youth group, all the young people could take part in the game. Otherwise, it works best as an up front game with just a few youth taking part.

Here’s how to play The Marshmallow Swing:

Resources

  • Marshmallows
  • Needle and thread
  • Scissors

Preparation

Using the needle and thread, pass the needle through the center of a marshmallow. Tie off the thread to keep the marshmallow in place, then cut the thread at the other end so that it’s approx. 4 feet long.

Continue doing this with as many marshmallows as you’ll need for the game.

Teams

Each team will consist of two players.

Rules

Have one player from each team put the end of the thread in their mouth, so that the marshmallow dangles near the floor. Have their teammate stand approx. 4 feet away.

The players with the thread in their mouth have to swing the marshmallow back and forth until it’s high enough for their teammate to try to catch it in their mouth.

The players trying to catch the marshmallow aren’t allowed to crouch or kneel too low, although it is fine for them to lean forward as it swings towards their mouth.

Winner

The winning team is the first one to have a player catch the marshmallow in their mouth.

Tips

  • Due to all the swinging back and forth, you’ll need to space the teams far enough apart so that no one bashes their heads together
  • If your youth are tall, you may need to make the thread longer than 4 feet long. Similarly, if your youth are shorter, the thread may need to be shorter so that the marshmallow doesn’t hit the floor when they’re swinging it

If you liked this idea, check out all our other youth group games, including a number of marshmallow games.

Question: Can you think of any ways to improve on this game? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.

You can also connect with us by:

  1. Signing up to receive our posts via email
  2. Following us on Twitter
  3. Liking us on Facebook
  4. Signing up to our RSS feed