Ready, Aim, Starburst! is a great youth group game because of its versatility – there are many different ways to play it based on how many young people you have participating.
Here’s how to play it:
Resources
- Large bag of Starburst candy
- Masking tape or sidewalk chalk
- Pen & paper (optional – to keep track of scores)
Location
Ready, Aim, Starburst! can be played both indoors and outdoors. To make it easier to prepare though, we’d recommend playing outdoors using the chalk.
Preparation
Create 5 concentric circles on the ground using the masking tape or sidewalk chalk (if playing outside). About 10-20 feet away (depending on how hard you want the game to be), create a straight line on the ground, also using the tape or chalk.
Rules
To play this youth group game, give a player 10 pieces of Starburst and have them stand behind the line. They then have to throw each piece of candy towards the circles, trying to have them land as close to the center circle as they can.
Scoring
Players earn zero points if the candy lands outside of the circles. They then earn 1 point for having the Starburst land in the outer circle, 2 points for the next circle in, through to 5 points for having it land in the center circle.
If any of the pieces of candy land on a line, they earn the higher number of points. i.e. if it lands on the line between 3 and 4 points, they earn 4 points.
Options
As we mentioned above, the best thing about this game is how versatile it is. Here are some different ways to play it:
- Up Front – If you have a very large group, you may want to select a handful of youth to play this up front. As all the action happens on the ground though, make sure all the non-playing young people can see what’s going on. If playing outdoors, have them stand in a circle around the playing area. If you’re indoors on a stage, try to hook up a video camera so that it can be displayed on screen for everyone to watch
- Lock-in / Games Night – Organize a knockout tournament so that everyone can play. Create brackets or pair everyone up and have them play against each other. The winners of each round go through to the next round until you have an ultimate winner
- Teams – Create several sets of the concentric circles and split the youth into the same number of teams, giving each team 10 Starburst pieces. The young people then take it in turns throwing all the pieces of candy so that they each get a turn. If you have enough volunteers, allocate one per team to keep track of their scores
Prize
If you want to offer the winning player / team a prize, give them all the Starburst!
Discussions / Meetings
This game can be played simply because of how fun it is. It can also be used before a session to lead into a particular topic that’s going to be covered during your meeting or discussions.
Here are a few topics it could be used for:
- Helping youth set goals
- Teaching youth how to set SMART targets
- For Christian youth groups, it could be used as an illustration for how sin is “missing the mark”
- To emphasize team work – e.g. if you played the team version, the winning team may have had a player(s) who didn’t score many points, but as a team they were able to work together to succeed
If you liked this idea, check out all of our other games for youth groups.
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