Youth Workin' It

Consultancy and Resources for Youth Workers and Organizations Worldwide

Girl Scout Cookie Game – Youth Group Games

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Girl Scout Cookie Game
This cookie truly is a thing of perfection

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…… nope, not Christmas – Girl Scout cookie time! In honor of these tasty treats, here’s a youth group game that uses the best Girl Scout cookies of all – Samoas.

Quick sidenote – in addition to her regular youth work job, Shae also leads 3 girl scout troops. She’s therefore organizing several cookie sales and our apartment has been stacked with cases of cookies – having this many Samoas and Thin Mints laying around is very dangerous.

Resources

  • Samoas
  • Drinking straws – these need to be fairly thin, but still quite strong

n.b. This activity can also be played with similar shaped cookies like Keebler Fudge Stripes in the US or Fox’s Party Rings in the UK.

Preparation

None

Teams

Split the youth group in to smaller equal sized teams – 5-10 players per team is best.

Instructions

Have each team stand in a straight line facing each other’s backs. Give each player a drinking straw and the first person on each team a Samoa cookie.

To play this game, they have to slide the cookie on to their straw. They then need to turn around to the next person on their team and slide the cookie down their straw on to the next person’s straw.

If they’re successful, the player with the Samoa on their straw turns around and passes it on to the next teammate. This relay continues until it reaches the end of the line.

If you only have a small youth group and therefore only have a few young people on each team, have them transfer the cookie back down the line to the first person to make the game last longer.

Specific Rules

  • Players aren’t allowed to touch the cookie with their hands unless it drops on the floor
  • If the cookie falls on the floor, it has to be put back on the straw of the last person who had it
  • Players can touch their straw, but only the section between their mouth and the cookie. If this ends up being to easy for your players, play the game a second time where they’re not allowed to touch the straw at all

Tip

Have some additional cookies available in case any drop on the floor and break during the game.

Prize

Give the winning team a box of Samoas to share.

If you liked this idea, check out all our other game ideas, including loads of other food games.

Question: What other girl scout cookie games are there? Let us know in the comments below.

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Alphabet Soup Game – Youth Group Games

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Alphabet Soup GameThis Alphabet Soup game is a great youth group game that can either be done with all the young people in smaller teams or with just a handful of them as an upfront game.

There’s also an option to make it a two part game if you want to make it a little more gross at the end.

Here’s how to play it:

Resources

  • Several cans of alphabet soup – one or two cans per team if done in groups or one can per person if done as an upfront game
  • Tables
  • Bowls / dishes
  • Cheap plastic tablecloths (optional)

Preparation

  • Empty the cans of alphabet soup into the bowls and put one bowl on each table
  • Cover the tables with the cheap tablecloths. This may not be necessary if using plastic tables, but can be worth it if using tables made of a material that might be damaged by this game

Teams

As mentioned above, this can be done as either a group activity where all the youth are involved, or as an upfront game where only a few young people participate with the rest of the group cheering them on.

Part 1 – Alphabet Soup Game

Rules

Players / teams have to use the letters from the soup to create words. Set a time limit that they have to be completed by – 5 minutes should be enough.

It’s worth mentioning to them in advance to be careful when picking up the letters – if any of the pasta letters get broken, they can’t be used in any of the words.

Points

There are a couple of different ways you can award points in this game:

  1. Earn one point for every word of 3 letters or more
  2. The longer the word, the more points you earn. e.g. 3 letters = 1 point, 4 letters = 2 points, 5 letters = 3 points, etc.

Consider offering a couple of bonus points to the person / team with the longest word.

Part 2 – Eat Your Words

Rules

Once the first part of the game is over, you can add in this additional Eat Your Words challenge. For this, each player has to eat all of the words they’ve created.

The only thing is, they have to do this without using their hands – the only way they’re allowed to eat the alphabet soup letters is by sucking them up from the table.

If you’re doing this in teams rather than as an upfront game, have them pick one person per team to take part in this.

Winner

The winner of this second part is the person who managed to eat their words the quickest.

If you liked this idea, check out all of our other games and activities.

Question: What other ways can you think of to play the Alphabet Soup Game? Any tips for making it more messy / funny / gross? Let us know in the comments below.

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Cracking Up – Youth Group Games

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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.

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M&M Icebreaker – Youth Group Games

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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.

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The Marshmallow Swing – Youth Group Games

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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.

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